Past daily of Armenia writes as follows, in part: In the previous issue, we had reported that Armenia rejected the Russian Federation [(RF)] assistance which could imply a direct presence of the Russian side in the flood-affected disaster zone.

Nevertheless, as the RF MFA official representative Maria Zakharova informed, the Russian-Armenian Humanitarian Response Center immediately joined the elimination of the consequences, transferred the necessary equipment to Armenia’s authorities. Also, she noted that a number of Russian companies operating in Armenia, in particular the SCR [i.e. the South Caucasus Railway company], are also discussing the matter of providing aid.

And here, the press secretary of Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexei Overchuk, Andrey Matveev, informed that the specialists of the Russian Railways company in Armenia have started the repair work of the railway damaged by a natural disaster. He said that Russia has allocated financial resources for this, and noted that Russian specialists will do everything to restore Armenia's railway communication with the outside world as quickly as possible.

It is noteworthy that along with this information, a message was spread that RF President Vladimir Putin congratulated [Armenian PM] Nikol Pashinyan on his birthday. This information was widely spread by [Armenian] government and quasi-government circles and information platforms.

However, the information that Russia is doing considerable work to eliminate the consequences of the disaster was very little spread by the [Armenian] government's propaganda machine, despite the fact that Nikol Pashinyan himself called the RF President on his birthday and thanked him not only for congratulating him, but also for the instruction given to Russian Railways to restore the railway sections of flood-ravaged Lori Province as quickly as possible.

But so that this circumstance does not spread too much, the [Armenian] government propagandists did not cover at all the call and thanks made by Pashinyan's initiative, and this information remained only at the level of a few lines of the official message.

That is, it turns out that with this, the [Armenian] authorities are trying to resolve several matters at once. First, in this state of internal political crisis, to show that Putin congratulated Pashinyan, but on the other hand, not to spread too much the information about Pashinyan's call and Russia's help, so that a good impression of Russia is not created in [Armenian] society, and the West—and in particular, the US—do not suddenly get "angry" at them.