Dangerous games of Yerevan Shifting security focus won't make it safer

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan is in a hurry to change his umbrella. No, not an ordinary umbrella that we usually use to protect ourselves from the rain or the scorching rays of the sun. We are talking about a security umbrella, which, according to the authorities of the “land of stones,” should replace the Russian one.

In Yerevan, apparently, finally decision has already been made on the choice of a new owner. But instead of one, the old one - Russia, Armenia will have two new masters at once - the US and the EU.

Armenian Security Council Secretary Armen Grigoryan said that on April 5, a meeting between Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken will take place in Brussels, at which “ways of trilateral cooperation that will contribute to the development of Armenia will be discussed.” Some time ago, Russian Telegram channels associated with the Russian security bloc expressed the assumption that Armenia would receive certain security guarantees from Western partners, after which American troops would be sent to Armenia, and the process of withdrawal of the 102nd Russian base and Armenia’s withdrawal from the CSTO would abruptly speed up.

The mention of the Russian military base in Gyumri is not accidental. Pashinyan has already announced that Russian FSB border guards must leave Yerevan Zvartnots airport from August 1, 2024. Even earlier, in an interview with French media, he reported that Armenia had frozen its participation in the CSTO, but at the same time emphasized that we were not talking about the 102nd military base of the Russian Federation. This is understandable: without receiving clear security guarantees from the West, first of all, naturally, regarding Moscow’s further steps in the event that Yerevan asks the Russian military to leave, and secondly, regarding Azerbaijan (although the latter has repeatedly stated that it does not have territorial claims to Armenia and is committed to peace, not war), Pashinyan is extremely afraid to twitch too much.

But now, obviously, discussions in this direction have reached the home stretch, and the complete transition of Armenia under the Western security umbrella is a matter of the near future. There is a strong belief in Yerevan that since Russia and the CSTO did not want to “harness” for the Armenians in their confrontation with Azerbaijan, and even more so in the current conditions, when Moscow has completely immersed itself in the Ukrainian case, then the opportune moment has come to switch to another side.

Moreover, latently in Armenia, the ground was already being prepared for replacing the Russian military base with a Western one - French or American. How can one not recall the actions carried out by pro-Pashinyan forces demanding the withdrawal of Russian military personnel from Armenia, as well as corresponding publications and posts in pro-government media and TG channels. And the ratification by the Armenian parliament of the agreement between Yerevan and the European Union on the status of the EU reconnaissance and observation mission on the conditional border with Azerbaijan, which legitimized the complete independence of European spies from the laws of Armenia and endowed them with “royal status,” also fits neatly into this logic.

However, Azerbaijan has no need to worry too much here; after all, we have not been and are not going to become a security umbrella for Armenia. All these convulsive movements of Pashinyan and his Western masters are directed largely against Russia, which is losing not only its outpost in the South Caucasus, but is also losing its military presence in our region (someone will point us to Russian peacekeepers in the Karabakh region of Azerbaijan, but we Let's remind you about 2025). Moreover, in fact, a NATO military base could appear right next to it, and this is precisely what Moscow feared most in the case of Ukraine. So, Armenia’s attempt to change the security umbrella may well provoke retaliatory steps from Russia, which will turn into a disaster for Yerevan. The latter should take a closer look at what happened to Ukraine, which is much closer to Russia.

In conclusion, we note that we will probably not open America if we say that Armenia could well have avoided all these dangerous games in search of new owners if it had been committed to a peace agenda with Azerbaijan. The return to Azerbaijan of 8 villages under the occupation of Armenia, adherence to tripartite agreements, including the opening of the Zangezur corridor, and, finally, a peace treaty and a constitutionally enshrined renunciation of territorial claims - these are the real guarantees of security. Without peaceful coexistence, no security umbrellas will help our neighbors. Moreover, for each security umbrella you always have to pay not only with your interests, but sometimes also with your sovereignty. This is what the Russian-Ukrainian war showed us all...