Shurnukh, Tigranakert, Polad Poladov: What Fake News Was Published in the Last 10 Days, Information Verification Center

Disinformation and manipulative information began to flow from the very first days of 2021, when unverified information related to high-profile public issues followed one after another. This was reported by the Information Verification Center.

On January 4, the “Mediaport” Telegram channel wrote that the Shurnukh community in the Syunik region has already been handed over to Azerbaijan. It was said that the village of Tigranashen in the Ararat region would also face the same fate. It is necessary to mention that the Shurnukh community has not been surrendered to the adversary. Eleven houses in the village, which have been disputed for years, have come under enemy control. The government has announced that new houses will be built for those who lost their homes.

Regarding the Tigranashen community, the Ararat governor Razmik Tevonyan stated: “The borders of the Ararat region are protected by the Armed Forces of Armenia, and no community will come under the enemy's control—neither now nor ever.”

On the same day, the Telegram channel reported that Azerbaijani soldiers had abducted an Armenian soldier from the border post of Davit Bek in Syunik. In response, the Ministry of Defense of Armenia announced that no such incident had been registered. It was disinformation.

On January 8, the same Telegram channel spread information claiming that Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan would make territorial concessions at the trilateral meeting scheduled for January 11 in Moscow and that a document related to these concessions had been sent to the Ministry of Justice for constitutional compliance. Minister of Justice Rustam Badasyan refuted this, stating that there is no document or agreement in the ministry. The news circulating was disinformation.

It should also be added that there was no such point in the joint statement adopted at the trilateral meeting on January 11 in Moscow between Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, Russian President Vladimir Putin, and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev.

Some media outlets manipulated and spread false information about the ceremonial protocol regarding Pashinyan's reception in Moscow. They wrote that he had been received unprofessionally and that a Russian official allegedly refused to shake the Prime Minister's hand. After analyzing the footage of the arrival of the two countries’ leaders, we found that both the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan were welcomed by Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Andrey Rudenko, and there was no handshake with the protocol chief in either case. This information was also confirmed by the Government of Armenia.

The Russian newspaper “Kommersant,” referring to the Moscow meeting, wrote that after the press conference, Prime Minister Pashinyan went to the airport, while Ilham Aliyev stayed in the Kremlin for a private meeting with Putin. In contrast to the Russian newspaper, it should be noted that Nikol Pashinyan also had a private meeting with the Russian president. Spokesperson for Nikol Pashinyan, Mane Gevorgyan, also informed about the bilateral meeting on her Facebook page.

Recently, a publication titled “Citizens of the Republic of Armenia Can Visit Azerbaijan Without a Visa: List Published by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs” appeared in the media, which shortly fueled various speculations on social networks. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Armenia stated that the published list is not new; it has been available for over 20 years. According to the agreement on the mutual recognition of visas for CIS member states signed in 1992, a list of countries where our citizens can legally go without a visa and vice versa has been established. The legal norms of the aforementioned agreement do not de facto apply to the citizens of the Republic of Armenia and Azerbaijan.

The “5th Channel” TV station circulated a report titled “Azeri Polad Opened the Door to Kapan,” in which it was presented that supposedly an Azeri named Polad entered the city of Kapan without any hindrance and published a video from there. However, after analyzing the video, we found that the actual author was not the Azeri Polad Poladov but rather a local resident of Kapan named Arthur, of Armenian descent. The video is not new; it was first published on June 8, on the YouTube channel “Art VOYAGE ПУТЕШЕСТВИЕ,” belonging to an Armenian user.