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In 2025, Armenia faced various manifestations of hybrid threats, which, due to the elections scheduled for 2026, will highly likely become more comprehensive, complex and large-scale, the Armenian Foreign Intelligence Service said in its 2026 External Security Risks report published exclusively by Armenpress.
“Hybrid activities directed against Armenia pursue multiple goals, including stripping the opportunity for peace of its value and significance, belittling its very fact, as well as the achievements on the path to peace and the positivity around it; instilling conspiracy theories to make it seem as if secret agreements have been made against Armenia’s interests; and exploiting the sensitivities of our compatriots displaced from Karabakh by serving our public with false geopolitical choices. In 2026, it is highly likely that hybrid activities aiming to influence the implementation of TRIPP project will become substantially more active. As outlined in 2025, the regional and nonregional actors targeting the project highly likely conduct partially overlapping activities, even when pursuing different objectives," it said.
According to the report, the toolkit used by state and non-state actors engaged in hybrid activities against Armenia will highly likely include:
a․ Hostile Cyber Operations
These operations aim to paralyze Armenia’s critical infrastructures and incapacitate their management, to disrupt the provision of vital services, etc. It is highly likely that the targets will be:
- financial and banking institutions;
- transport and communication infrastructures;
- digital platforms of the government (such as those of the Central Electoral Commission, district and precinct electoral commissions),
including digital infrastructures used for the provision of public services;
- digital infrastructures of electric grids, etc.
b․ Malign Information Operations
In the pre-election period, the malign information operations by external actors are conducted in the form of targeting our public with fake and distorted and out of context information, and importing narratives contradicting Armenia’s interests with the goal of influencing the votes. A combination of overt and covert information operations is used. Overt activities are usually conducted by foreign state/government bodies, including special services and associated resources
Covert activities, which often feed and multiply overt activities, use websites and accounts that do not bear visible traces of any foreign state actor in order to spread more extreme and shocking narratives. In 2025, we have observed tactics of spreading disinformation, as well as false or distorted information, through fake accounts and advertisements, and bot networks. Opportunities for generating fake text, audio and video content using AI have continued to grow, setting a stable trend of spreading a large volume of disinformation through the use of flexible and rapidly developing tools. This trend will highly likely become more widespread in 2026.
We assess that in 2026 the trend of planting false information in foreign outlets and then “legitimizing” it through official and unofficial resources of regional actors will persist, as was the case in 2025. Another persisting method will likely be the creation of new platforms for the publication and subsequent dissemination of disinformation. In 2025, we have observed uses of new resources, including ones imitating real persons and websites, that have highly likely been created exclusively for the purpose of spreading fake information. The most dangerous trend of malign influence operations will continue to be the seemingly subtle combination of fake information with true information, as well as its dissemination and consolidation through real platforms and persons with wide audiences.
c․Activation of Agents, Agents of Influence, Political Actors Acting Under the Cover of Business Activities, Religious and Cultural Institutions and Their Widely-Known Representatives
In 2025, there has already been growth in instances of foreign interference into Armenia’s domestic affairs. The referenced toolkit includes both activation of a network of agents operating in Armenia and supported groups, and activities directed at the cultivation of new political forces in Armenia’s domestic arena (political engineering). One of the hybrid activities aimed at causing internal instability is the cultivation of seemingly “home-grown” political activity, its financing through different means, as well as its information support and organization. Projects targeting youth and activist groups, exploiting and manipulating their political views and patriotic feelings are implemented with the purpose of subsequently using the groups to achieve the goals of foreign actors. Under the guise of public diplomacy, education, sports and educational events, activities related to ideological preparation and recruitment are organized, which make the targeted groups often unwittingly become part of a larger foreign interference scheme.
In terms of cultivation and use of various actors in the pre-election period, businessmen, religious and cultural figures, as well as elements of organized crime that are directly or indirectly linked to decision-making circles of a foreign country, play a special role. These actors can be engaged in the preelection and post-election stages, as well as on the voting day in order to organize sabotage activities under the guise of acts of public disobedience. The objective of such activities is to undermine Armenia’s resistance, devitalise the democratic order by delegitimising or effectively diminishing the legitimacy of free, fair and transparent elections, and, if successful, also forming a government receptive to influence that contradicts Armenia’s interests and is “convenient” for foreign actors.
d․ Economic and Energy Pressure
Considering the structure and the primary directions of imports and exports of goods from the Republic of Armenia, in 2025 we have observed seemingly objective, but in reality artificially created barriers (including through non-state actors) that range from confiscation of goods to criminal cases against exporters, mass arrests of exporting technical staff, deportations, and others. The purpose of these measures is to cause discontent among voters engaged in business activities and swaying their votes. This trend has been recorded in 2025 and will highly likely persist in 2026. The energy sector, while unlikely, can be an effective area of hybrid activities, if a decision is made to escalate the pressure on Armenia. Changes in migration regulations and their selective application are also likely to be used as part of the hybrid toolkit against migrants with Armenian citizenship. This also pursues the goal of generating dissatisfaction with the government and affecting votes.
e. Other Forms of Pressure
As yet another example of influence operations, in 2026 there may be continued targeting of high-level officials from Armenia’s executive and legislative bodies and their family members, as well as of new defamatory campaigns against them. Simultaneously, there may be promotion of political and other figures viewed as favorable by the targeting side.The fact that Armenia is going to host large reputable events in 2026 makes it likely that actors using a hybrid toolkit will try to undermine Armenia’s international standing as an organizer of events of an international scale.
The Foreign Intelligence Service defines “hybrid warfare” as the “overt and covert application of a combination of various means (military, economic, information) with a common intent and with the objective of harming the target by creating uncertainties, anxiety, paralysing the usual activity of state institutions, and swaying public opinion in a favorable direction, while complicating options to attribute and counteract these actions.”
“These methods can include, for instance, use of informal armed groups, economic pressure such as unpublicized economic sanctions, activation of local political actors receptive to foreign influence and others,” the agency said, adding that depending on the case and the objective, the actor using a hybrid toolkit can resort to different combinations of the aforementioned means.