‘This is an attempt to make Armenia’s position clear’: expert on Lavrov’s call to Mirzoyan

Speaking with Alpha News, Russian political scientist Bogdan Bezpalko commented on the phone conversation between Armenian and Russian Foreign Ministers Ararat Mirzoyan and Sergey Lavrov.

“It seems to me that this is an attempt to make Armenia’s position clear. If you are leaving the Collective Security Treaty Organization, then leave. If you want to reorient towards France and are ready to receive weapons, then this is incompatible with membership in the CSTO. France now acts as Russia’s adversary, and the French president generally advocates sending troops to Ukraine for a war with the Russian armed forces.

You should decide, because it is natural that these actions will entail a number of consequences—very significant for Armenia, perhaps for Russia—but in any case, for Armenia, they will be more significant than for Russia, simply due to the difference in the scales of these two states,” Bezpalko said.

According to the expert, sooner or later, these contradictions will lead to the fact that a decision will have to be made either in Yerevan or in Moscow.

“Armenia’s position is very strange. On the one hand, there are public statements and actions that we can clearly assess as unfriendly, and then it declares that no, it actually remains part of all integration unions. But you should decide, because, sooner or later, these contradictions will lead to the fact that you will have to make a decision either in Yerevan or in Moscow. I believe this is what the conversation between the two ministers was about. And the fact that this is not mentioned on the website of the Russian Foreign Ministry indicates that this conversation was quite important and was not a formality,” Bezpalko concluded.