Moscow accused the West of pressuring Armenia to leave Russian-led blocs and end Russia’s military presence in the country when it reacted to Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s talks with top U.S. and European Union officials on Friday.
The Russian Foreign Ministry claimed that the trilateral talks held in Brussels are part of Western attempts to draw the South Caucasus into the “geopolitical confrontation” with Russia.
“It is obvious that the West wants to turn Armenia into an instrument for the implementation of its extremely dangerous plans in the South Caucasus,” it charged in a statement. “We know that Washington and Brussels, under ephemeral promises, are seeking Armenia’s withdrawal from the [Collective Security Treaty Organization] and the [Eurasian Economic Union,] the withdrawal of the Russian military base and border guards.”
“We call on the leadership in Yerevan not to allow the West to deceive it and lead the country down the wrong path fraught with the emergence of a security vacuum, serious problems in the economy and outflow of population,” it said. “The volumes of [EU and U.S.] grant support announced in Brussels cannot be compared with the multibillion-dollar benefits that Armenia continues to receive from interaction with Moscow and within the [Eurasian Economic Union] and the CIS frameworks.”
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The ministry spokeswoman, Maria Zakharova, made similar claims last week. She dismissed Yerevan’s assurances that Pashinyan’s trilateral meeting with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is “not directed against any third party.”
“We are not going to be anyone’s instrument,” Armenian Deputy Foreign Minister Kostanian insisted on Thursday. He denied that Yerevan is facing Western pressure to leave the CSTO or the EEU.
Blinken and von der Leyen did not comment on Armenia’s ties with Russia in their statements to the press made just before the meeting with Pashinyan. They announced instead that the EU and the U.S. will provide a total of over $356 million in additional aid designed to strengthen Armenia’s economic “resilience.”
The Brussels talks came amid a continuing deterioration of Russian-Armenian relations. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said last week that Pashinyan’s increasingly pro-Western foreign policy is leading to the “collapse” of those relations.