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A few days ago, the Russian “Regnum” news agency published an interesting material entitled “Disappearing Armenia and Its Elections”, where it addressed Armenia’s domestic economic and political environment.
That publication is distinguished by a number of wrong data and judgments. First of all, it is claimed in the article that the external debt of Armenia is growing steadily and already makes up about 11 billion USD. However, the bulletins published by the RA Ministry of Finance indicate that Armenia’s external debt is really increasing but as of December 31, 2016, it formed only 5.9 billion. And the latter figure is twice as little as the one mentioned in the Regnum’s material.
Based on wrong data, the author adds that one can hardly find a post-Soviet country that would be in such a “miserable” state.
Nevertheless, while the national debt/GDP ratio in Armenia fluctuates within the moderately dangerous 60% range, it has already exceeded 80% in Ukraine, and 55% in Tajikistan. Even in case of EU member countries Latvia and Lithuania, the national debt exceeds 40% of the GDP. In Georgia and Moldova, that indicator makes up 45%. Hence, compared to other post-Soviet states, Armenia’s condition leaves much to be desired but neither is it that miserable.
According to the author, it is difficult to find a country in the post-Soviet space where the power would be as unchangeable as in Armenia. Obviously, the Regnum news agency has forgotten about the vivid examples of Belarus, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Russia, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan.
In case of the Republic of Armenia, there have occurred changes of power at least at the level of leaders of the country. By calling the elections held in the country “democratic games”, the author of the article has not taken into account the circumstance that Armenia is in a much better condition in terms of democratic indicators compared to many post-Soviet states (including Russia).
And though Armenia has recently seen a decline in the democracy index, it is still in a considerably better state than Russia, which, by the way, is never criticized by Regnum.
Thus, we can conclude that building the publication on false data and judgments, “Regnum” news agency has made an attempt to present the domestic situation in Armenia in shades that are different from reality.
