In a move likely to escalate tensions with Moscow, the Armenian government suspended the broadcast of Russia’s leading state TV channel in Armenia following its strong criticism of Armenia’s Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan.

Minister of High-Technology Industry Mkhitar Hayrapetian informed that Channel One's retransmission has been “temporarily stopped” due to its debt to an Armenian government agency overseeing digital broadcast frequencies. The Minister did not disclose the specific amount of the debt but mentioned that it had accumulated over the past two and a half months.

While Hayrapetian stated that the ban applies to the national digital package accessible to viewers across Armenia, Channel One's broadcasts were also blocked by the country՛s cable TV networks operated by private telecom companies. However, these companies did not explain their decisions to join the ban.

Armenia's Ministry of High-Tech Industry (MVP) recently reported that the Russian side recognized violations of several clauses of the Armenian-Russian agreement on cooperation in television broadcasting. Armenian-Russian bilateral consultations were held in Yerevan on December 5, 2023, where the Armenian side recorded violations of Article 5 of the agreement, which prohibits programs with insulting content against both peoples and states. On March 18, Hayrapetyan stated that the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Armenia would make new proposals to its Russian partners to exclude programs with "anti-Armenian" content. He emphasized that consultations would soon be held in Moscow under the bilateral agreement on cooperation in mass communications signed in 2020. The agreement's goal is to exclude programs that interfere in the internal affairs or insult the state and people of the other country. Such discussions were already held in December 2023 at the initiative of the Armenian side. Still, the decisions made there did not help to resolve the issues, Hayrapetyan stated at the time.