Armenia can no longer rely on Russia as guarantor of its security PM’s revelations at POLITICO

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has said in an interview with POLITICO that Russia’s catastrophic invasion of Ukraine means Armenia can no longer rely on Moscow as a guarantor of its security, even as fears grow of a return to open conflict with Azerbaijan.

Pashinyan’s unusually pointed criticism of Russia’s inability to act as a policeman in the Caucasus only compounds a sense the Kremlin is losing its influence — and once much-vaunted superpower status — across former Soviet republics that Moscow once saw as its stamping ground.

Now Russia is fully committed to fighting in Ukraine, fears are growing in Yerevan over whether President Vladimir Putin’s soldiers are willing or able to keep the peace in the Caucasus. That’s a pressing concern because there is every danger that Armenia could resume fighting with Azerbaijan over Garabagh.

“As a result of the events in Ukraine, the capabilities of Russia have changed. Our strategy should be to try in this situation to maximally decrease our dependency on others. We want to have an independent country, a sovereign country, but we have to have ways to avoid ending up in the center of clashes between West and East, North and South … There cannot be a case when Armenia becomes a ‘proxy.’ This is not permissible,” Pashinyan said.

Calling on the big protector — Russia in Armenia’s case — each time conflict flared was simply unsustainable.

“The model by which we have problems with our neighbours and we have to invite others to protect us — it doesn’t matter who these others are — is a very vulnerable model,” he added.

The Azerbaijani government has called on the Garabagh Armenians to lay down their weapons, receive supplies from inside Azerbaijan, and accept being governed as part of the country. This offered a clear sign that Russia was no longer pulling its weight.

“All of this … was supposed to be in the sphere of responsibility of Russian peacekeepers and as far as these issues exist, the Russian peacekeepers have failed in their mission,” he said.

Still, he added a caveat: “I can’t say though that if the Russian peacekeepers hadn’t been in Garabagh, the situation would now be better.”

The frustration with the failure of Russian forces to help forms part of a pattern of worsening ties between Moscow and Yerevan.

Last week, the Russian foreign ministry said it had summoned the Armenian ambassador for a “difficult” conversation over what it described as a string of unfriendly steps, citing a decision by Yerevan to send humanitarian aid to Ukraine for the first time, with Pashinyan’s wife, Anna Hakobyan, making an official visit to Kyiv. Armenia has also withdrawn its representative to the Moscow-led CSTO military alliance of which it is a member, having previously accused the bloc of failing to act on its requests for support.

Instead, Yerevan has invited US soldiers to stage joint drills in the country as part of exercises codenamed Eagle Partner 2023. Russia has hit out at the decision.

Earlier on September 12, Anthony Brenton, former British ambassador to Russia, told Reuters that Moscow’s “abject performance in Ukraine” has forced states like Armenia that previously depended on it for support to start “looking for other more dependable protectors.”

In a speech the same day, Putin claimed that Russia could do little in Garabagh after Armenia recognised it as Azerbaijan’s sovereign territory earlier this year. Pashinyan confirmed that position in an interview with POLITICO.

According to Pashinyan, “it is not possible to exclude the scenario of escalation” but said “the forces that have been mobilised should return to their bases” and insisted “Armenia is ready to do that.”

The prime minister reiterated his support for talks, brokered by the US, EU and Russia, in an effort to deliver a peace agreement after decades of conflict with Azerbaijan.

“If we want to have lasting, eternal statehood, first of all we have to take very serious steps and invest very serious efforts to settle our relations with our neighbours,” he said.

At the same time as acknowledging the need to break reliance on the old ally in Russia, Pashinyan admitted there was a long way to go before Western countries could be seen as offering the full support Armenia needs.