"The main attacker": Zatulin on Pashinyan as the best prime minister for Baku

Konstantin Zatulin, First Deputy Chairman of the Russian State Duma Committee on CIS Affairs, commented on the Armenian-Russian relations and the negotiation process around the peace treaty between Armenia and Azerbaijan to Alpha News agency.

"Pashinyan, just in case, did not go to Russia, preferring to talk at a distance. He and his government are taking the most diverse steps in order to prove that they want to break away from Russia and move to the Western side. I believe that we are unlikely to achieve anything if we want to achieve loyalty from our ally Armenia while Pashinyan is at the head of Armenia.

While simultaneously destroying the military-political alliance with Russia, he will continue to try to maintain economic ties in order to benefit. We are not making any claims to the Armenian government on this score yet, but I don't think it will last forever, because this government is already too definitely going the other way," Zatulin says.

According to the MP, the tragedy that happened to Karabakh also damaged the interests of Russia.:

"I think that the tragic episode in the whole history is the loss of Nagorno—Karabakh. He ended up in Azerbaijan as a result of a military operation. I believe that this has damaged Russia's long-term interests. It is clear that we were not ready to fight if Armenia itself and its leadership were not going to do so. After all, they never began to fight for Karabakh. But the trauma remains, the trauma that lies in our relationship.

I think that in the new year we will see much more demanding from Russia in Russian-Armenian relations. If we use some kind of reprisals in the economy for abandoning our military-political obligations, then this will affect, first of all, not Pashinyan, but the very population of Armenia, which we care about.

It was hard for me to imagine that Armenia would be headed by a person who believes that Armenia should abandon its past, who will publicly say that the Armenian Apostolic Church is a foreign agent, and not since yesterday, but since the time of the Byzantine Empire."

There has never been and will never be a better Prime Minister of Armenia for Azerbaijan than Pashinyan, the parliamentarian is sure:

"Azerbaijan's demands on Armenia create certain convenience for Pashinyan, since he is forced to somehow react to this, delay negotiations, realizing that the final point in these documents at the same time may turn out to be the death knell inside Armenia for his political prospects. Of course, he is afraid of this, so he tries to play a good game under bad circumstances that he has created for himself.

Pashinyan is the main attacker against Armenia's own national security. He's been ready to sign anything in this regard for a long time, including any corridors, he's just afraid that this will be the last straw that will make people rise up."