The Armenian Foreign Ministry on 24 October summoned Russian Ambassador Sergei Kopyrkin to hand a note of protest, the Foreign Ministry’s press service reported.
“In connection with airing of a television program on 23 October, 2023 on the all-Russian federal television Channel One, during which offensive and utterly unacceptable statements were made against high-ranking officials of the Republic of Armenia, the Ambassador of the Russian Federation to Armenia S.P. Kopyrkin was summoned to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Armenia,” the Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
To remind, on 23 October, the program “Dolls of the Heir Tutti” was broadcast, hosted by Russian State Duma deputy Maria Butina. In the program, a number of Armenian government and public figures were ridiculed in offensive terms and called “agents of Soros”, in particular the Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan.
On October 24, the State Duma of the Russian Federation decided to indefinitely postpone consideration of the bill on the recognition of national driver's licenses of Armenian citizens when they carry out business and labor activities in Russia. This was reported on the State Duma website. Previously, a bill initiated by the government was adopted in June 2022.
The State Duma website provides a comment from State Duma Chairman Vyacheslav Volodin: “In fact, this bill proposes to give Armenia additional preferences, despite the fact that the deputies of the Republic, the leadership, and the government have not taken any steps to consolidate the status of the Russian language. Meanwhile we make decisions on allowing the use of national driver’s licenses of other countries in Russia based on that circumstance.”
“We made such decisions in relation to Belarus, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, since the Russian language is constitutionally enshrined in them. As for Armenia, we see that there is no legal status for the Russian language; the recent decisions [by the Armenian government] are not at all aimed at developing relations in this area,” Volodin added.
In Armenia, the exclusion of Russian television channels in Armenia form the Public Multiplex was recently discussed, in particular, deputy from the ruling Civil Contract faction Lusine Badalyan said that this was due to the anti-Armenian content of Russian television programs. To note, earlier the Commission on Television and Radio of Armenia revealed violations of the provisions of the agreement on the broadcasting of Russian television channels on the territory of the republic.
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