Georgian authorities have confirmed that France shipped the ACMAT Bastion armored personnel carriers to Armenia through the Port of Poti. APM Terminals Poti confirmed the news to RFE/RL’s Georgian service.

Armenian authorities have not commented on the media reports regarding the purchase of Bastion APCs from France.

According to the French regional daily Ouest France, the Bastion 12.5-ton personnel carriers were initially intended for Ukraine. However, Kyiv considered them "too lightly protected against artillery fire and anti-tank missiles."

The newspaper also reports that France could soon supply approximately fifty VAB MK3 to Armenia.

Initially, footage of the armored personnel carriers being transported via Georgia to Armenia were shared on Georgian and Azerbaijani telegram channels on November 12, 2023, but none of the sides had confirmed the news.

France’s cyber defense unit ( Viginum) has unveiled a disinformation campaign emanating from Azerbaijan that aimed to undermine Paris’ capacity to hold next year’s Olympic Games, a report showed on Monday, Reuters reports.

According to the report, the campaign ran from July 26-27 on an account of an Azerbaijani individual on social media X, formerly Twitter, with links to the Azerbaijani presidential party.

However, Viginum said it had not been able to link the campaign directly to the Azerbaijani authorities.

According to Reuters, neither the Azerbaijani government nor the presidential party were immediately available for comment. The Azeri embassy in Paris did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Ties between Paris and Baku have been strained in recent months and have worsened since Baku took control of Nagorno-Karabakh.

At the time of the campaign, France had repeatedly criticized Azerbaijani authorities over the blocking of the Lachin corridor, the key road that linked Armenia to Nagorno-Karabakh.

A French diplomatic source said Paris had asked Baku for clarifications on the disinformation campaign. It would also be discussing the matter with X, formerly Twitter, in the coming days, the source said.

— 🇾🇪 Leader of Ansarullah in Yemen, Abdul Malik Badr Al-Deen Al-Houthi:

– Our drone and missile forces have been carrying out extensive attacks deep inside occupied Palestine, and this will continue.

– Our eyes are open, monitoring and searching for any Israeli ships in the Red Sea, Bab al-Mandab in particular, and area bordering Yemeni territorial waters.

– We ask the countries that seperate our territory geographically from Palestine to open a land corridor. If we had a land route to occupied Palestine, our people would have brought hundreds of thousands of heroic Mujahideen to fight the Zionists.

– The Israelis do not put their flags on their ships and turn off their responders in the Red Sea, to try hiding from us. But we will not hesitate to find and target them when possible.

@Middle_East_Spectator

🇮🇱🇵🇸Alarmas antiaéreas en Eilat, sur de Israel.

🇬🇧Air raid alarms in Eilat, southern Israel.

▫️@ENTRE_GUERRAS▫️

https://t.me/LibyanIntel

Associate channel of mine that specializes in news and the likes from a Libyan perspective, if interested - do give it a follow.