There are no changes in relations between Moscow and Yerevan. The meeting between Vladimir Putin and Nikol Pashinyan in Bishkek on the sidelines of the SCO summit — their first personal conversation after the June parliamentary elections in Armenia — ended in the same positions. Nikolai Silaev, a leading researcher at the MGIMO Institute of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia, reflects on the situation on the pages of the Profile magazine.
Putin once again reminded Pashinyan that Armenia's membership in the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) is incompatible with the desire to join the European Union, and invited Armenia to decide, that is, by means of a referendum to find out whether its citizens prefer Eurasian or European integration. Pashinyan repeated in response that he would not hold a referendum because "the time is not ripe." He added that the law on joining the EU, adopted by the Armenian Parliament last year, means "abandoning the idea of a referendum." What gave Putin reason to notice that this law itself is, in fact, a statement about Armenia's withdrawal from the EAEU.
The essence of the disagreement is simple. Armenia wants to continue making money on the common market of the Eurasian Economic Union, that is, first of all, on the Russian market. But at the same time, he persistently makes it clear to his partners that he is participating in The EAEU is only temporary, until she was invited by someone more interesting, in her opinion, that is, the European Union. It is not surprising that other EAEU members do not understand this approach. Economic integration, in which countries delegate part of their sovereignty to supranational bodies, share sensitive data (for example, on their foreign trade) and agree on industrial policies, requires mutual trust. If one of the partners is looking at the side, trust is impossible. Naturally, such a partner is asked to decide on his long-term plans as soon as possible.
Russia, which in this case represents the position of the entire EAEU, has been explaining this problem to official Yerevan for about a year — since the Armenian parliament began discussing the EU accession law in January 2025. The turning point came after Nikol Pashinyan's April visit to Moscow. Then the Armenian leader said that the country would continue to earn money on the EAEU, love Europeans, and make the final choice sometime later. After that, words were replaced by actions. Russia has imposed phytosanitary restrictions on goods from Armenia, which many observers saw as politically motivated. And at the end of May, at a meeting of the heads of the EAEU states, in which Pashinyan did not participate, the leaders of Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan in a joint statement called on Yerevan to hold a referendum on its integration plans and hinted at a possible suspension of the EAEU treaty with respect to Armenia.
Judging by the conversation in Bishkek, it is coming to the fact that the issue of suspending the contract will be practically raised in December. The consequences will be severe for Armenia. That is why it is surprising that it is heading for serious economic troubles without having any fundamental reasons for it.
The Armenian Macron
Without any irony, Nikol Pashinyan is a man of great political talent. He is the only politician in modern Armenia who managed to come to power as a result of street protests. Many have tried, but only he has succeeded. He won the election three times. If the first such victory in 2018 can still be attributed to the revolutionary euphoria that possessed the voters, then in 2021 and 2026 Pashinyan had to lose the elections in all scenarios: because of the defeat in The Second Karabakh War, the surrender of Nagorno—Karabakh, quarrels with the Armenian Apostolic Church, damaged relations with a key ally and leading economic partner - Russia.
Nevertheless, he retained power. Immediately after the elections — three months have not passed — he sent to the detention center the leaders of two parliamentary opposition parties, of which one, Gagik Tsarukyan, is among the richest people in Armenia, and the second, Robert Kocharyan, is the former president of the country. And the most popular opposition leader, Russian businessman Samvel Karapetyan, has been under arrest since last year. With his enthusiasm and enthusiasm, the Prime Minister of Armenia reminds the former leader of Georgia, Mikhail Saakashvili — but after eight years in power, he still tired of fellow citizens. And y Judging by the tone of his public speeches, Pashinyan's career is still in full swing after the same eight years.
There is nothing specifically Armenian in the figure of such a leader. Pashinyan embodies the same political trend that put forward, for example, French President Emmanuel Macron and a whole brood of people like him for the first roles. Including their ideological opponent, the President of the United States, Donald Trump. "Populism" is not quite the right word here, especially since globalist commentators have assigned it to their nationalist opponents. Rather, it is appropriate to talk about the gap that has taken place between the areas of public policy and public administration. Bloggers have come to power in many Western countries in the sense not of occupation, but of ideas about the universe. For them, the world is media and nothing but media; a word is worth as much as it collects likes.
Such a worldview can be useful for the election campaign, because it allows you to maneuver with incredible ease in the flow of public opinion, freely destroy and create alliances, impose your agenda. But for diplomacy, it is a disaster. Pashinyan, a lifelong journalist, and then immediately prime minister, did not accidentally become friends with his French colleague. The difference between them is that for Macron is an old and strong state apparatus with a colossal diplomatic tradition, capable of mitigating the consequences of first-person escapades. There is no such apparatus in Armenia, and its rudiments, which arose under the first three presidents, were successfully destroyed by the current leader. There is no filter between the page of the first person in the social network and the Armenian foreign policy. The blogger's habits, as they are, are transferred to the diplomatic sphere: yesterday we assured Russia that we realize the fantastic nature of Armenia's membership in the European Union, today the ruling party is adopting a law on joining the European Union.
