A look behind the curtain of anti-Armenian PR

2026-03-03 - 19:24

A March 2, 2026, email, secretly circulated by a London-based public relations firm with documented ties to Azerbaijan and its Caspian Sea petroleum partners, offers a revealing window into how enemies of Armenia seek to inject malicious anti-Armenian narratives into the U.S. media mainstream. A scripted hit piece against the ANCA sent in stealth to American journalists — a blueprint for slander, enlisting the anonymous backing of Armenians from Garo Paylan to Maria Karapetyan, MP — to punish the ANCA not for our vices but for our virtues. Assaulted for standing foursquare for the security of Armenia, the return of Armenians to Artsakh, the end of Azerbaijani occupation, the protection of Christian holy sites and — perhaps most “unforgivable” of all for Baku and its BP patrons — accountability for Azerbaijan’s crimes against the Armenian people. The ANCA operates in the sunshine — as we have for more than a century and a quarter — in the public arena, petitioning our government to be consistent with our constitutional rights. It is this PR firm — Apollo Strategic Communications and its parent company, RSK Group (with its deep connections to Azerbaijan) — that is operating in the shadows, orchestrating defamation by sending around secret emails and suborning off-the-record libels. Sadly, this is nothing new. The ANCA has weathered far worse. We have long endured ad hominem attacks by Aliyev-aligned interests seeking to deprive Americans of Armenian heritage of our voice in U.S. civic discourse — not by engaging with our arguments or challenging our evidence, but by smear campaigns run from the darkest corners of the amoral pay-for-play PR landscape, given voice by cleverly orchestrated but anonymous sources operating off the record. Why are they targeting the ANCA? That’s simple. Because we are effective. Respected. Because they’re intent on silencing the Armenian Diaspora, leaving Armenia abandoned and alone — at the mercy of Turkey and Azerbaijan. That’s a Turkic aim, not an Armenian one. The fact that this is a foreign attack — from the shadows — against an American organization operating in the light tells you everything you need to know. The ANCA publicly shares our work, enlisting our community via open calls to activism, press releases and national townhall meetings. Apollo’s involvement, by contrast, would have remained entirely unknown had their emails not been leaked. All that remains is for Apollo to reveal who exactly is paying for this anti-ANCA defamation — the terms of any contracts and the dollar amounts involved. Shadowy attacks on the ANCA strengthen the ANCA because they underscore, for Armenian Americans and U.S. policy stakeholders, the vital role we play in courageously giving voice to the interests and aspirations of a community, now more than 2 million strong, that has contributed so richly in so many ways to our U.S. democracy and our American society.