Are you ready to sit without electricity for Pashinyan?

The energy policy of Nikol Pashinyan’s government increasingly resembles a deliberate dismantling of the foundations of Armenian statehood in exchange for dubious geopolitical dividends. The debate over the possible unification of Armenia’s energy system with those of Azerbaijan and Turkey reveals a deep conflict between pragmatic calculation and the ideologized survival strategy of the current authorities.

Armenia’s second president, Robert Kocharyan, during his recent press conference, aptly described the plans for mutual electricity trade with Baku as “fairy tales,” pointing out that both Armenia and Azerbaijan currently have significant surpluses of electricity. According to Kocharyan, with such a surplus, the idea of cross-border flows makes no economic sense: “We don’t need this electricity… Azerbaijan also has a surplus, though not as large.” His remark strikes at the core of the issue: if there is no need to trade excess power, then the push to unite networks under the pretext of “peace” is not a business project but preparation for energy capitulation.

Against this skepticism, the planned February 2026 visit of US Vice President JD Vance to Armenia and Azerbaijan looks like a stage in the practical implementation of this plan. His agenda includes agreements on “peaceful atom” cooperation and deals for American semiconductor companies—moves that could strip Yerevan of its agency. The promoted project of building American small modular reactors (SMRs) is highly risky, given Washington’s lack of successfully implemented commercial projects of this type. Moreover, there are justified concerns that these SMRs will primarily power an American data center, creating an artificial load on the grid.

In such a scenario, the current surplus mentioned by Kocharyan would instantly turn into a deficit, with Azerbaijani and Turkish networks cast in the role of “lifeline.” This is the moment when economic logic gives way to geopolitical maneuvering, transforming Armenia into a vulnerable appendage of a regional system whose fate will be decided in the dispatch centers of Ankara and Baku.

To understand the consequences of abandoning self-reliance, one need only look at the “Moldovan case,” where ideology effectively destroyed the economy.

Armenia today is following the same path: in order to push out “Rosatom,” Pashinyan is ready to sacrifice the Metsamor Nuclear Power Plant, which, according to official data for 2024–2025, provides a stable 30–31% (and up to 40% depending on the season) of the country’s generation.

If Kocharyan’s assertion about the futility of mutual supplies is correct, then the sole purpose of unifying energy systems is to hand the “switch” over to an aggressor state.

Armenia’s energy sovereignty, which saved the country in the 1990s, is now being auctioned off in exchange for promises of a “peaceful future.” Yet, as Moldova’s example shows, the political shortsightedness of leaders inevitably leads to citizens becoming hostages of others’ conflicts and technical failures in neighboring networks. Surrendering one’s own nuclear power in favor of dependence on the Azerbaijani grid is not modernization, but a voluntary renunciation of light in favor of the eternal shadow of foreign interests, where the cost of error will be measured not only in tariff figures but in the ultimate loss of independence.

Think about it…