Armenia’s prime minister visited Moscow on Wednesday and met with Russian President Vladimir Putin amid rising tensions between the estranged allies.
President Putin invited Nikol Pashinyan to a meeting after the summit of the Eurasian Economic Union, a Moscow-led economic union. Both were said to have attended earlier in the day. The talks came a day after Putin began his fifth term in office with a colorful Kremlin inauguration ceremony.
Armenian Prime Minister calls for quick border agreement to avoid conflict with Azerbaijan
In brief remarks at the beginning of the meeting, President Putin acknowledged that bilateral trade was expanding but acknowledged “some problems regarding regional security.”
“Since then, certain problems have piled up,” said Pashinyan, who last visited Moscow in December.
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan attends a meeting of the Supreme Eurasian Economic Council of the Eurasian Economic Union at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia, Wednesday, May 8, 2024. Russian President Vladimir Putin praised the economic union for the boost. Members’ economic potential. (Evgenia Novogenina/Pool Photo via AP)
After Azerbaijan launched a surprise military operation in September to retake the Karabakh region, ending three decades of ethnic Armenian separatist rule in the region, Relations with Russia, an ally, are becoming increasingly strained.
Armenian authorities have accused Russian peacekeepers sent to Nagorno-Karabakh after the last fighting in 2020 of failing to stop Azerbaijan’s onslaught. Moscow, which has military bases in Armenia, rejects the accusations, saying its military does not have the authority to intervene.
The Kremlin, meanwhile, is furious at Mr. Pashinyan’s efforts to deepen ties with the West and distance his country from Moscow-led security and economic alliances.
On Wednesday, just as Pashinyan visited Moscow, Armenia’s Foreign Ministry announced that the country would stop paying fees to the Collective Security Treaty Organization, a Russian-led security pact. Armenia had previously suspended its participation in the group as Pashinyan seeks to strengthen ties with the European Union and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
Russia was also outraged by Armenia’s decision last year to join the International Criminal Court, which indicted President Putin on war crimes charges related to Russia’s actions in Ukraine.
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The Russian government, busy with the Ukraine conflict now in its third year, has publicly expressed concern about Yerevan’s shift toward the West, but has sought to downplay the differences.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov acknowledged on Tuesday that “there are certain problems in bilateral relations,” but added: “There is political will to continue dialogue.”
