The EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas revealed the request on Monday just before she and the foreign ministers of EU member states met with their Armenian counterpart Ararat Mirzoyan in Brussels. The Armenian government has asked for the kind of “help to fight foreign malign interference” which the EU provided to Moldova earlier this year, she said.
An Armenian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman said on Tuesday that Yerevan wants the EU to help it “counter potential hybrid threats” to the proper conduct of elections. The two sides have already worked out joint “initiatives in this direction,” she said without elaborating.
Opposition leaders as well as some commentators insisted, however, that Pashinian is trying to secure the EU’s support for winning the elections slated for June through fraud or foul play.
“This is direct interference by external forces in the internal affairs of Armenia,” charged Ishkhan Saghatelian, a leading member of the main opposition Hayastan alliance. “Secondly, the ruling regime is well aware that it no longer has the people’s support and that even state administrative resources are not enough to ensure its reproduction.”
The oppositionists were particularly alarmed by Kallas’s reference to Moldova where two opposition parties deemed pro-Russian were barred from participating in a recent parliamentary election won by the country’s pro-Western leadership.
The EU justified those bans, alleging Russian interference in the Moldovan elections. Kallas likewise accused Russia of spreading pre-election “disinformation” in Armenia after holding separate talks with Mirzoyan two weeks ago. The Russian Foreign Ministry angrily denied the claim.
Kallas’s latest statement stoked opposition fears that the Armenian authorities too may disqualify some major opposition groups from the 2026 vote. Both Saghatelian and Levon Zurabian, the deputy chairman of former President Levon Ter-Petrosian’s Armenian National Congress, warned of such a scenario.
“Pashinian, in effect, declares all his opponents soldiers in a ‘hybrid’ war waged by Russia and asks for Europe’s support for similar anti-democratic actions,” said Zurabian. “This is an unprecedented disgrace, if not treason.”
While Pashinian regularly brands his political foes as Russian agents, neither he nor other Armenian officials have so far publicly echoed the EU allegations about Russian meddling in the Armenian elections. Ruben Rubenian, a deputy speaker of the Armenian parliament, on Tuesday declined to clarify whether Russia is the source of the “hybrid threats” alleged by Pashinian’s administration. He said only that the EU aid sought by Yerevan will be used against the spread of “fake news” and “illegal financing” of election campaigns.
“We see the possibility that there could be an attempt at interference, and we are increasing our toolkit to prevent that interference,” Rubinian told reporters.
“If by external interference they mean that the elections in Armenia are organized by a person desirable for Azerbaijan and Turkey, I mean Pashinian, then yes, there is external interference in Armenia,” scoffed Hayk Mamijanian, the parliamentary leader of the opposition Pativ Unem bloc.
The Armenian opposition has for years accused the EU of turning a blind eye to government crackdowns on dissent and other human rights abuses in the South Caucasus nation for geopolitical reasons. In the last few months alone, several dozen opposition activists and supporters as well as four senior clergymen critical of the Armenian government have been jailed on what they see as trumped-up charges.
The government denies that they are political prisoners. For their part, EU officials have continued to praise Yerevan for its “democratic reforms.”