Did news website CivilNet.am actually report that Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan had been diagnosed with HIV in 2010? No, that's not true: No such report could be found on the organization's website. Its representative confirmed to Lead Stories that CivilNet.am did not report the alleged story.
The claim appeared in a post (archived here) published on X by @SprinterPress on May 21, 2026. It opened:
Alleged prison documents suggest Pashinyan received an HIV diagnosis in 2010 custody.
This is what a thumbnail from the attached video looked like on X at the time of writing:
(Image source: post by @SprinterPress on X.)
The video alleged that the information about the diagnosis came from "official prison hospital documents from his time in custody in 2010". It showed what seemed to be a medical file #216411 written in Armenian:
(Image source: post by @SprinterPress on X.)
The screenshot above shows lines in different paragraphs with different widths. Such issues are rare in real documents -- official medical records would have consistent formatting templates.
Lead Stories contacted CivilNet.am. Ani Grigoryan, the editor for the CivilNet.am fact-checking unit CivilNet Check, told Lead Stories via email on May 22, 2026:
No, we did not publish such a report. Our logo and the intro of our program were used without authorization to mislead viewers.
A search across the media organization's website did not show the supposed report:
(Image source: CivilNet.am)
Furthermore, as a search on Google News (archived here) showed no credible media organizations published any reports about Pashinyan's alleged diagnosis.
