Armenia servant of two masters Yerevan's role in the Russian-Ukrainian War

The British edition of EU Today published an article by political commentator and editor Gary Cartwright on the role of Armenia in the Russian-Ukrainian war. Caliber.Az reprints the article.

Remember the Monty Python dead parrot sketch? Watch it if you haven’t seen it, it’s worth doing just to expand your vocabulary: the unfortunate bird is referred to, in no particular order, as “dead”, “a stiff”, “demised”, someone who “shuffled his mortal coil”, “is pushing up the daisies”, “run down the curtain and joined the choir invisible,” and many more.

This sketch came to mind today as I pondered what words to use to label the Armenian government’s strategy in the war between Russia and Ukraine. Is it “eating your cake and having it too”?

Or the slightly old-fashioned “running with the hare and hunting with the hounds”? Being blatantly duplicitous? Dancing at two weddings at the same time? Or perhaps serving two masters — since Armenia prides itself on its Christian heritage, this idiom might hit right home.

You see, Armenia’s problem is that, on the one hand, it very much wants to be friends with the West, and on the other hand, it very much does not want to be at odds with Russia and, most importantly, to lose the immense money brought by the illegal export of sanctioned goods to Putin’s empire of evil.

Last week in Munich, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said that Armenia is not an ally of Moscow in its war against Ukraine, but that it sides with Ukrainian “friends,” although it cannot to exert much influence on the conflict. Or can it?

Over the past two years, Armenia, a nation of three million people in the South Caucasus, has become the fourth largest exporter of semiconductors and dual-use (read: military) goods to Russia.

In just 12 months, the country’s economic growth amounted to an unprecedented 14 per cent, placing it third in the world in terms of growth rate.

“Armenia’s exports to Russia are up 430 per cent from before the invasion, which is about re-export of EU and Chinese goods to Russia. That’s not the end of it. Armenia’s exports to Kazakhstan are up 1200 per cent, to Kyrgyzstan 1600 per cent, to Uzbekistan 250 per cent and to the UAE 900 per cent.

“All going to Russia” tweeted the former director of the Institute of International Finance and former strategist at Goldman Sachs Robin Brooks on February 17th.

In the first nine months of 2023, Armenia’s exports to Russia grew by 85 per cent, with 80 per cent of this huge volume accounted for by re-exports.

These are the numbers acknowledged by Vaan Sirunyan, Armenia’s deputy minister of finance. Overall, according to the Jamestown Foundation think tank, Armenia’s foreign trade turnover has increased by 69 per cent since the beginning of the war in Ukraine.

Analysts believe that this economic miracle was due to re-exports from Armenia to Russia.

A joint statement by the U.S. Departments of Justice, Commerce, and Treasury classifies Armenia as a hub for intermediaries or trans-shipment points used to circumvent sanctions and export controls related to Russia and Belarus. Because that’s what friends of Ukraine would do, right?

The year is 2024, Armenia’s role in supplying Putin’s Russia with everything it needs to continue with the war is an open secret, and no one seems to be doing anything about it.

Is the declared intention to become part of Western civilization enough for that civilization to turn a blind eye to the fact that right now Armenia is literally supplying Russia with sanctioned goods, including those for military purposes?

It seems so.

The media widely cover this issue, major European, American, Canadian and Ukrainian publications have repeatedly reported that Armenia has become the key hub for transshipment of sanctioned goods from the United States, Europe, China, Taiwan and other countries to Russia.

Moreover, there are reasons to believe that the volume of re-exports through this South Caucasus country will only grow in the near future: while the U.S. and its allies are exercising all their influence to persuade Türkiye, Gulf States and Central Asian countries not to participate in shady schemes to supply sanctioned goods to Russia, Armenia remains virtually the only route to bypass sanctions.

In addition, Armenia’s favourable geographic location makes it an ideal transshipment point for arms and weapons shipments from Iran, another anti-Western rogue state.

Just think how much money this generates on a daily basis for those involved in illegal supply chains. While calculating profits, there is no time to think about how many lives this costs Ukraine every day.

“No one can serve two masters,” reads the Gospel. “Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.”

Or, as the Russians put it, “you cannot sit on two chairs with one butt” (I have to give them credit, Russians know how to put thoughts into words).

I would wish that Armenia, as well as the West, would heed this.