cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/54228282
One of Russia’s most intensive influence campaigns targeting a foreign government relies to a considerable degree on a little-known Turkish citizen named Okay Deprem. Approximately 40 percent of the false claims spread by a Russian influence operation aimed at Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan ahead of the country’s June 7, 2026, parliamentary elections, were originated by Deprem, NewsGuard found.
[…]
Deprem, who describes himself as a freelance journalist, apparently moves between Russia, Russian-occupied Ukraine, and Turkey. He produced 17 of the 43 claims aimed at discrediting Pashinyan ahead of the election being pushed by the Russian influence operation known as Storm-1516, according to a NewsGuard analysis. These include claims that Pashinyan’s government banned abortion, that Pashinyan’s wife was having an affair with a Turkish actor, and that Pashinyan was planning to remove all mention of the “Armenian people” from the country’s constitution.
[…]
Other false claims launched by Deprem and then spread by Storm-1516 portray Pashinyan as a “traitor” who capitulates to the demands of hostile neighbors Turkey and Azerbaijan by selling off key Armenian infrastructure to Turkey and building luxury housing for Azerbaijanis on Armenian soil.
In a notable departure from the usual Storm-1516 tactic of creating fake news sites to plant false claims, Deprem’s articles are published by real, mostly Turkish nationalist and pro-Russian sites to plant his claims. This gives them a veneer of legitimacy and helps propel the claims into the broader media ecosystem. (More on this tactic below.)
[…]
With crucial parliamentary elections scheduled for June 7, 2026, Armenia has gained the distinction of having overtaken Ukraine as the top target of Storm-1516 influence operations […] Russia has reason to be concerned. A recent poll by the U.S.-based think tank the International Republican Institute found that Pashinyan’s Civil Contract party maintains a clear lead ahead of the June 2026 vote. However, the outcome remains uncertain, with 43 percent of respondents either undecided or declining to answer.
[…]
“Russia is desperate to prevent Pashinyan from being elected,” Ani Mejlumyan, a Netherlands-based Armenian journalist who reports on disinformation operations in the region, told NewsGuard in a phone interview. “It has a massive network in Armenia … There’s a big fight over undecided voters.”
[…]
Deprem often portrays his work as an honorable vocation and himself as a truth-teller. In the 2022 interview with Diplomat.ru noted above, he said: “I am, first and foremost, a journalist — both by title and by the nature of my work, unequivocally.”
His efforts have earned him some recognition. In 2023, Deprem was given an award from Russian-backed authorities in Luhansk for “a significant personal contribution to communicating the truth about the events in Donbas to the international community,” according to a report in local news site Lugansk 24. He also won an award in 2024 from the Emil Czeczko Foundation, a pro-government Belarusian charity, for his reporting “on the suffering and immense social, humanitarian, and economic devastation experienced by civilians and the local population in the Donbas,” according to the Foundation’s site.
As the Armenian election nears, with Pashinyan persistently leading the polls, Putin’s rhetoric has grown increasingly hostile and ominous. In a May 9, 2026, press conference, Putin warned that Armenia’s turn toward the West poses the same risks as Ukraine’s EU aspirations. “We are currently living through everything that is happening in respect of Ukraine,” Putin said, referring to Armenia, according to a transcript on the Kremlin’s website. “And how did it start? It started with Ukraine’s joining or attempting to join the EU.”