Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has stated that Armenia’s authorities are exerting pressure on politicians and political forces that support the development of cooperation with Russia.

“However, the response to this view (regarding the need to develop relations with Russia — editor’s note) has been a systematic increase in pressure on political forces that support such a foreign policy course. These are people who are neither ashamed nor afraid to call Russia a strategic ally. They are being promised that they will be ‘erased’ from the political map. They are allegedly ‘Kremlin agents’ who have been ‘sent’ to prevent the strengthening of the republic’s independence,” Zakharova said, according to RIA Novosti.

She also noted that some commentators in Armenia are attempting to convince the public that Moscow is supposedly punishing the republic for its “disobedience.”

“These are purely propaganda manipulations,” she said.

On the night of June 8, before the preliminary results of the National Assembly elections were known, Nikol Pashinyan, the prime ministerial candidate of the Civil Contract party, first declared victory for his political force and then said that Robert Kocharyan, Gagik Tsarukyan, and Samvel Karapetyan should be held accountable. The Civil Contract leader also claimed that the political forces led by them had engaged in vote-buying and instructed law enforcement agencies to investigate all such cases.

Pashinyan further stated that the parliamentary opposition being formed in the ninth convocation of the National Assembly was, in essence, “a political entity formed through entirely unlawful activity.” He added that Armenia has the legitimate right to deprive those processes and circles of the opportunity to engage in further political activity.