Armenia changing orientation: Russia to be replaced by West? Sergei Bogdan’s analytical article

Doctor of Political Science Sergei Bogan’s analytical article for Caliber.Az

Several bloody clashes occurred on the conditional Azerbaijani-Armenian border last week. The Armenian leadership immediately used the crisis to push the Armenian society to reconsider its ties with Russia and the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO).

The current border skirmishes coincided with Speaker of the House of Representatives of the US Congress Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Armenia.

Pashinyan vs. Pashinyan

The clashes began after Armenian Defence Minister Suren Papikyan paid a long visit to the US (September 5-8, 2022). Some Russian media outlets, for example, Vestnik Kavkaza, even considered this trip as a starting point in the development of further events, pointing out that “the provocation of the Armenian Armed Forces on the border with Azerbaijan was committed after the visit of the Armenian defence minister to the US and a meeting with the chief of the Pentagon before the Summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation in Uzbekistan’s Samarkand city.

At the same time, the Russian media outlets and experts consider this topic rather cautiously. Moscow has traditionally supported Yerevan. Moreover, there is an influential Armenian diaspora there.

However, Moscow’s analysts and politicians have been doubting for a long time. For example, the discussion between representatives of the Russian media and Speaker of the Armenian parliament Alen Simonyan on November 12, 2021 testifies to certain assumptions.

Proceeding from audio recordings, one of the journalists accuses the Armenian current leadership of deliberately “surrendering” Karabakh to change Armenia’s geopolitical orientation.

After the beginning of fighting last week, Yerevan began to publicly appeal to Russia and the CSTO for help, although it knew that the Kremlin was busy with other issues while the CSTO had never agreed to interfere in the Azerbaijani-Armenian disputes.

In any case, virtually no CSTO member state has supported the Armenian government in the current confrontation with Azerbaijan. Pro-Armenian Russian commentator Modest Kolerov sharply said that most of the member states support Azerbaijan, and attempts to draw Russia or the CSTO into the protection of the borders of Armenia are generally futile as they simply do not exist yet.

The political forces in the Armenian establishment, represented by the current Yerevan leadership beginning from Pashinyan and ending with Papikyan initially sought to weaken ties with Russia and did not hide this.

They showed their contempt for the CSTO by slamming the doors in the organisation when, at the beginning of its power in Armenia, the new government arrested the current secretary general of the organisation, turning it into a worldwide laughingstock, and then undermined its work for a long time, continuing to argue about the continuity in this organisation.

Why does Armenia appeal to the CSTO and Russia standing behind it for help? It rather appeals to convince the Armenian society to leave the CSTO and rebuild Armenia’s security architecture without relying on Russia.

The reaction of Speaker of the Armenian Parliament Alen Simonyan and Secretary of the Security Council Armen Grigoryan to the refusal of the CSTO to send its military to the Azerbaijani-Armenian border can be considered as Schadenfreude (pleasure derived by someone from another person’s misfortune), rather than sincere indignation and angry bewilderment. That’s change of orientation has been proposed for a long time.

Everything is so obvious that even when Pashinyan and his associates involved the CSTO in the operation in Kazakhstan after the new year, arguing that Armenia would also have the opportunity to use the tools of the organisation, primarily the Collective Rapid Reaction Forces, such a bold assumption caused big remarks even in Yerevan.

“By sending a military contingent, Nikol Pashinyan went against Nikol Pashinyan and the principles that guided him for decades,” opposition member of the Armenian parliament Tigran Abrahamyan said.

Is the CSTO obliged to fight with Azerbaijan?

“Our expectations are not being met. We, being in constant contact with people, will find it difficult to explain to them why the CSTO is not taking the prescribed measures. Of course, we have drawn, are drawing and will draw conclusions,” Simonyan publicly threatened the CSTO and Moscow on September 16.

He said that Yerevan will still wait for the CSTO’s reaction, “although the question may arise, what else can we expect?”

In a similar way, Simonyan commented on Russia’s position, saying that due to the existence of corresponding agreements between Armenia and Russia, the Armenian side is waiting for more serious actions, not statements, and considers unacceptable the comments and assessments of the Armenian leadership, shown on the Russian TV.

Armenian Security Council Secretary Armen Grigoryan also announced that Yerevan is disappointed with the CSTO’s behaviour. For this purpose, he used his interview with Radio Azatutyun (Liberty) (funded and administered by the US) to convey criticism of the CSTO and the Russian Federation to the West.

He, like his colleagues in the Armenian government, expressed insincere regret regarding the current military alliances in Yerevan (taking into account the initial ideological attitudes of the Armenian current leaders, who demanded withdrawal from the post-Soviet integration organisations dominated by Russia).

“Of course, there was such a hope, and this hope has completely disappeared, there is no such hope anymore. The fact that the CSTO has not yet responded for the Azerbaijani troops to be completely withdrawn from Armenia’s sovereign territory means that our expectations were not justified,” he said.

Certainly, the Armenian leaders launched this campaign to gradually step back from previous relations with Moscow long ago. So, Speaker of the Armenian parliament Simonyan accused Russia of “surrendering of Karabakh” at a meeting with representatives of the Russian media in Armenia on November 12, 2021.

“You think that we surrendered Karabakh. The Armenian society has the same approach and the opinion that Russia surrendered Karabakh. If anyone was going to surrender something, there were several options to do it, including the “Lavrov plan”,” he said.

French option

The statements and actions of Pashinyan’s team do not look like spontaneous indignation, but a systematic course to change the strategic plan in the Caucasus. Perhaps, the main goal is the withdrawal of Russian forces from Armenia and the deployment of Western forces in the region, at first under the guise of peacekeepers - not only in Armenia itself but also outside its borders, primarily on the Azerbaijani territory, that is, in Karabakh.

