According to Azerbaijan’s State Statistics Committee, Azerbaijan exported $17.1 million worth of goods to Armenia during the first half of 2026. During the same period, imports from Armenia amounted to just $960.
It is worth recalling that Armenia’s Customs Service reported no data on exports to Azerbaijan. In other words, it remains unclear what goods Armenia supposedly exported for those $960. Even if we assume that the actual figure was around $1,000, comparing it with $17.1 million is simply absurd.
What do these figures actually reveal?
The figures clearly refer to fuel exports from Azerbaijan to Armenia. Moreover, the quantities involved are too small to have any meaningful impact on Armenia’s fuel market, given the country’s overall consumption. This makes it clear that the issue is driven not by economic logic but by an entirely different agenda.
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The reality on the ground is that Armenia has effectively contributed $17.1 million to Azerbaijan’s economy, while Azerbaijan has contributed barely $1,000 to Armenia’s. That disparity would be almost laughable were it not a symptom of much more serious developments unfolding under the banner of Armenian-Azerbaijani economic cooperation.
In reality, the statistics point not to the emergence of genuine economic ties but to a process in which, under the guise of “economic connectivity,” Armenia’s economy is gradually being turned into an appendage of Azerbaijan’s economy.
The $17.1 million-to-$1,000 ratio is only the beginning. It marks, so to speak, the testing phase—a period of gradually conditioning public opinion, business attitudes, and broader social perceptions to accept this new reality. Once that process reaches a satisfactory level, the volume of such transactions will inevitably increase, and so will the imbalance.
Unfortunately, it is difficult to imagine a different outcome. If Armenia’s state policy in the military and political sphere is itself being transformed into an extension of Azerbaijan’s strategic agenda, there is little chance that the economy will remain unaffected. On the contrary, it is simply waiting for its turn—and that turn is drawing ever closer.
Nor is this merely a moral issue, important though that aspect undoubtedly is. Any state policy is reduced to little more than a façade once it loses its moral backbone. What is ultimately at stake, however, is the risk of depriving Armenia of its economic backbone as well.
Evidence of that process can already be seen within Armenia itself, where economic policy and economic priorities are increasingly being sacrificed to the political interests of those in power.
Hakob BADALYAN
