Pashinyan’s manner of speech will not benefit Armenian-Russian relations – Andrey Areshev

Speaking with Alpha News, Russian political scientist and expert at the Strategic Culture Foundation Andrey Areshev commented on the Armenian Prime Minister’s statements and stressed that the abnormal style of communication in security will also affect economic formats.

“This statement can be synchronized with the fakes about the disclosure of conspiracy on the territory of Armenia, which are completely detached from reality. It seems to me that such statements are quite closely coordinated and are part of a certain campaign aimed at discrediting all those integration formats that still somehow connect Russia and Armenia in terms of security. We know that Armenia has not formally withdrawn from the CSTO, although it has frozen its membership in the organization. In the light of Mr. Pashinyan’s statements—and if there is any evidence, which I highly doubt—then perhaps he should not talk about this topic but run away from this organization. However, he does not do this, but he constantly conducts all sorts of conversations, which, in my opinion, the Russian side is already pretty tired of. At the same time, as Dmitry Peskov said today, Russia will continue to patiently conduct explanatory work with its Armenian colleagues, but the question is how effective these explanations will be. The specifics of the current Armenian authorities are such that you can hear anything from them. I believe that sooner or later we will hear complaints in economic terms.

These swings have been observed for quite a long time. Just recently, Russian experts were lulled into sleep by the fact that Mr. Pashinyan and his entourage slowed down their anti-Russian tone and withdrew their signature under a certain decision of the international criminal court. And such things are strenuously swinging in terms of information and constantly excite public opinion, bringing it into a kind of exalted state. I believe that this kind of sentiment is easier to manipulate in the case of some actions that seem necessary to be attributed to Russia. For example, when it comes to the so-called coup attempt, I do not even know what to compare it with at all. I do not think that this whole manner of speech will benefit Armenian-Russian relations. For security purposes and in terms of political interaction and the economic sphere, we cannot completely separate the areas of bilateral cooperation and the lack of trust from each other. And this abnormal style of communication in the security policy will sooner or later, but rather sooner, affect economic formats,” Andrey Areshev noted.