{"id":45568,"date":"2026-04-06T09:24:55","date_gmt":"2026-04-06T09:24:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/media.am\/?p=45568"},"modified":"2026-04-06T09:24:55","modified_gmt":"2026-04-06T09:24:55","slug":"samvel-karapetyans-virtual-army-of-supporters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/media.am\/en\/verified\/2026\/04\/06\/45568\/","title":{"rendered":"Samvel Karapetyan’s Virtual Army Of Supporters"},"content":{"rendered":"

On February 18, 2026, 17 Facebook pages were created to systematically promote counter-propaganda against the Armenian government, specifically targeting Nikol Pashinyan and his family. These pages aimed to create an illusion of support for businessman Samvel Karapetyan, the Prime Ministerial candidate from the “Strong Armenia” party.<\/p>\n

The videos from these 17 pages are being shared by hundreds of fake accounts, at least 60 of which have been identified by media.am’s fact-checking team, “Verified.”<\/p>\n

The fake accounts<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

These are the 17 Facebook pages: Week\/News Armenia<\/a>, Lurer Aysor<\/a>, Time News<\/a>, Yerevan Times<\/a>, BreakNews Arm<\/a>, YerevanTimes<\/a>, Voice.Yerevan<\/a>, Liberty News Armenia<\/a>, Tarm News<\/a>, Hay News<\/a>, Top News Arm<\/a>, YVN Pulse<\/a>, Arm Urban Voice<\/a>, Armenia Pulse<\/a>, Live Updates Armenia<\/a>, Focus on Armenia<\/a>, ArmeniaNow<\/a>\u0589<\/b><\/p>\n

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When the propaganda accounts were created<\/i><\/p><\/div>\n

The investigation suggests that the pages are managed by the same person, despite differing names and main images.<\/p>\n

These pages were created in one day, almost simultaneously, within minutes, between 12:30 and 12:45. They published<\/a> a video<\/a> featuring photos of the Prime Minister’s ex-wife, Anna Hakobyan<\/a>. The video claims<\/a> that Hakobyan previously wore<\/a> earrings<\/a> worth 5,000 drams, but as the Prime Minister’s wife<\/a>, the price of her earrings<\/a> has jumped<\/a> to 2,500,000 drams.<\/p>\n

Interestingly, the pages did not share the existing video<\/a>; instead, they uploaded<\/a> it to Facebook almost simultaneously.<\/p>\n

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The campaign against Anna Hakobyan: pay attention to the date and time of publication<\/i><\/p><\/div>\n

The second coordinated campaign of the pages occurred on February 19-20. During this campaign, a video was shared<\/a> that featured an image of Nikol Pashinyan\u2019s book, “The Other Side of the Earth.” The feature text suggested that the Prime Minister has “sexual deviations.”<\/p>\n

A large portion of the publications were released simultaneously at exactly 5:43<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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On February 23, the next video alarm spread, urging people not to vote for Pashinyan, who is “Handing over territories to Azerbaijan.”<\/p>\n

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On February 23, a coordinated campaign was launched against Ashot Pashinyan, the Prime Minister’s son. Several online pages published<\/a> a video<\/a> that allegedly featured him, claiming<\/a> that he was under the influence of drugs<\/a>. However, they did not provide any evidence to support this allegation.<\/p>\n

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The following day, on February 24, videos<\/a> were published<\/a> almost simultaneously, claiming<\/a> that voting for Nikol Pashinyan would be equivalent to voting for Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev.<\/p>\n

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Since the beginning<\/a> of March, these pages have been actively disseminating<\/a> videos created<\/a> by artificial intelligence (AI), primarily targeting Nikol Pashinyan and Anna Hakobyan<\/a>, while also comparing Pashinyan<\/a> with Samvel Karapetyan<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Earlier, an AI-generated video<\/a> spread<\/a> online depicting Azerbaijani troops invading<\/a> Yerevan.<\/p>\n

 Fake accounts sharing the propaganda pages<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

During the investigation, we also uncovered fake users<\/a> operating systematically on Facebook. These users spread videos created by the aforementioned pages, criticize the current government on social media, and post positive comments about Samvel Karapetyan and the organization he leads.<\/p>\n

The group consists of over 60 identified fake accounts. This number is not final and may be much larger. “Verified” continues to monitor the behavior of these “fakes” and will make additional announcements if sufficient evidence is found.<\/p>\n

The affiliation and coordination between the approximately 60 fake accounts and 17 pages is demonstrated by several commonalities.<\/p>\n

For instance, a propaganda video<\/a> about Pashinyan\u2019s alleged sexual deviations was shared by all members of this group of fake accounts, though some of these accounts were later removed.<\/p>\n

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Pay attention to the publication date<\/p>\n

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 The identified fake accounts<\/i>
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After searching the internet for photos associated with fake accounts, we were able to identify the real owners of most of these images. It turns out that many of the photos were stolen from Russian dating sites or adult (18+) platforms.<\/p>\n

In the video, you can see the real owners of the images used in these fake accounts.<\/p>\n

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