In the last few days, Facebook users have noticed the “Bright future” page with a post in Georgian, in which, from the perspective of the Armenian audience, an anti-American advertisement is being spread. 

Media.am’s open-source investigation shows that the page is connected not to Georgia, but to Russia. 

An anti-American ad via a seemingly Georgian page 

On September 29, Facebook user Bayandur Poghosyan published a screenshot showing an anti-American caricature in Armenian. The user noted with the caption, “It’s interesting, isn’t it, that a page with an English name and only one Georgian post on its own page is engaged in anti-American propaganda in Armenia.” 

There is indeed only one post on the ‘Bright future’ page promoting the ad (as of 12:00 on September 29). Next to the photo of Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia, the text in Latin letters is published, which, as it turned out from a simple search on the Internet, are the words of a Georgian song dedicated to Tbilisi. 

From the “Transparency” section of the “Bright future” page, we managed to find out that it was created on February 19, 2021, under the name “rsgov,” and on September 21 of this year it was renamed “Bright future.” Information about the location of its operators is not available. 

Our next step was to check the page’s “Ad Library.” It turned out that the page activated three ads at once on September 28. They are caricatures depicting predictions about the destructive consequences of active US involvement in Armenia. 

The page has connections not with Georgia, but with Russia 

Although the administrators of the page made efforts to show Georgian connections to it, they also left traces that show the connection of the page with the official page of the Russian government. 

We managed to find this trace in the “Community” section of the page. There are three publications here, in which the Bright future page is listed under its former name, rsgov. The author of all three publications is the official page of the Russian Foreign Ministry in Rostov-on-Don. 

These publications were made in April 2021 and are dedicated to the memory of Yuri Gagarin, the first man in space. In addition to the “rsgov” page, the official and Welcomevolgograd pages of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation are also mentioned in them. 

It turns out that an anti-American advertisement targeting the Armenian audience is being spread on by “Bright future” Facebook page. And although the moderators of this page have made efforts to portray it as Georgian, media.am’s open-source investigation shows that it has connections with Russia. 

Arshaluys Barseghyan