The video is a fabrication: the outlet published no such story, the narrator’s voice is AI-generated, and the fake is part of a coordinated Kremlin disinformation campaign ahead of Armenia’s parliamentary elections on June 7th.
A video in Reels format, styled to resemble content from the outlet Middle East Eye, is being circulated on X (Twitter). The clip claims that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky allegedly plans to establish drone manufacturing facilities and launch sites on Armenian territory. According to the video, an agreement between Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Zelensky was signed at the EU–Armenia summit in early May, and the drones are purportedly intended for strikes against military production facilities in Iran.
The video is fabricated. Middle East Eye has not published it on any of its official social media accounts. A keyword search on the outlet’s website likewise returns no results for any such story. No other credible international or regional media outlet has reported on any such agreement being signed between Ukraine and Armenia.
The video’s style also points to its fabricated nature. Original video content from Middle East Eye in this format is typically accompanied by a journalist’s voiceover, with the journalist’s name listed in the credits — and the journalist often appears on camera, narrating directly to the viewer. The fake lacks these elements: it features an AI-generated narrator’s voice and carries no attribution. Furthermore, in genuine content from the outlet, all video and photo materials are accompanied by captions crediting the source and author — something also absent from the circulating clip.
The emergence of this fake is not coincidental — it fits within a large-scale information campaign targeting Armenia’s elections, which took place on June 7th, 2026. According to reporting by The Insider and Agentstvo, the Kremlin deployed at least three coordinated disinformation networks to influence voters in Armenia. The “Matryoshka” network, linked to Russian state structures, published more than 343 fake videos about Armenia and Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan from March 2026 onwards — a campaign that exceeded in scale the information attack before the elections in Moldova. The Storm-1516 network, linked to Prigozhin’s Foundation for Battling Injustice, spread fabricated stories disguised as content from credible media — including a fake story about Pashinyan owning property in Marseille and a video falsely accusing him of contracting an HIV infection. The Agency for Social Design (ASD) — the Kremlin’s main contractor for disinformation production following the dissolution of Prigozhin’s troll factory — launched the pseudo-media outlet “Yerevan Pervyi” and a network of fake websites using black-hat SEO to promote pro-Russian narratives in the Armenian information space. All three networks are advancing a common narrative: portraying Armenia under Pashinyan as “the next Ukraine” — a country being led by a pro-Western leader toward war with Russia and catastrophe. Putin himself echoed this narrative at his May 9th press conference when he drew a comparison between the situation in Armenia and Ukraine and hinted at possible “conclusions” on Russia’s part should Yerevan continue its rapprochement with the EU. Notably, the “Matryoshka” videos about “Pashinyan’s war with Russia” appeared at least two months before Putin’s statement which serves as evidence of the coordinated nature of the campaign, in which Kremlin public statements and disinformation networks operate as a single mechanism.
StopFake has previously debunked disinformation related to Armenia in Fake: Armenia Resumes Flights to Crimea and Fake: Armenia’s Prime Minister Mentioned the ‘Armenian Roots of Crimea’ and Threatened to Annex the Peninsula.
