We can no longer trust Russia to protect us, Armenian PM says: POLITICIAN

YEREVAN — Russia’s catastrophic invasion of Ukraine means Armenia can no longer rely on Moscow as a guarantor of its security, even as fears grow of a return to open conflict with Azerbaijan, the Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan told POLITICO in an interview.

Pashinyan’s unusually pointed criticism of Russia’s inability to police the Caucasus only adds to the sense that the Kremlin is losing its influence, and its once-cherished superpower status, in the former Soviet republics that Moscow saw once as its stamp point.

Disillusionment in Yerevan could represent a major turning point for the country of 2.8 million people, which has devolved much control of its railways, energy sector and even its borders in Russia after the collapse of the USSR. When Armenia fought a 44-day war against the stronger, Turkish-backed forces of Azerbaijan in 2020, a conflict that killed thousands on each side, it was Russian peacekeepers who were deployed to maintain a ceasefire.

Now that Russia is fully committed to the fight in Ukraine, fears are growing in Yerevan about whether President Vladimir Putin’s troops are willing or able to keep the peace in the Caucasus. This is an urgent concern because there is every danger that Armenia could resume fighting with Azerbaijan over the separatist enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh.

“As a result of the events in Ukraine, Russia’s capabilities have changed,” Pashinyan said, acknowledging that Moscow was trying to avoid alienating Azerbaijan and its close ally Turkey, both increased in strategic importance for the Kremlin since the start of the Ukraine war last year.

“Our strategy should be to try in this situation to reduce our dependence on others as much as possible,” he added. “We want to have an independent country, a sovereign country, but we have to have ways to avoid ending up at the center of confrontations between West and East, North and South… There is no case in which Armenia become a ‘proxy’. This is not allowed.”

He argued that calling on the great protector—Russia in Armenia’s case—every time a conflict erupted was simply unsustainable.

“The model that we have problems with our neighbors and we have to invite others to protect us, no matter who those others are, is a very vulnerable model.”

Growing tensions

Within Azerbaijan’s internationally recognized borders but controlled by its ethnic Armenian population, Nagorno-Karabakh has been the scene of two wars since the collapse of the Soviet Union, with Russia intervening on both occasions to ensure its security.

Now, Moscow’s ability to guarantee the status quo appears to be evaporating.

“The security situation has changed sharply with violations along the contact line and invasion into the territory of Nagorno-Karabakh,” Pashinyan said, accusing Azerbaijan of creating a “humanitarian crisis” by closing the Lachin Corridor , the only road linking the region to Armenia, which Moscow’s troops were tasked with protecting under the terms of the 2020 ceasefire.

Aid organizations say food and fuel deliveries have been blocked for months notices of imminent famine in the region. The government of Azerbaijan has asked Karabakh Armenians to lay down their arms, receive supplies from Azerbaijan and agree to be governed as part of the country.

This offered a clear signal that Russia was no longer pulling its weight, Pashinyan complained.

“All of this … was supposed to be in the sphere of responsibility of Russian peacekeepers, and to the extent that these problems exist, Russian peacekeepers have failed in their mission,” he said.

Still, he added a caveat: “Although I cannot say that if the Russian peacekeepers had not been in Nagorno-Karabakh, the situation now would be better.”

Frustration over the failure of Russian forces to help is part of a pattern of worsening ties between Moscow and Yerevan.

Last week, the Russian Foreign Ministry said yes summoned the Armenian ambassador for a “difficult” conversation over what he described as a series of hostile steps, citing Yerevan’s decision to send humanitarian aid to Ukraine for the first time, with Pashinyan’s wife, Anna Hakobyan, making a official visit to Kiev. Armenia has also withdrawn its representative from the Moscow-led CSTO military alliance of which it is a member. previously accused the blog of failing to act on their pleas for support after Azerbaijan launched an offensive across the border last September.

Instead, it has invited US soldiers to conduct joint exercises in the country as part of it exercises codenamed Eagle Partner 2023. Russia has received the decision.

Earlier on Tuesday, Anthony Brenton, former British ambassador to Russia, said so Reuters that Moscow’s “abject performance in Ukraine” has forced states like Armenia that once depended on it for support to start “looking for other, more reliable protectors.”

In a speech the same day, Putin claimed that Russia could do little in Nagorno-Karabakh after Armenia recognized as sovereign territory of Azerbaijan earlier this year. Pashinyan confirmed that position in the interview with POLITICO, but said it is now up to the international community to ensure that “ethnic cleansing” does not take place in the region.

Neighborhood relations

Both Azerbaijani and Armenian troops have been put on high alert along their shared border confrontations in recent days, with the EU’s own civilian surveillance mission reports “rising tensions and crossfire” along the border. According to Pashinyan, “it is not possible to exclude the escalation scenario”, but he said that “the forces that have been mobilized should return to their bases” and insisted that “Armenia is ready to do this”.

The prime minister reiterated his support for the talks, brokered by the US, the EU and Russia, in an effort to reach a peace deal after decades of conflict with Azerbaijan. An agreement following a war following the fall of the Soviet Union in the 1990s has seen Moscow’s soldiers take responsibility for patrolling Armenia’s borders.

“If we want to have lasting and eternal statehood, first of all we have to take very serious steps and invest very serious efforts to fix our relations with our neighbors,” he said.

While acknowledging the need to break dependence on former ally Russia, Pashinyan admitted there was a long way to go before Western countries could be seen to provide all the support Armenia needs.

“Our partners, the EU and the United States are also supporting us when it comes to the democratic reform agenda,” he said, before adding: “I cannot say that the support and help we are getting is sufficient to serve our goals and our agendas”.