What the Microphone Caught
VIDEO EVIDENCE -- ANALYZED BY VARDAN HAKOBYAN
Pashinyan regularly conducts public walks through Yerevan as part of his pre-election campaign. These walks are filmed and published on his social media channels.
What Pashinyan doesn't advertise: he wears a hidden microphone.
In one of these published videos, a man approaches Pashinyan and leans in to whisper privately. He doesn't know the microphone picks up everything.
The man identified himself as a parent of a missing soldier from the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war. He told Pashinyan that he is working with the NSS (National Security Service) against other parents of missing soldiers who organize protests demanding answers about their children.
Armenian Facebook activist Vardan Hakobyan, who systematically analyzes Pashinyan's public videos, discovered this exchange and published his findings.
What This Means
THE INFILTRATION
After the 2020 war, hundreds of Armenian soldiers remain missing. Their parents -- grieving families who don't know if their children are alive or dead -- have organized regular protests demanding:
- Answers about their missing children
- Accountability for the military failures
- Government action to locate remains
The government's response: infiltrate the parents with NSS agents.
Not outsiders. Not professional operatives. Other parents. The NSS recruited a father whose own child is missing -- and turned him against other parents in the same situation.
Use a grieving parent as an informant. Place him among other grieving parents. Have him report to the NSS on their protest plans, their leaders, their conversations. Use shared pain as a cover for surveillance. This is not counterterrorism. This is a government spying on mourning families.
The Context: Parents vs. Government
DOCUMENTED
Since 2020, parents of fallen and missing soldiers have been among the most vocal critics of Pashinyan's government. They protest regularly at Yerablur Military Cemetery and demand explanations for:
- Why Armenia lost the 44-day war
- Why soldiers were sent to positions without adequate equipment
- Why hundreds of soldiers remain unaccounted for years later
- Why the government signed a ceasefire they consider a capitulation
The government has responded with force. In May 2023, a Gold Star mother named Gayane Hakobyan -- whose son was killed in the war -- was so desperate that she lured Pashinyan's own son Ashot into her car and attempted to take him to Yerablur cemetery. She told him: "I have nothing to lose. I could kill you." She was convicted and given a suspended sentence.
Now we know the government's quieter response: send the NSS to infiltrate from within.
The Microphone Problem
This incident raises a separate question: why does the Prime Minister wear a hidden microphone during public walks?
Everything said to him privately -- by citizens approaching their PM -- is being recorded. Every whispered concern, every personal plea, every private confession. The man who approached Pashinyan thought he was having a private conversation with the leader of his country. He was being recorded.
Connected Investigations
- War Threat Campaign -- Pashinyan uses war fear to win votes while families still search for missing soldiers
- 18-Year-Old in ICU -- another citizen punished for confronting the PM
- Two Justice Systems -- the prosecution apparatus that targets critics
A father whose child is missing from the war walks up to the Prime Minister. He whispers that he is working with the NSS against other parents. He thinks this is a private conversation. It isn't. The PM wears a hidden microphone. Now we all know. The government doesn't just arrest its critics. It recruits the grieving to spy on the grieving. The parents who lost children in a war the PM failed to prevent are now targets of the intelligence service the PM controls.
Source: Video analysis by activist Vardan Hakobyan (Facebook). Original video from Pashinyan's public walk, published on official channels. Context from RFE/RL, CivilNet, and OC Media reporting on parents' protests (2020-2026).