Russia has again accused the West of promoting a “destructive agenda” for the South Caucasus, reiterating what a senior Foreign Ministry official in Moscow has described as “centuries-old ties” with Armenia and its people.
Maria Zakharova, a spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry, on Thursday reacted to recent comments by U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs James O’Brien who said during a July 30 hearing at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that Washington was assisting Armenia’s political leadership in its efforts to “break with Russia.”
O’Brien also argued that “much of the population [of Armenia] want to get further from Russia” after Moscow failed to guarantee Armenia’s security following the 2020 war with Azerbaijan and “turned its back as Azerbaijan retook the territory around Nagorno-Karabakh.”
In her response to a question posed by a state-funded Russian media outlet, Zakharova rejected these statements by the senior U.S. official as unfounded. She stressed that “centuries-old ties between Russia and Armenia will withstand all the tests that the West puts them through.”
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“The American official only reaffirmed what we regularly tell our partners, including in Yerevan, namely, that the West is promoting a destructive agenda in the South Caucasus, with the main goal of fragmenting the region and destroying Russia’s historical ties with its traditional allies and neighbors,” Zakharova claimed.
“Throughout history, we have repeatedly lent a shoulder to the brotherly Armenian people, and we intend to do so also in the future,” she added.
This is not the first time Moscow officials have attempted to put a brave face on what has clearly been a rapidly deteriorating relationship between Russia and Armenia over security issues.
Armenia has effectively suspended its membership in the Collective Security Treaty Organization and is threatening to withdraw from the Moscow-led security grouping of six former Soviet nations altogether due to its failure to respond to repeated border incursions from Azerbaijan in 2021 and 2022. At the same time, Yerevan has strengthened its military ties with Western nations, including France and the United States. Armenia, a member of the Russian-led Eurasian Economic Union, has also been more vocal recently about its potential bid to join the European Union.
A survey conducted by the Washington-based International Republican Institute in March showed that 66 percent of people in Armenia had a negative view of Russia, compared to 49 percent who felt the same way a year earlier.