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Despite refutations from official and professional circles, information persists on the Internet that there are secret concentration camps in Armenia and the number of inmates in the country’s penitentiary institutions is “ten times more,” real number “approaching 25 thousand.”
This extensive article was published on the website of a Russian organization called the “Foundation to Battle Injustice” later republished in English on the vt foreign policy website.
The Penitentiary Service issued a refutation, stating that “as of November 24, 2025, 1,396 convicts are being held in Armenian penitentiary institutions. For comparison, in 2010, almost three times as many convicts were being held in Armenian penitentiary institutions.”
The Verified team revealed that the article featured criticism of the Armenian judiciary and the situation in penitentiary institutions by two “Western” journalists, Irishman Chay Bowes and German Thomas Röper. According to the same source, both journalists work for Russian state media (which is not indicated in the article) and have repeatedly shared false information.
The Fact Investigation Platform also recently covered the case of Irishman Chay Bowes, an employee of Russia Today, run by Kremlin propagandist Margarita Simonyan, in a study on Kremlin propagandists.
Propagandist fact-checkers: state-sponsored fact-checking in Russia – FIP.AM
Who is spreading the fake news on social media?
Today public figure Ara Papyan, for instance, has shared the post on his Facebook page refuted by various parties since yesterday.
His post has since been shared hundreds of times, one of them by a lecturer at Yerevan State University, the other – an experienced journalist, etc. It is noteworthy that Papyan was warned that the article he shared was proven to be fake, yet he failed to remove it from his Facebook page.
According to the Verified, the material was first translated and published in the Armenian media by News.am, followed by Golosarmenii.am, lurer.com, Past.am and Newspress.am.
By the way, despite refutation, these websites did not remove the false information.
It should be noted that this publication was shared by Haqqin.az among Azerbaijani sources.
Footprint of Prigozhin
The Fact Investigation Platform has a series of studies on the Foundation to Battle Injustice and its articles (1, 2, ).
This foundation (Foundation to Battle Injustice (FBR/FBI – similar to the well-known English abbreviation of the US Federal Bureau of Investigation, FBI – ed.)) is closely related to the Wagner Foundation. The founder of the organization, as mentioned previously, is Yevgeny Prigozhin associated with Kremlin-aligned processes.
The Foundation, positioning itself as a “human rights” organization, is headed by Mira Terada, also known as Oksana Vovk. This Russian woman, according to the various sources, spent more than two years in a US prison on charges of money laundering in connection with drug trafficking (she returned to Russia in 2021 – ed.).
The Foundation uses influencers on American and foreign social media platforms to spread propaganda and disinformation in the West.
By the way, this publication was also shared by Mira Terada herself on her Telegram channel.
Perhaps one such person is Brazilian journalist Lucas Leiroz, under whose name this article was published on the vt foreign policy website. Lucas also shared the fake article on his X blog.
The Brazilian journalist is an ardent admirer of Putin’s policies, he advocates for “Russian Lugansk” and is proud to be included in the US blacklist.
Thus, the official data published by the Penitentiary Service of the Ministry of Justice, the studies of fact-checkers completely refute the unsupported claims about “secret camps.” The studies also show that the pioneers in circulating this disinformation are Kremlin-aligned propaganda resources and Armenian platforms linked to them.
Hasmik Hambardzumyan