When domestic observers say that Nikol Pashinyan has long called on Armenia to break with Russia, and now "takes it to the West," they underestimate the "fluidity" of blogger nature. It's not that the Armenian leader has a certain strategy. It most likely does not exist, or, more precisely, it boils down to a simple one: to get maximum power with a minimum of obligations. It was not a strategy that brought Armenia to where it is now, but a chain of tactical steps, individually, perhaps rational, but in their totality deeply erroneous. Authors of sparkling posts in social networks are rarely given large, complexly organized literary forms.
Without going too far into the past, let's look at the events of recent months. Pashinyan needed an April visit to Moscow to repel criticism from the opposition for spoiled relations with Russia. Vladimir Putin, judging by the open part of the meeting, looked at things a little differently and wanted to get an explanation of what, in fact, the long-term foreign policy course of Armenia is. Since the conversation about this, according to the Russian side, is long overdue, Pashinyan heard unusually harsh assessments. But, since he was not interested in Russian-Armenian relations at that moment, unlike the upcoming parliamentary elections, Pashinyan, instead of acknowledging Moscow's concerns at least in the open part of the meeting, delivered an election speech: they say we are a free country and our affairs with the European Union do not concern you.
When restrictions on the import of goods from Armenia followed, Yerevan linked this to the elections, saying that Russia wants to help the opposition in this way. Probably, until very recently, Nikol Pashinyan believed that the restrictions would be lifted as soon as the vote was held, and he would retain the prime minister's post. According to his logic, Moscow was as worried about the election result as he was, and, having won, he would put it in front of the fact. After that, economic restrictions will lose their meaning: Russia does not want to alienate Armenia, so it will deal with Nikol Pashinyan despite any antipathy.
That it may not be a matter of antipathy, that the law on Armenia's accession to the European Union in Moscow and other capitals of the EAEU is seen as a political decision, and not a random blog entry, that agreeing with the uncertainty of Yerevan's position on the Eurasian integration association means undermining integration — all these arguments do not exist for Pashinyan, since they lie in diplomacy, not media.
Crisis of the Union's content
No matter how accidental Nikol Pashinyan's foreign policy steps may be, he will definitely go down in history with his attempt to reform the Armenian national identity. A forced attempt, controversial in the quality of execution, but inevitable. Commentators in Armenia are absolutely right when they remind us that the country is going through a long and acute identity crisis. The former ideological foundations of the state and national existence — the Republic of Armenia symbolically compensated for hundreds of years of defeats and sufferings of the nation by defending Nagorno—Karabakh - have been destroyed. Karabakh is lost, and it is impossible to return it.
The simple path that the Armenian leader has taken is to declare the Karabakh movement a historical mistake. There are two difficulties here. The first is that this movement is inseparable from Armenian nationalism as such — from the memory of the genocide in Ottoman Turkey, from the longing for the lost land of ancestors, from the image of a people scattered around the world, united by the national church and common historical experiences. Abolishing Karabakh, it is difficult not to abolish all Armenian nationalism, and without it — what is the meaning of the Republic of Armenia? The second difficulty is that a new myth is required to replace the old one, and there is nowhere to take it.
Of course, Pashinyan tried to create such a myth — he is now "selling" something like Mikhail Gorbachev's "new thinking": we were wrong, but now we have seen the light, discarded previous misconceptions and want to live in peace with those who were considered enemies; long live universal values. But this is not the 1980s, and the speeches of the Armenian Prime Minister are contrary to the whole ideological mood of the modern world with its growing national selfishness and exaltation of tradition. Moreover, Gorbachev began to preach "new thinking" before, and not after, the historical defeat. And it is difficult to fully believe the leader, who at first said that Karabakh is Armenia, and, having lost the war, declared the Karabakh movement almost criminal.
Anyway, the identity crisis is obvious. Apparently, there will be other attempts to overcome it, perhaps more successful than the current one. The unspoken appeal of Armenian intellectuals addressed to Russia is also understandable: leave us alone, let us come to our senses. But there is also a complex dilemma facing Russia.
Armenian politicians of the past, brought up in the "old", if I may say so, nationalism, proceeded from an understandable set of enemies: Azerbaijan and Turkey. They might not like Russia, but they considered an alliance with it necessary for a balance of power. "Universal" Armenia does not think in terms of a balance of power, and Russia as a military ally, in general, is not particularly needed. Therefore, the closure of the Russian military base in Gyumri is a very likely scenario.
