Mapping the threat. Building the curriculum.
Yerevan 路 10-12 August 2026
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Over thirty campaigns, April 2025 to April 2026. In a second operation, only Ukraine and France rank above it. We are here to take it apart.
Over the next three days we turn a year-long plan into something concrete and built for Armenia. We bring Poland's decade of hard-won experience; you bring what only people on the ground know.
Build one clear picture of the disinformation aimed at Armenia: the groups behind it, the stories they tell, the channels they use.
Put real investigation tools to work on actual Armenian cases. Not slides, hands on the keyboard.
Write the course together: the one that turns this group into trainers for the next, wider circle.
No. 1
Most-targeted country on earth in Storm-1516 activity, April 2025 to April 2026: over thirty campaigns.
No. 3
Rank in Operation Overload, behind only Ukraine and France. A country of three million.
~7M
Views on the 'Ukrainization' story: that moving toward Europe means war, 'like Ukraine.'
75+
Organisations impersonated: newsrooms, but institutions and people too, their identity faked.
Rankings: Institute for Strategic Dialogue, 27 May 2026, measured per operation. Views: DFRLab (Dec 2025). Impersonations: NewsGuard.
Russia does not build a new machine for each country it targets. Investigators traced the fake websites aimed at Armenia's election, and found the same setup recycled from earlier campaigns abroad.
72
Fake websites in one network, aimed at Armenia's election.
56
Of them ran the same attacks on Armenia's prime minister.
17
Had already been used in an earlier Russian operation in France.
Source: CheckFirst (June 2026). The 56 are part of the 72; the 17 come from a separate French-language investigation.
Russia's most active network against Armenia, and the one Armenia leads the world in being targeted by. Very likely run by a US fugitive, John Mark Dougan, working with a Moscow institute and with GRU support. It nearly doubled its output in 2025: five new website networks totalling 453 sites. It makes AI deepfakes attacking the prime minister.
Named by France's disinformation watchdog. It has impersonated over 75 organisations and floods journalists and fact-checkers with fakes to drown out the truth. More than 700 videos in 2025. Armenia is its third most-targeted country, behind Ukraine and France.
Builds pixel-accurate clones of trusted news sites at look-alike addresses, stealing the mastheads of CNN, Reuters and Euronews, so invented stories arrive wearing someone else's credibility. In Armenia: a France24 clone. In Poland it cloned our four largest outlets.
EU-sanctioned, and sanctioned by the US Treasury as SVR-directed. It is where the 'Ukrainization' narrative was authored before anyone else repeated it: the origin, not an amplifier. Its partner R-FBI ran the fake 'secret biolab' story in seven languages.
Related and overlapping, sharing infrastructure and narratives. The evidence does not support calling them centrally run, and we do not. Sources: Recorded Future (Sep 2025); VIGINUM (2024); EU EEAS (Mar 2026); DFRLab; NewsGuard; CivilNet.
Why now
Sources: EU EEAS 4th FIMI Report (Mar 2026); DFRLab (Dec 2025); MythDetector; CivilNet.
What happened
49.8%
Civil Contract. 64 of 105 seats. Pashinyan returned.
23.2%
Strong Armenia, the pro-Russian runner-up. Turnout 58.97%.
The verdict: CheckFirst titled its post-election report 'Noise without effect'. Electoral impact: limited.
So why are we here
Reach is not effect. We are not going to tell you this operation flipped your election, because the evidence says it did not. But the same report says the infrastructure remains active. It was built to be reused. A constitutional debate is coming, and possibly an accession referendum. The machine does not need a new build for either.
Result: ARMENPRESS, OC Media, Al Jazeera, cross-checked against OSCE/ODIHR and EVN Report. Assessment: CheckFirst, 'Noise without effect', 10 June 2026. OSCE/ODIHR recorded Russian pressure and threats at an unprecedented level.
One EU country went the whole way, from prime target to teacher of how to fight back. Twelve years of turning attacks into know-how: methods, tools and training, all tested against the real thing. Same script, new target: 'NATO will drag you into war' became 'the EU will drag you into war, like Ukraine.'
A proven way to map coordinated campaigns (DISARM, the taxonomy the EEAS reports in).
