Armenia Can No Longer Rely on Moscow as Security Guarantor, Pashinyan

"Russia's disastrous invasion of Ukraine means that Armenia can no longer rely on Moscow as its security guarantor, even as fears grow about returning to open conflict with Azerbaijan," POLITICO quoted Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan in an interview.

“Due to the events occurring in Ukraine, Russia's capabilities have changed,” Pashinyan stated, acknowledging that Moscow seeks to avoid alienating Azerbaijan and its close ally Turkey, both of which have been strategically important to the Kremlin since the start of the Ukrainian war last year.

“Our strategy must be to try to minimize our dependence on others in this situation,” he added. “We want to have an independent country, a sovereign country, but we must have ways to avoid becoming caught in the center of confrontations between the West and the East, the North and the South… There can be no case where Armenia becomes a proxy. This is unacceptable,” Pashinyan noted.

According to the outlet, Pashinyan said that “every time the conflict flared up,” Russia was “simply unstable.”

“The model under which we have issues with our neighbors, and we have to invite others to protect us, regardless of who they are, is a very vulnerable model,” Pashinyan emphasized. He also reaffirmed his support for the negotiations mediated by the United States, the European Union, and Russia to reach a peace agreement with Azerbaijan.

“If we want to have lasting, eternal statehood, we must first take very serious steps and make very serious efforts to regulate our relations with our neighbors,” he said.

Speaking about allied relations with Russia, Pashinyan said that “there is still a long way to go before Western countries can be considered as providing the full support that Armenia needs.”

“Our partners, the EU and the United States, also support us when it comes to the democratic reform agenda,” he noted. “I cannot say that the support and assistance we receive are sufficient to serve our goals and our agendas,” the Prime Minister added.