Ambassador Attributes Armenian and UN School Meals Program to Russia

During the meeting with journalists on December 12, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Russian Federation Ivan Volinkin announced that Russia funds and implements a number of projects in Armenia. In particular, the ambassador mentioned, “With Russia’s financial participation, the concrete issue of food for children in Armenian schools is solved. He did not specify what schools he was talking about.

We tried to find out what program the ambassador referred to and in which schools it is implemented.

Head of Financial and Accounting Department of RA Ministry of Education and Science Gevorg Yeghinyan informed that the program in question is implemented by the ministry, with funds allocated from the RA state budget and that there is no any other funding from another country.

“This program is implemented by the ministry in a number of RA regions. A similar program is implemented by the UN as well”, Yeghinyan said.

We should note that Russia is a UN member and has relation to the food program as much as any UN member country, such as Tanzania, for instance.

The ministry official gave a negative answer to the question on whether Russia funds such a program.

It is worth reminding that this is not Ambassador Volinkin’s first false statement in Armenia. During his interview to Radio Liberty on September 27 2016, Mr. Volinkin stated that supplies of Russian weapons within the framework of the 200 million USD loan agreement had already started. However, by then, no supplies had been made to the Armenian side within the framework of that agreement.