Leaving Russian orbit

After losing Nagorno-Karabakh, Armenia is struggling to make new allies as it attempts to pivot away from Russia

A few days before control of the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh passed back to Azerbaijan after more than three decades of Armenian control last September, Armenia’s Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan called his country’s traditional reliance on Moscow as its security guarantor a “strategic mistake”.

With Nagorno-Karabakh back under the control of Baku, Armenian officials began to openly question the purpose of Russian troops stationed in both Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenia proper, and the need for new allies has become increasingly clear.

On Friday a trilateral meeting was held in Brussels between Armenia, the EU, and the US, after which support worth nearly €335 million was pledged to ensure Armenia’s “democratic and economic resilience”, while allocating additional funding for the support of Karabakh Armenians.

Baku portrayed it as further evidence of the West’s “pro-Armenian stance”, while Moscow described it as an “anti-Russian orientation” that would threaten regional security. Armenia and the United States dismissed the claims.

“Resisting the gravitational pull of the Russian orbit is a difficult and even dangerous challenge, but it is even more dangerous not to try,” Richard Giragosian, head of the Yerevan-based Regional Studies Center think tank told Novaya Gazeta Europe.

He added that there was now a window of opportunity for Armenia. “Russia remains distracted and overwhelmed by its failed invasion of Ukraine. There is also a related opening for Armenia based on unprecedented Western interest in the country,” said Giragosian.

‘Frozen’ participation

The Second Nagorno-Karabakh War in 2020, which ended with the deployment of 2,000 Russian peacekeepers to the region, reassured ethnic Armenians that their security would be guaranteed. However, when Baku launched a lightning offensive to capture the enclave last September, those same peacekeepers stood aside and watched as more than 100,000 people — almost the entire population — were forced to flee the region en masse.

Exacerbated by a series of diplomatic spats between the two countries, the Armenian public’s trust in Russia has been damaged, even though Russia is often described as a “brotherly nation” and boasts the world’s largest Armenian diaspora. In a December 2023 poll commissioned by the International Republican Institute, 40% of Armenians said they viewed Russia as a political threat, behind only Azerbaijan and Turkey.

“The foundation on which Armenian-Russian relations were built, turned out to be hollow. If there is no Karabakh, if there are no security guarantees, Armenia does not need Russia,” Areg Kochinyan, the head of the Research Center on Security Policy in Yerevan, told Novaya Europe.

“The public’s displeasure and despair towards Russia is completely justified given the long-standing Armenian-Russian friendship and alliance,” according to Armenian journalist Gaiane Yenokian. “However, it is quite clear that the defence of Armenia and Artsakh [the Armenian name for Karabakh] was first and foremost a failure of the current Armenian government,” she continued.

In February, Pashinyan declared that Armenia had “frozen” its participation in the Russian-led Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) over its failure to respond to Armenian requests for intervention following the attack on Armenia by an emboldened Baku.

“If the CSTO hasn’t properly responded to Armenia’s demands, Armenia can start the process of exiting the bloc,” Aleksey Sandikov, a lawmaker from the ruling Civil Contract party and a representative of the Russian community in Armenia told Novaya Europe.

As well as threatening to leave the CSTO, Pashinyan used a recent interview with the French television channel France 24 to accuse the Kremlin of waging a propaganda campaign against him and “openly calling for the Armenian population to overthrow the government”.

Diverse diplomacy

As Russia supplies most of Armenia’s energy and remains its top export partner, Yerevan remains heavily dependent on Moscow economically, even if it can no longer rely on Russia as a security guarantor. Indeed, in 2023, Armenia’s trade turnover with Russia increased by 43% according to government data.

Despite Moscow’s leverage over Yerevan, experts believe Armenia should try to reduce its dependence on Russia and slowly bolster ties with the West.

“I think it is obvious that the Russians can retaliate and punish us for our decisions”, political scientist Areg Kochinyan explained. “The problem is to what extent Armenia is ready for those pressures.”

The Armenian government has been at pains to stress that its pivot to the West doesn’t mean that it has turned its back on Russia entirely. Instead, Pashinyan has characterised the recent changes as a “diversification” of Armenian foreign policy.

Yerevan has also been actively cultivating India as a new source of weapons after Russia delayed the delivery of military equipment worth over €370 million, stipulated in bilateral defence contracts signed after the 2020 war in Nagorno-Karabakh. India now provides Armenia with multiple-launch rocket systems, anti-tank rockets, air defence systems and ammunition.

France has been another increasingly important partner for the country. In October, an agreement was signed to supply Armenia with French military equipment to bolster its defences. February saw the French Defence Minister Sébastien Lecornu visit Yerevan for the first time. France has also been training Armenian troops at the country’s elite Saint-Cyr military academy.

In general, the significance of a country formally allied to Russia procuring weapons from a NATO country is hard to understate.

Boots on the ground

However, there remains a big obstacle to Armenia’s pivot away from the Kremlin — the Russian military.

Since 1995, Russia has maintained its 102nd military base in Gyumri, Armenia’s second-largest city, and a 2010 amendment to the agreement extended Moscow’s lease on the base until 2044.

Russian guards are still deployed along Armenia’s borders with Azerbaijan, Turkey and Iran, though the Russian military presence has failed to decrease border tensions.

When Azerbaijan attacked the border village of Nerkin Hand in February, the secretary of Armenia’s Security Council, Armen Grigoryan, accused Russian guards of preventing the European Union mission from accessing the area, a claim that was later confirmed by the EU’s head of mission in Armenia.

“It was proved on a number of occasions that they didn’t protect the borders and in fact did everything to make them more vulnerable,” said Alen Simonyan, the speaker of the Armenian parliament.

Armenia’s government is now trying to turn the tide and has ordered the Russian border guards, who are part of Russia’s Federal Security Service, to leave Yerevan’s Zvartnots International Airport, where they have been stationed since 1992, by August.

Losing an old friend

As Armenia’s centuries-old alliance with Russia crumbles, the country’s parliamentary opposition appears rather less eager to jump on the pro-European bandwagon.

“You can make new friends, of course, but you shouldn’t lose the ones you already have,” Agnesa Khamoyan, a lawmaker from the Armenia Alliance opposition bloc, told Novaya Europe.

Khamoyan stressed that the Armenian government must clarify the exact grounds for the presence of both EU and Russian troops on its soil to avoid potential confrontation in the future.

“Our main concern is that the small Republic of Armenia could become a centre of geopolitical conflict,” Khamoyan admitted, adding at the same that Armenia’s opposition did not condone Russia’s actions either, and had said as much to their counterparts in Moscow during closed-door meetings.

Nevertheless, the future direction of a country that has long been in Moscow’s orbit, but for whom forging new alliances looks increasingly vital, remains up in the air; a dilemma it’s hard not to look at in a new light since the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

“They still haven’t answered one very important question”, Khamoyan concluded, “namely, what the alternative to the CSTO would be.”