MFA of Armenia denies: The RA Armed Forces are not involved in Ukraine

A photo has been shared by one of the Telegram channels since this morning, where a closed RA military service card was held in front of a man arrested in civilian clothes. The caption of the photo claims that a “soldier of the Armenian Armed Forces” was arrested in Kharkov.

“The Armenian authorities have stated that they have received an request from Russia to support them during the hostilities in Ukraine, but the media reported that Armenia has not yet made a decision unlike Kazakhstan, which in fact immediately rejected Russia’s call. However, we have the first precedent. A soldier of the Armenian Armed Forces has been arrested in Kharkov,” the note reads, which as of 16:10 on February 26 has more than 310,000 views.

The post, in addition to the main channel, was widely spread in Russian and Armenian social media.

Fact Investigation Platform checked the authenticity of the photo. Using the tool of Fotoforensics.com, it was revealed that the photo was not edited, i.e it was original. And with the help of the online tool of exifmeta.com we found out that the picture was taken in recent days.

Nevertheless, we also contacted RA Foreign Ministry spokesman Vahan Hunanyan, who denied the information spread by the Telegram channel that a soldier of the Armenian Armed Forces had been arrested in Kharkov.

“It is completely disinformation,” Hunanyan said.

Later, a video published on another Telegram channel, referring to the same episode, clearly shows that the person depicted has nothing to do with the RA Armed Forces. In the video, the detainee announces his name and informs that he went to Ukraine in the summer of 2020.

Hakob Karapetyan