“Lavrov Warned Armenia Against Ceding Its National Security To NATO” in an interview late last year, but his well-intentioned advice went unheeded by its policymakers as proven by the latest developments in bilateral relations. The first of Yerevan’s provocations was its possible role in re-exporting Indian shells to Poland to pass along to Ukraine at the US’ behest. This scandal is still being investigated by Russia and India, but the preceding hyperlinked analysis argues that Armenia is guilty as charged.
Shortly afterwards, Chair of the Armenian Parliament’s Standing Committee on Foreign Relations Sargis Khandanyan said that his side prefers to continue peace talks with Azerbaijan under America’s aegis, which implied rejection of Russia’s traditional mediation role in this respect. This coincided with an informed source telling TASS that the German government is offering Armenia financial incentives to kick Russian troops out of the country and purge its alleged supporters from all state structures.
On Friday, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova then condemned unnamed Armenian officials who’ve sought to discredit the role of her country’s peacekeepers in Azerbaijan, which the media noted came after Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said that they didn’t protect the population. During the same weekly briefly, she also condemned the Neo-Nazi march in Yerevan right after New Year’s, which saw the sharing Nazi salutes and slogans in memory of a local fascist collaborator.
This sequence of events suggests that bilateral relations are spiraling out of the Kremlin’s control since it’s becoming increasingly clear that its Western adversaries are pulling Pashinyan’s strings. He’s complicit in this and must take full responsibility after voluntarily allowing himself to become that New Cold War bloc’s latest anti-Russian puppet out of revenge for Russia not waging war against Azerbaijan, which Armenia wanted it to do so as to perpetuate Karabakh’s former three-decade-long occupation.
Quite clearly, he never regarded Russia as an equal partner and didn’t respect the esteem with which its policymakers hold international law, instead having falsely believed that he could manipulate it into doing his country’s regional bidding out of the mistaken belief that it doesn’t care about the UN Charter. The Kremlin did its utmost to retain pragmatic ties and cultivate the improvement of economic ones all throughout his rule, but it was ultimately for naught as proven by Pashinyan’s condemnable behavior.
His government turned a blind eye towards this month’s Neo-Nazi march in Yerevan, is colluding with Germany to kick out Russian troops and purge the state of its supporters, and wants to replace that country’s mediation role with the US, which altogether sends a powerful message to Moscow. If he doesn’t reverse course or is stopped by patriotic civil society and/or state elements, then Armenia will become the US’ proxy for dividing-and-ruling the region, with all that entails for another possible war.
