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Qabil Ashirov

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Nikol Pashinyan accuses Russia of not sending the CSTO mission mandate on the Azerbaijani-Armenian border. Even, in an interview with Italian TV, he emphasized that relying on Russia was a strategic mistake. Besides, withdrawal from CSTO has been voiced by Armenian statespersons and public figures.

However, on September 10, in an interview with journalists Russian FM Sergey Lavrov noted that at the ministerial level in 2021, they coordinated the CSTO mission mandate on the Armenia-Azerbaijan border. He pointed out that everything was endorsed, but in the morning Armenians decided to postpone this topic.

So, it seems that Armenia plays a double game with Russia and the West. On the one hand, Yerevan is talking about leaving the CSTO, and on the other hand, Armenia's economy is becoming more and more dependent on Russia.

To clarify the crux of the matter, Azernews learned the opinion of Maxime Gauin, Associate Professor at ADA University, and a researcher at the Institute for Development and Diplomacy. Pointing several reasons about Armenia's deep but hidden antipathy towards Russia's influence, he implicated that Nikol Pashinyan has never liked the Russian domination of Armenia, but his margin of initiative in this regard is limited. According Gauin, this domination actually increased further during Pashinyan's rule after his failure in 2020.

“Another reason is the weakening of Russia, which cannot do what it did in 2020 (massive sending of weapons and ammunition to Armenia) and still less in 2016 (during the “Four Days War”). Russia cannot support Armenia and the separatists of Khankendi as it did before, because it cannot. A last reason is to play the “Western-oriented leadership” card in Western countries, the U.S. for example,” Maxime Gauin said.

As for withdrawal from CSTO, the expert said that Armenia will leave CSTO before the signing of a peace treaty with Azerbaijan and of a normalization agreement with Turkiye. He emphasized that without the Russian guarantee, Armenia is nothing.

“It is a failed state, which gave a part of its sovereignty to Russia. As you know, Russia controls the airspace of Armenia, a part of its land boundary, the railroads, the pipelines, etc. Russia has a lot of supporters (to use the most polite word) in the Armenian opposition, but also in the Armenian military. No Western power can replace Russia for Armenia now, none wants it actually and Russia would not accept the end of its tutelage on Armenia. Only a drastic change of paradigm, added to the continuous weakening of Russia, will give Armenia the possibility to stop caring about the ire of Moscow (both are needed simultaneously). Then, it will become really independent,” Maxime noted.

He also touched on the future of Russian-Armenian relations and said that it largely depends on relations of Armenia with its Turkic neighbors. Without peace, the control of Russia can only increase. He emphasized that empty words and symbolic exercises with tiny numbers of soldiers will never change anything in this regard.

“The contract of renting of the Gyumri Russian base has been extended until 2044. Armenia does not possess the financial capacity to renew its military equipment, which is almost entirely Russian-made. The Indian engineers themselves would be the first to admit that their multiple rocket launcher systems designed in the 1980s and sold to Armenia recently are low-quality weapons, easy to destroy with Turkish or Israeli UAVs. And we saw very recently what the “progress” of Armenia in the field of the UAVs actually meant when the Azerbaijani army destroyed without difficulty an Armenian station of control of drones.” Maxim Gauin said.

He added that Armenia cannot show the same attitude towards the West at some point. He noted that Russia uses Armenia for its own purpose to evade the sanctions. Even the growth of the Armenian Gross domestic product last year and this year is mostly due to the use of Armenia by Russia to bypass the international sanctions.

“What is the importance of the symbolic quantity of humanitarian help recently sent to Ukraine in comparison with the jets given by Armenia in 2022 for the attack against Kyiv? Or, to stick to today’s issues, with the key role of Armenia in the survival of the Russian economy as a window to partly evade the sanctions? To give you a striking example, the role of Armenia in the import of Western-made cars increased after September 2022, namely after the clashes at the Armenian-Azerbaijani boundary and the passivity of Russia, busy with the successful Ukrainian counter-offensive,” the expert concluded.

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Qabil Ashirov is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @g_Ashirov

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