Mercenary justice: Ocampo’s campaign to bring down Pashinyan

A week before Armenia’s parliamentary elections, scheduled for June 7, two American outlets at once reminded Western audiences of the case of former International Criminal Court chief prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo and his role in the campaign against Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan. Recordings in which Ocampo and his son Thomas discuss how to remove the Armenian prime minister surfaced online back in late April. Townhall examines the story as an episode in the election campaign, while the Washington Examiner treats it as a symptom of a deeper malaise within international institutions. But on the main point, both agree: behind the campaign are Moscow’s interests and the money of Armenian oligarchs from Russia, and its target is the peace process in the South Caucasus.

Townhall: elections as a crossroads and a Kremlin operation

American analyst Stephen Blank, a senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, makes the June 7 elections the axis of regional politics in his column for Townhall. The vote, he notes, will determine whether Armenia remains a de facto Russian satellite or becomes an independent pro-Western state on the path toward the EU. As evidence of Yerevan’s pivot toward Europe, Blank points to the European Political Community summit and the EU-Armenia summit held in the Armenian capital in early May.

Russia, he writes, is losing influence both in the South Caucasus and Central Asia, and is trying to derail Armenia’s turn to the West. Moscow frightens Yerevan with “Ukraine’s fate,” bets on pro-Russian oligarchs, and relies on the Armenian Church. The author also recalls an attempted coup in 2024–2025 which, according to his information, the Kremlin prepared together with Armenian revanchists.

But the core of the piece is Ocampo. Blank writes that Ukrainian intelligence obtained materials showing that the former ICC prosecutor, together with his son Thomas, is working with lobbyists from the Armenian National Committee of America and several members of the European Parliament on a campaign to oust Pashinyan and discredit Azerbaijan. The ultimate goal coincides with what the Kremlin wants: the return to power of former president Robert Kocharyan. In the released recordings, both Ocampos set out plans to provoke “large-scale unrest” in Armenia. Ocampo himself boasts that he can put pressure on European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and “adjust” European policy through former EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell. In the video, Ocampo declares proudly: “We are increasing the pressure… I don’t need to break the wall — the door is already open, and all we have to do is enter.”

Washington Examiner: institutions against allies

The Washington Examiner takes an even broader view. Here, Ocampo is placed in the same category as the current ICC chief prosecutor, Karim Khan. Last month, The Wall Street Journal published testimony from an FBI witness alleging that Qatar had promised to “take care” of Karim Khan in exchange for arrest warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defense minister Yoav Gallant. That leaves two chief prosecutors of the same court — and, according to the outlet, both with foreign fingerprints on their robes. The Washington Examiner’s conclusion is that international institutions funded by American taxpayers are increasingly being used against Washington’s allies.

In the recording published by the Romanian edition of Newsweek, as the Washington Examiner reports, Ocampo described in detail the mechanism of a paid lobbying campaign financed, in his words, by “Russian-Armenian representatives” and aimed at removing Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan before the June 7 elections. Ocampo speaks of coordination with EU officials and Armenian diaspora organizations in the United States. These are the same structures that last week described Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s visit to Yerevan as “U.S. interference in the elections.” The fact that Moscow stands behind all this, the outlet emphasizes, has long ceased to be a mere theory: OCCRP has published leaked Kremlin documents directly describing a coordinated hybrid campaign against Armenia.

The Washington Examiner states the stakes bluntly. What is at risk is the peace deal between Azerbaijan and Armenia promoted by the Trump administration, as well as a transport corridor through the region. If it becomes fully operational, Russia and Iran will be pushed out of South Caucasus logistics for decades.

What the regional press adds

The financing details cited by the two American outlets had earlier been covered in greater depth by foreign and Azerbaijani media. According to their reports, the campaign to remove Pashinyan was also funded by Armenian-Russian oligarch Samvel Karapetyan. He is currently under house arrest in Armenia on charges of money laundering and calls to seize power, while reports say that in his 1999 passport application, the FSB was listed as his employer. And in the recording of Ocampo’s son Thomas, the goal is stated plainly: “We need to achieve the removal of Pashinyan.”

Haqqin.az