by Michael Rubin
American critics and Turkish propagandists in the Washington think tank and lobbying world continue to criticize the Russian troop presence in Armenia as evidence that Armenia is a Russian satrapy and hostile to Western interests.
It is an argument false on its face and ignorant of history. The Red Army established a military base in Gyumri, Armenia’s second largest city, at the end of World War II to house the 261st Rifle Division. After the Cold War began, Soviet Armenia and Nakhchivan’s border with Turkey, was one of only two the Soviet Union shared with NATO. Moscow redesignated the unit, first as the 37th Rifle Division and then the 127th Motor Rifle Division. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia redesignated the Gyumri facility as the 102nd Military Base. Its mission remains to guard the Armenia-Turkey border.
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To ignore history and suggest that Russia’s presence means Armenia is a Russian puppet is analogous to insisting that the US base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, makes Cuba’s communist regime an American puppet. Such an argument would be factually wrong.
Armenia today is less in Russia’s orbit than either Georgia or Moscow’s oil-and-gas partner Azerbaijan. Armenia’s 2018 Velvet Revolution undercut Russia’s traditional influence in Armenia. Russian failure to protect Nagorno-Karabakh’s Armenians against Azerbaijan’s attacks in 2020 and 2023 solidified distrust for Russia at a popular level. Meanwhile, the Russian base in Gyumri is particularly unpopular among city residents due to the misbehavior of Russian troops that culminated in the January 2015 murder by Valery Permyakov of a local family of seven. Armenians resent that Russian forces did not hand Permyakov over to their custody, but instead insisted any Armenian court try him on the base. Armenians resent that he serves his life sentence in Russia rather than in Armenia. While Permyakov’s crime was the worst, such criminality is the rule rather than the exception. Armenians complain that Russian soldiers engage in disorderly conduct and petty crime with impunity. In August 2025, Armenian protestors demonstrated outside the base calling for its closure and Russia’s complete withdrawal.
That withdrawal seems only a matter of time given Armenia’s pivot westward, Russia’s troop shortage and its military needs elsewhere. While the Russian lease is set to end in 2044, it appears unlikely that Russian troops will remain so long.
While Armenians want little to do with Russia, they do worry about their borders. Turkey is an irredentist power, seeking to redraw boundaries and rewrite century-old treaties. Turkey’s refusal to recognize the Armenian genocide, meanwhile, means that far from delegitimizing Turkey’s drive to erase Armenia and Armenians, the Turkish government nurtures such beliefs.
As Russia leaves, Armenia should turn toward Greece to replace it. As a NATO member, Turkey’s complaints about a Greek deployment would fall flat outside Ankara. Turkey’s effort to deploy troops to Gaza undercut any argument it might have about historical baggage or the inappropriateness of Greek troops on its borders. As a fellow victim of Turkish-perpetrated genocide, Greeks approach Armenia with sympathy and understand their fears. While Russia would resent any replacement, Greek Orthodoxy’s ties to the Armenian and Russian church would bypass cultural incongruity.
Nor should an Armenian government committed to its country’s security and defense stop with Greece. As President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio seek to advance Armenia-Azerbaijan peace, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has opposed any role for European observers to monitor the border and lines of control.
Trump and Rubio might sidestep the letter if not the spirit of Aliyev’s contrived concerns by contracting Indian peacekeepers to help observe and patrol the Armenia-Azerbaijan frontier. If Aliyev prizes peace, he will have little cause for complain about Indian presence: Indians are among the most experienced peacekeepers, and their military is adept at patrolling mountainous, harsh terrain. Azerbaijan’s own contracting of Pakistani mercenaries makes any complaint about Indian observers hypocritical.
Azerbaijan’s invasion, the cynicism of Russian peacekeepers, Turkey’s willingness to shred precedent, and Azerbaijan’s demand for the dissolution of the Minsk Group may seem like hindrances to peace and security, but they do also open new opportunities should Armenian diplomats and Armenian diaspora abroad demand them. The future for Armenia’s border security lay less in peace with Ankara and Baku, and more with assistance from Athens and Delhi.
(Michael Rubin is director of policy analysis at the Middle East Forum and a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.)