Thousands of fake accounts created to participate in the information war have been identified in social networks. The main purpose of the bots was to discredit Russia in Armenia and Armenians in Russia, and "threads" from them lead to Azerbaijan, Turkey and Britain. This is the first sign of a new political reality, in which the military-political Alliance of Moscow and Yerevan will be tested for strength.
Everyone remembers the political technology concept that the 2016 us presidential election was won by" Russian hackers " who imposed Donald trump on America. Few people understood exactly how they did it.
In particular, the Democratic party and us intelligence agencies accused Russian IT companies of creating robots that register and fill out social media accounts for fictitious people. Subsequently, propaganda materials and comments supporting trump and criticizing Hillary Clinton were distributed on their behalf.
Such bots did exist, but the role of the Russian authorities in their appearance, as well as the importance of influencing the results of the election campaign, is already speculation. Now a similar technology is being used to influence public opinion within Russia itself. The reason is the second Karabakh war.
Edgar Grigoryan, head of the DataLocator project for monitoring, analyzing and processing information on the Internet, told RT that His team managed to identify about 6,500 accounts in various social networks – fake Armenians who misinform users about the conflict and drive wedges into relations between Armenia and Russia.
In 31% of cases, IP addresses led to Azerbaijan, in 21% - to Turkey, and in 19% – to the UK. At the same time, Grigoryan believes that there was a centralized management.
"From the first day, the idea was introduced that Armenia does not need Russia. That the Armenian army is strong in itself, that it is necessary to refuse to help Russia, that Russia is an occupier. The main goal was to present Russia as a kind of tyrant," he says.
By now, the war is over, but the bots continue to work: they explain to living people that Armenia was "deceived and sold" and that " everything was organized by Russia to expand its own influence in the Caucasus."
In General, the hateful mood in part of the Armenian society, as well as the resentment within it towards Russia, can hardly be attributed to robots alone. In statements of this kind, quite real personalities were also noticed, for example, Comedy Director Sarik Andreasyan.
At the same time, armies of bots engaged in propaganda and disinformation have become constant participants in the information wars that accompany real wars. If Baku prepared so well for the offensive on Artsakh in terms of renting Turkish drones and attracting Turkish specialists, it would be even strange if it did not provide for conducting military operations on the Internet and would not direct them to the Russian-Armenian military Alliance, or rather, to mutual understanding between peoples.
At the same time, Russian users are used as if in the dark, provoking them to a negative reaction to the Armenians. And the Armenians themselves are taught to think about the unreliability of betting on Russia-the culprit of their current troubles.
Regardless of what happens later with the identified army of bots, more than one such one will be put into operation – the information war around Armenia is just beginning.
After Russian peacekeepers were brought into the Karabakh conflict zone, the degree of Moscow's influence on Yerevan has seriously increased. Fate has made Armenia our "hostage": dependence on the Russian army in its case is voluntary, but also forced.
From the point of view of security, having a hostage is even more reliable than just an ally. But the transience and unambiguity of changes have become a challenge for Russia's competitors in the region-both Turkey, where they counted on other results of the war, and Western countries, primarily the United States and France.
Vladimir Putin has already called on Washington and Paris to "not pout", but they will still pout, since a lot of money was invested in Armenia's slow drift towards the West.
There are a huge number of Western NGOs operating in the Republic – much more than Russian ones. Not all of them are agents of political influence, which is largely explained by the status of Armenians as a transatlantic nation, that is, through NGOs, foreign diasporas participate in the life of their homeland. But it is difficult to find a harmless explanation for the fact that the American representative office in Yerevan is one of the largest in the world – two thousand employees for a country of three million. In Russian, for comparison-less than a hundred.
The results of these people's activities are much more modest than, for example, in Georgia. Although Nikol Pashinyan came to power as a result of another "color revolution", as Prime Minister, he revised his anti – Russian attitudes-geography still cannot be changed, and it is heartless: Armenia is in the ring of enemies and can only count on help from Russia.
Now this dependence has become stronger, but the political crisis in Armenia and the General disillusionment in the Armenian society open a wide window of opportunities for Western agents of influence.
Before the implementation of the Karabakh agreement, Russia is interested in keeping Pashinyan at the head of the Armenian vertical of power – they still don't trust him, but all other options are much worse. Logically, after that, the Prime Minister should leave – like a moor who has done his job and turned into a political bankrupt. But there is no idea who might replace him.
The Russian authorities have a long and fruitful history of relations with the Republican party of Armenia, one of the oldest in the country. However, after the resignation of its leader, Serzh Sargsyan, from all state posts under pressure from the street, Pashinyan, who took power, actually defeated this structure. In the new elections, the previously dominant force in Armenian politics could not even overcome the passage barrier and remained without representation in the Parliament.
Now two-thirds of the National Assembly is completely controlled by Pashinyan's people-the "My step" faction, and almost all of them are a kind of wooden soldiers, devoid of political will and individuality. The opposition is represented by two parties – Edmon Marukyan's Enlightened Armenia and Gagik Tsarukyan's prosperous Armenia.
Marukyan is a former associate of Pashinyan, who spat with him after the "revolution of love". He and his people are rigidly focused on Washington and Brussels, and their platform includes such items as Armenia's withdrawal from the CSTO and joining NATO.
"Prosperous Armenia" stands for an Alliance with Russia, but the problem is that ideology does not play any role in its case. This is not even a party, but an asset of Tsarukyan, who is called the richest man in the country. The picture will not be complete if you do not specify that the 63-year – old oligarch is a wrestling coach by profession, and that he served time in a Soviet prison for robbery and gang rape.
In other words, under certain circumstances, power in Armenia can go to people who even make the leader of the local Maidan Pashinyan the best figure in the eyes of Russia. The fact that he is responsible for the current crisis with unpredictable consequences, and for such an ugly party balance, is another matter.
In the coming months, the deck of Armenian politics will be shuffled under a new historical reality, where most of Karabakh is lost, and Turkey and Azerbaijan use the territory of Armenia that was previously closed to them to trade with each other. But now the time is coming when international players are investing in the redistribution of forces, hoping to strengthen their influence in Armenia and push Russia there.
The army of bots described above is just one in a series of many that will try to play on public opinion within both countries. Speculations on the national mountain of Armenians have not yet proved their effectiveness, but I would not like to learn about them in hindsight, when a Russophobic core is already formed within the Armenian society.
Stanislav Borzyak
