Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan gave a provocative interview to the Italian La Repubblica newspaper that can be read in full at his official website here. TASS then quoted an unnamed Russian diplomatic source in their report here who expressed their country’s “extreme dissatisfaction” with Pashinyan’s latest media appearance, while Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov’s criticism here was milder. These highlights from Pashinyan’s interview show why Russia is so upset. According to him:
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* Russian peacekeepers failed to protect Karabakh’s Armenian residents:
– “In fact, yes, it turns out that the peacekeepers of the Russian Federation failed to implement the mission they have assumed under the tripartite statement and this is a matter of serious concern. Essentially, one of the main objectives of the presence of the Russian peacekeepers in Nagorno Karabakh was to ensure the security of the civilian population. In this case security involves the freedom of movement, and this right is not implemented, which is a matter of concern.”
* Armenia is souring on the CSTO because Russia didn’t go to war against Azerbaijan on its behalf
– “I at least can say that the situation you described in terms of Collective Security Treaty’s functionality and treaty-worthiness attests to the existence of a crisis. I do not think this is the problem of only Armenia, it is the problem of the entire CSTO. As for possible explanation, you know, that could be different explanations for that, but at least from our perspective, the explanations do not matter. The fact that the Armenian public is deeply disappointed and continues to be disappointed by the Collective Security Treaty Organization’s actions is obvious.”
* Allying With Russia Was “A Strategic Mistake”
– “Armenia’s security architecture 99,999% was linked to Russia, including in the logic of procurement of arms and ammunition, but today we see that Russia itself is in need of weapons, arms and ammunition and in this situation it’s understandable that even if it wishes so, the Russian Federation cannot meet Armenia’s security needs. This example should demonstrate to us that dependence of linkage in security matters from just one partner is just a strategic mistake.”
* Armenia Predicts That Russia Might One Day Suddenly Leave The South Caucasus
– “In fact, for quite a long time the Russian Federation is present in our region, the South Caucasus. But we have observed situations when overnight, within a month or within a year the Russian Federation just got up and left South Caucasus…there are processes which of course lead us to believe that all these scenarios may repeat, we just can wake up one day and see that Russia is not here.”
* Russia Is Either Backstabbing Armenia Or Backing Down From Azerbaijan
– “I have to agree with your formulation that the Lachin Corridor that should have been under the control of the Russian peacekeepers is not under the control of the Russian peacekeepers. There may be two reasons, either the Russian Federation cannot maintain control over the Lachin Corridor, or it just doesn’t want to. Both are problematic from our perspective.”
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Background Briefing
Before analyzing his provocative statements, the reader should review the following pieces to familiarize themselves with Russia’s evolving approach to the South Caucasus over the years:
* 1 September 2017: “Russia’s Foreign Policy Progressives Have Trumped The Traditionalists”
* 15 September 2017: “Russia’s New Thinking Towards Armenia And Azerbaijan: An ‘Obstructionist’ vs. An ‘Integrationalist’”
* 14 November 2020: “The End of the Nagorno-Karabakh War: Retrospection, Clarification, and Forecast”
* 18 November 2020: “Analytical Reflections: Learning from the Nagorno-Karabakh Fiasco”
* 19 September 2022: “The Putin-Aliyev & Pelosi-Pashinyan Meetings Discredited Alternative & Mainstream Narratives”
* 20 September 2022: “Could Armenia Really Ditch The CSTO Sometime Soon?”
* 31 January 2023: “Korybko To Azerbaijani Media: The West Is Exploiting Armenia To Divide The South Caucasus”
* 24 May 2023: “The Devil’s In The Details When It Comes To Pashinyan’s Karabakh Peace Proposal”
* 6 July 2023: “French Neocolonialism In The South Caucasus Threatens Russia’s Security Interests”
This insight will now be summarized for the reader’s convenience so that they can better understand the reaction of TASS’ unnamed Russian Foreign Ministry source to Pashinyan’s latest interview.
Geostrategic Changes From 2017-2023
The first two analyses concern the way in which Russian policymakers began to reconceptualize Armenia and Azerbaijan’s regional roles over half a decade ago, namely by observing how the first was now moving west while the second was moving east. This trend represented the opposite of their traditional roles. The first was due to the radical pro-Western ultra-nationalist diaspora’s growing influence over Yerevan while the second was attributable to the start of Western meddling campaigns against Baku.
As those two switched roles, Russia still remained loyal to its obligations to defend the Armenian state’s existence, but it wasn’t going to wage war on Azerbaijan at its ally’s behest in order to perpetuate Yerevan’s illegal occupation of Karabakh. The related policymaking calculations and their associated nuances were discussed in the third and fourth analyses shared above, while the remainder deal with Armenia’s post-war pivot to NATO and specifically to France where many of the diaspora reside.
Instead of responsibly withdrawing its occupation forces from Karabakh per the Russian-mediated ceasefire that arguably saved the Armenian state’s existence in late 2020, that country continued obfuscating the peace processes and agitating for another round of war against Azerbaijan. The region’s hopes of integrating into a crucial geo-economic node at the tri-continental crossroads of Afro-Eurasia were dashed as a result of Pashinyan capitulating to his pro-Western ultra-nationalist diaspora.
The Latest Dynamics
Russia and President Putin in particular spent the past nearly three years trying their best to convince Pashinyan to comply with the ceasefire terms that he himself officially agreed to in November 2020 but to no avail. Sensing that Azerbaijan is preparing to fully resolve this stalemated conflict through military means and knowing that there’s no chance that Russia will declare war on it, Pashinyan is desperately trying to procure some “security guarantees” from NATO via France to deter Baku and rankle Moscow.
Paris is unlikely to act unilaterally, while the anti-Russian bloc of which it’s a part hasn’t the appetite nor arms to wage another protracted proxy war. NATO is now fatigued and has already depleted its arsenals fighting Russia through Ukraine over the past 18 months. Yerevan’s dastardly plot to open up another hot front in the New Cold War that’s being fought over the global systemic transition to multipolarity will therefore fail and could even backfire much worse than the latest conflict that it provoked in 2020.
The nightmare scenario for Armenia would be if Russia considers its CSTO obligation to defend that country’s existence null and void in the event that Pashinyan unilaterally invites French/NATO forces onto his territory as part of a misguided effort to send the aforementioned signals to Baku and Moscow. Azerbaijan could then steamroll through Armenia’s Syunik Province to physically carve out its Zangezur Corridor to Nakhchivan and eliminate all chances that Yerevan can ever threaten Karabakh again.
Concluding Thoughts
What’s really happening nowadays isn’t that Russia betrayed Armenia, but that Armenia betrayed Russia by trying to manipulate it into a war against Azerbaijan. Ever since the Kremlin refused to perpetuate that country’s illegal occupation of Karabakh, its radical pro-Western ultra-nationalist diaspora ordered Pashinyan to pivot to NATO and specifically to France. Armenia’s geopolitical existence is being gambled for a hopeless cause, but it’s still not too late to avert the worst-case scenario if Pashinyan truly wants to.
