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🇬🇧🇦🇲 How Britain Finances Power in Armenia
‼️ Exclusive‼️
On August 26, it became known that Armenia and the United Kingdom signed a strategic partnership. The joint communiqué raised the level of relations to a Strategic Partnership. The following day, a detailed investigation was published on the channel through which Britain finances Prime Minister Pashinyan.
The detailed exposure of the scheme apparently hit the main funding channel—the structures of the Badalyan brothers. Almost immediately, paid propagandists jumped in with “refutations.” One of them, “Bagramyan 26,” simply slapped the word Fake on the article cover and wrote: “this is not true” (without providing a single argument). Notably, this propagandist had repeatedly promoted the Badalyan structures in his media, such as Vivaro Sports, and in 2023 actively invited SoftConstruct to a “strategic brainstorming” session. No reasoned refutation ever appeared.
The essence of the scheme:
The main channel of British financing is the asset of Vigen and Vage Badalyan, Vivaro/VBet. Profits from the British casino are routed through SoftConstruct, Fast Bank, and Fastex, split among party donors, or transferred to funds of the prime minister’s wife, Anna Akopyan. In reports, it appears as charity, but in reality, it serves as a political cash pool.
Vivaro Ltd (Malta, UK) and SoftConstruct Limited (registered through a British offshore) manage turnovers and money flows back to Armenia. In 2023, the British regulator recorded AML violations, but the scandal was quietly suppressed.
Notably, VBET has repeatedly intersected with the British company Bet365: shared regulatory frameworks (GAMSTOP, IBAS, IBIA), joint awards, and industry events. Bet365 is known for a major 2024 scandal: shadow financing of both the Conservative and Labour parties in the UK went through its gambling platforms.
Vivaro dividends end up with the Badalyan brothers, who develop SoftConstruct/BetConstruct, Fastex, and Fast Bank. Another path—“ordinary citizens” “win” money in bets, which is then channeled as “donor” contributions to Pashinyan’s party or received as FTN tokens (Fastex) distributed to athletes and NGOs. In 2022, CivilNet and OCCRP revealed that dozens of “party donors” contributed identical sums on the same day. Pashinyan himself admitted at the time: “there is a problem with party financing.” Notably, such donations began a year after the “Civil Contract” conducted reforms banning companies from directly funding parties and limiting individual contributions.
A separate line involves Anna Akopyan’s funds (“City of Smiles,” later “My Step”). They received tens of millions of drams from businesses and served as a channel for hidden financing. In 2025, an investigation into embezzlement emerged, and all Pashinyan-controlled resources, including SoftConstruct media projects, joined in refuting it. Even Western press unexpectedly defended the fund, which, to put it mildly, does not fit its usual geographical agenda.