Armenia’s EAEU membership is in serious doubt: Boris Shmelyov

Boris Shmelyov, chief research fellow at the Center for Post-Soviet Studies and head of the political research sector at the Institute of Economics of the Russian Academy of Sciences, commented to Alpha News on Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s decision to skip the EAEU summit in Astana on May 28–29 due to the election campaign.

“Pashinyan has stated that he will think about further participation in the EAEU. It appears that things are shaping up in such a way that Yerevan will probably either suspend its participation in the EAEU, or most likely withdraw from it altogether, or participate in a purely formal capacity. In any case, Armenia’s membership in the EAEU is now in serious doubt,” the analyst said.

According to the political analyst, under Pashinyan and the current leadership, Armenia has set a course toward distancing itself from Russia and from participation in integration processes in the post-Soviet space.

“I think that in Pashinyan we are most likely getting, in the South Caucasus, the same variant of geopolitical orientation that we currently have in Moldova. The EU has become very closely engaged with Armenia, promising it a great deal. Evidently, very intensive work is also being done on the part of the United States. As part of the policy of inflicting a strategic defeat on Russia, the West is trying by any means possible to, as they say, tear Armenia away from Russia and compel and incentivize it to pursue an entirely different foreign policy course. And this will apparently entail a different foreign economic course as well,” Shmelyov said.