The investigation tools, already tested on real cases.
What failed too, not just what worked.
The same operators hit Poland first. Same tactics, same stories, a decade earlier. This is the mirror.
| In Poland | The same story, aimed at you |
|---|---|
| Cloned TVN24, Onet, Interia, Wprost: our four biggest newsrooms, cloned at look-alike addresses. | Cloned France24; faked CNN and Reuters logos. |
| 'NATO faked the 2025 drones' after Russian drones crossed into Poland, to drag Poles into war. | 'You'll end up like Ukraine.' |
| PM cast as a 'puppet of Brussels' who sold out the country. | The prime minister smeared, with AI deepfakes. |
| 'Poland bankrupts itself for Ukraine', plus Volhynia: a 1943 massacre, still raw, used to split Poles from Ukrainians. | Fear of attack, economic ruin, grievance. |
Sources: VIGINUM; Meta; Google GTIG; DFRLab; EUvsDisinfo. Two of the same networks (Doppelg盲nger, Pravda) run in both countries; INFO OPS Poland co-studied Armenia with DFRLab.
18%
Of Armenians can reliably verify a dubious claim (Internews, 2024).
62%
Rely on social media as their main political news source (Internews, 2024).
Defenders: strong fact-checkers already fight back: FIP.am, MIC, PJC. EUPM Armenia: the civilian EU Partnership Mission, established 21 April 2026, two-year mandate covering FIMI, cyber and illicit finance.
The gap we fill
Armenia has strong fact-checkers and a new EU mission. The layer that is thin everywhere, here included, is standing capacity to take apart whole coordinated, AI-driven campaigns rather than single claims. Tell us if we have this wrong. That is the layer AI Shield builds, working alongside the people already in the field, not over them.
12 to 15 analysts from AIISA and partner institutes go deep.
Those analysts then train the next, wider group, in Armenian.
30 to 36 civil-society and media staff. Broad reach.
The real test of success is not what we teach you, it is what you teach others. Track B is delivered by AIISA, not by us.
Yerevan 路 Aug 2026
You are here
54 h 路 Oct-Dec 2026
AIISA-led 路 Jan-Mar 2027
Apr-May 2027
One shared, evidence-based map of the disinformation aimed at Armenia: who is behind it, what they claim, and where it spreads.
A short list of investigation tools, each tried on a real Armenian case, with notes on what works here.
A working training course, with clear pass criteria, ready to run in October.
What worked, what failed, and what actually carries over.
The main Russian operations, and the local voices that echo them.
We build the first Armenian threat map together, on the wall.
Gaps, blind spots, and where to dig deeper tomorrow.
Junkipedia 路 Media CloudInVID WeVerify 路 Yandex 路 FotoForensics 路 HiveTGStat 路 Telemetrio (Telegram-first)Gephi 路 NodeXL 路 MaltegoThe method matters more than the tool. Older Twitter-based bot detectors no longer work; Armenia's fight is mostly on Telegram. Every tool here is tested on a real case.
Three days of diagnosis become the plan for the next nine months.
Part one in person in Yerevan, part two online over six weeks.
A measurable 30% jump in skill, from start to finish.
The strongest 12 to 15 analysts, from AIISA and partner institutes.
Who does what, by when, for October's training.
Anchored on
Division of labour
Rules of the room
Your candid read of the threat. You live this, we don't.
Real local cases. Bring examples we can take apart on screen, together.
The right people. Your strongest 12 to 15 for the expert group.
Honest feedback. On what will, and won't, work in Armenia.
Ownership. By spring, this becomes your programme to run.
An Armenian team that can take apart coordinated, AI-driven disinformation on its own.
Findings feeding the foreign ministry, parliament's security committees and the EU Delegation.
A shared CSIN-AIISA bid for NATO science-for-peace funding in 2027.
A blueprint other societies in the region can adopt.
Thank you. Let's get to work.
Petros Tovmasyan 路 CSIN
Caucasian Social Innovation Network
contact@caucasian.network
Funded under the RITA - Region in Transition programme of the Polish-American Freedom Foundation, run by the Education for Democracy Foundation.