Russia’s Matryoshka bots use System of a Down concert announcement to launch pre-election smear campaign against Armenian PM Nikol Pashinyan

The Kremlin-linked bot network Matryoshka is using a scandal surrounding the unconfirmed announcement of an upcoming System of a Down concert in Yerevan for a new wave of disinformation against Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan. Researchers with the Antibot4Navalny project, which tracks Russian bot network activity on social media, shared their findings regarding the campaign with The Insider.

The campaign centered on a real event: Pashinyan’s May 23 announcement during election campaigning that System of a Down would perform on Yerevan’s Republic Square in July. Using his words, Matryoshka built a series of interconnected disinformation posts around the event.

Ten videos distributed by the network maintain a consistent fictional narrative:

• One video, disguised as material from the Armenian opposition outlet Frontline, claims the band’s fee would be a “record $120 million” and that it has already caused “widespread outrage” in the country amid a difficult economic situation. The video also features a fake interview with “political scientist Ekaterina Meiering-Mikadze” — there is in fact a Georgian ambassador with the same first and last name — who explains that Pashinyan is “courting a younger audience who will attend the concert but will not vote for him.”
• A video using the logo of the music magazine NME builds a narrative of gradual collapse: frontman Serj Tankian “announced that the concert has been postponed,” which sparked “a flood of negative comments on social media from fans,” who accused System of a Down of aiding the prime minister’s “political manipulation.”
• Under the E! News logo, the bots spread a story about a “massive wave of ticket returns” for System of a Down concerts around the world, a movement to “cancel” the band, with a Bluesky page calling for the “cancellation of System of a Down” supposedly garnering over 70,000 followers.
• A video using the Euronews logo attributes to Tankian a post in which he supposedly revises his position on the Armenian genocide and says that “400,000 victims is also a tragedy, but the number of those killed is certainly not 1.5 million.” “Music critic David Fricke” — in reality, a person with that name is a senior editor at Rolling Stone — asks “how much it cost Pashinyan to buy System of a Down’s political stance, as it appears to have been bought.”
• Under the Armenpress logo, a fake video features Pashinyan’s press secretary trying to reassure Baku and claiming the band “changed its stance a long time ago” and now “supports the joint efforts of Armenia and Turkey to verify the numbers of the 1915 genocide.” The same video explains the disappearance of the song “Protect the Land” from online streaming services, with it allegedly being removed at the request of the rights holder.
• A video under the CNN Türk logo depicts Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov demanding that the concert be canceled. It claims System of a Down’s performance in Yerevan would “undermine all diplomatic efforts by Armenia and Azerbaijan to achieve peace.”
• A video using The New York Times logo claims Turkish conglomerate Doğan Holding secretly bought the band’s catalog of songs for $200 million, and that a number of rock musicians, from Dave Mustaine of Megadeth to Dee Snider of Twister Sister, refused to take part in “the Yerevan festival in support of Prime Minister Pashinyan.” The footage uses real videos from the streaming service Cameo, where musicians record personalized greetings, with the messages edited to make it appear as though they were talking about Armenia.
• A video with the France 24 logo reports a “terrorist threat” at System of a Down’s Paris concert at the Stade de France. It claims French police “received a flood of calls threatening to bomb the stadium” from “members of the Armenian diaspora in France.”

The network also spread an image supposedly painted by an Armenian artist on a wall in France, showing Pashinyan teasing members of System of a Down with money clenched in his hand. The post claims the artist was then “extradited” from France to Armenia.

To create the appearance of authenticity, the bots use the logos of Western outlets and government bodies, along with real Cameo videos of musicians. A standard tactic used by the network is the formula “it was previously reported,” which links the videos together and creates the illusion of a growing news cycle. The Insider has obtained the videos but will not publish them to avoid further spreading disinformation.

A non-existent concert and the June 7 vote

On May 23, during a campaign meeting with voters in Yerevan’s Avan district, Pashinyan announced that System of a Down would perform in July on Republic Square. Armenia’s parliamentary elections – the first such vote to be scheduled since 2017 – will be held June 7, 2026, and will largely determine Armenia’s future foreign policy.

Pashinyan is campaigning for closer ties with the European Union. In early May, Yerevan hosted a summit of the European Political Community and the first EU-Armenia summit. Turkey lifted a 30-year ban on direct trade, and an Armenian-Azerbaijani peace agreement, whose framework was initiated in Washington with mediation from U.S. President Donald Trump in August 2025, remains a central issue in the election campaign.

What is Matryoshka?

Matryoshka is a Kremlin-linked network of bots, trolls, and coordinated anonymous media resources that specializes in mass disinformation campaigns. Its signature tools are short vertical videos made to look as if they were produced by respected Western media outlets and organizations. The videos are then launched simultaneously on X, Telegram, Bluesky, and in closed group chats. The network’s preferred tactic is to seize on a real-world scandal and build a fictional narrative around it, using real names and credible media brands.