The Armenian authorities, first of all, demanded the CSTO’s support after the clashes in the Lachin and Kalbajar districts in spring 2021. The members of the organisation refused to get involved in a conflict that was not related to the organisation’s mandate, and then Pashinyan suggested “initiating other international mechanisms”, specifying that the matter rested on deploying French or US peacekeeping forces on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border.

This was appreciated in Russia and brought the topic to the general public. Moskovskij Komsomolets then published an article in which, citing anonymous sources, described intensive meetings between French and Armenian diplomats in an attempt to undermine the tripartite ceasefire statement dated November 10, 2020.

These demands, by the way, resulted in the rallies in Yerevan. The rallies were held in front of the embassies of Russia, France and the US in Armenia in early August 2022 demanding to ensure the safety of Armenians in Azerbaijan and calling for France to send troops.

Was not any way out for the Armenian leadership in Samarkand?

There were also meetings between the Armenian and the US representatives for the transition to the Euro-Atlantic camp and rapprochement with Washington. The US side voiced its intention to deal with the Armenian-Azerbaijani theme more actively this spring, offering Yerevan assistance in the delimitation of the border with Azerbaijan. 

The purpose of the subsequent, apparently sudden visit of CIA Director William Burns to Yerevan on July 15, 2022 remains unknown, although even then some Russian commentators thought that this visit is connected with the Karabakh situation, while Director of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service Sergei Naryshkin even hurried to come to Yerevan immediately after Burns.

Speaker of the US House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Armenia on September 17-19 is much clear. Speaker of the Armenian Parliament Simonyan stressed on September 16 that the visit of the high-ranking US official in the history of Armenia "will be of great importance precisely from the point of view of security".

Simonyan praised the US a lot and, in particular, mentioned the US leading role in de-escalating the situation on the border with Azerbaijan.

“US intervention and assistance has had a great influence in recent events. I don't want to give too much preference to the intervention of France or the permanent intervention of Russia, but the US is the biggest author stopping recent events," he said.

Speaker of the House of Representatives of the US Congress Nancy Pelosi reciprocated. She not only wept in front of the cameras at the memorial to the Armenian victims of the events of 1915 but also stressed at a joint press conference with Simonyan that “We are here to talk to the Armenian leadership about what we can do. We will also hear Armenia’s needs in the field of defence cooperation”. 

Pashinyan even revised his long-announced plans and changed his mind about going to the summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) in Samarkand amid the visit of a third person in the US state hierarchy.

This only at first glance seems like a strange act for the leader of a country that, after a lost war, found himself in extremely cramped international conditions and in need of contacts and any additional space for international political manoeuvre.

However, the Armenian leader was unlikely to want to meet with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, which would create a difficult situation for Pashinyan, who had just been forced to retreat under the onslaught of Azerbaijani troops in Armenia. The rendezvous with Russian President Vladimir Putin, which would have taken place in the context of the Armenian-US negotiations, could have also turned out to be difficult.

Moreover, a meeting with the key foreign leader, Chinese President Xi Jinping, would have been absolutely disastrous on the eve of a meeting with Speaker of the lower house of the US parliament Nancy Pelosi, who recently caused a grandiose international scandal by visiting China’s Taiwan.

What is the risk for the Armenian leadership?

Yerevan is playing such a risky game of a fundamental change in geopolitical orientation for two possible reasons. First, this is another desperate attempt to minimise the consequences of the defeat of 2020.

From the point of view of many influential circles in Yerevan, the loss of Armenia in the war did not put an end to the expansionist nationalist project of the Gorbachev era. While speaking about the reasons for new clashes, Armenian expert Tatul Hakobyan noted in a recent interview with Moscow’s Kommersant, this destroyed the balance of power in the region. 

“Baku understands this and strives to achieve its goals through pressure on Armenia, namely, disarmament of the so-called “Artsakh Defence Army”, the opening of the so-called Zangazur corridor and the soonest signing of a peace treaty on its own terms,” Hakobyan said.

It is possible to conclude that Yerevan is striving for the opposite - not to disarm its formations on the Azerbaijani territory, not to restore routes and not to rush to peace.

However, given the background of current events, another reason seems to be more probable. The fact that ideology prevailed in the foreign policy of the Armenian leadership, which neglects even the elementary geography of its country, having no way to the sea and, due to its isolation from the rest countries, is suffering from economic and demographic decline.

As a result, Yerevan once again moving away from normalising relations with its Turkish and Azerbaijani neighbours - which are more important than any superpowers and which offer an inclusive solution to the problems of the region and Armenia. At the same time, it intends to make a sharp turn in relations with the Russian Federation, although cooperation with Moscow plays an important role both in ensuring the country's security and in its economic survival.

Yerevan is striving for the West when its relations with the two remaining "windows to the world" - Georgia and Iran are not guaranteed either. Georgia is unlikely to risk its relations with Azerbaijan and Türkiye for the sake of the dubious ideas of Yerevan’s current leadership, associated with attempts to win back in politics what was lost in the war two years ago.

As for Iran, although routes through this country in the 1990s actually saved Armenia in terms of the blockade, now this option does not look reliable. Iran took into account that the Armenian authorities allowed the US to create the biggest embassy and other infrastructure in Yerevan for work in the country, and this changed position was also reflected in the congratulations sent to Azerbaijan in connection with the liberation of Karabakh. Now Iran, with its new leadership, is likely to react even more sharply to Pashinyan's new policy.