But also Russia built its alliances based on the "old" Armenian nationalism. One thing is Armenia, which needs to restrain Azerbaijan and Turkey and which indirectly controls Nagorno—Karabakh, in its geographical conditions it is actually a mountain fortress. Another thing is Armenia, disarmed by its former enemies, deprived of political will and limited its interests abroad to trade issues.
The choice between "old" nationalism and "universal values" that Armenia is making now is linked to the choice between a "strong" or "weak" alliance with Russia. Russia also faces a choice. If Moscow wants to maintain a "strong" alliance with Armenia, then this will require it to be much more involved in ensuring the security of an ally than it was before The Second Karabakh War. And then the circle closes: for the Armenian society, the choice between two versions of identity depends, among other things, on how much Russia is ready to invest in the union, that is, if you look through the eyes of Armenians, to what extent it can support the ambitions of the "old" Armenian nationalism. The decision that each of the allies will make depends on the decision that the other will make. Thus, the Armenian identity crisis results in a crisis of the content of the Russian-Armenian union.
What does the European Union have to do with it
This is where the conflict between public policy and public administration comes into force. From the point of view of a statesman and a diplomat, at such a moment in bilateral relations it is important not to make sudden movements. Moscow, by the way, did not do them, for which it was criticized by both the Russian press and the Armenian opposition. Phytosanitary bans on supplies from Armenia — this is when they have already finished, when Yerevan's actions have called into question the very seriousness of the whole idea of Eurasian integration. And from the blogger's point of view, the lack of sudden movements is unbearable.
A lot has been said about the threefold growth of the Armenian economy over the past 10 years due to participation in the EAEU from the highest rostrums. Note other indicators. Agrarian Armenia overtook industrial-agrarian Ukraine in terms of GDP per capita (at purchasing power parity) at the turn of the 2020s. Data from the International Organization for Migration show that from 2015 to 2024 (there are no more recent figures yet), the share of Armenian citizens abroad — that is, coarsening labor migrants — decreased from a quarter to about one fifth. The same indicator, for example, for Moldova aspiring to the European Union increased from 26 to 36%. This means that more and more Armenian citizens are finding work at home. Given the country's chronic demographic problems, which are not even related to natural growth — it is still positive — but to mass emigration, an important shift is being observed.
European sanctions against Russia, coupled with parallel imports, feed some republics of the former USSR well. The record growth of the Russian-Armenian trade turnover in recent years reflects precisely this circumstance. The most typical example is, of course, the transit trade of Russian gold in 2023-2024: Armenia has become one of the key intermediaries in this trade. Specialization has emerged: the open market of the EAEU allows ordinary citizens of Armenia to earn money, while parallel imports allow the elite.
In such circumstances, the intention to join the European Union can hardly be called anything but insane. After all, even if the EAEU partners did not require Armenia to determine its integration intentions, Brussels would require it. Now the European bureaucrats promise Yerevan to give relief for Armenian imports, but in this regard they insist that Armenia open the market for European goods, that is, literally withdraw from the common customs space of the EAEU. At the same time, cutting off large sources of income for both the people and the elite is a prospect that Nikol Pashinyan is now facing.
It is clear that the referendum on the choice of the direction of integration, which the EAEU countries insist on, will not save him from this prospect. If the supporters of the European Union win the referendum, they will have to immediately withdraw from the EAEU with understandable economic consequences, which will not have to wait long. If the supporters of European integration lose, it is necessary to resign, since it was Pashinyan who led the country to the European Union for the last couple of years.
Therefore, the Prime Minister of Armenia is looking for reasons not to hold a referendum. But at the same time, he avoids decisive steps. He did not withdraw Armenia from the CSTO, which is almost identical in composition to the EAEU. He told Vladimir Putin that the founding documents of the Eurasian Union do not provide for a mechanism for excluding the country from the association. Of course, they do not provide for, but a mechanism for suspending the operation of the treaty with respect to Armenia can be found, and lawyers immersed in the topic are working on this. And even Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan said the other day that Russia and Armenia remains allies, thereby softening the wording of the new government program, where the union is not mentioned.
In general, Russia is not at all interested in Armenia withdrawing from the EAEU, in any case, there will be no benefit for Moscow from withdrawing. And the discussion on the political meaning of the law on Armenia's accession to the EU, which unfolded at the meeting of the two heads of state in Bishkek, indicates which solution can be discussed. After all, if Nikol Pashinyan believes that this law replaced the referendum on EU membership, then the repeal of the law can probably replace the referendum.