Alexey Leonkov: Armenia behaves as Russia’s adversary rather than an ally

Russian political scientist Alexey Leonkov shared with Alpha News the prospects for Armenian-Russian relations.

He emphasized that the Armenian leadership’s ambiguity does not contribute to positivity between the two countries and, moreover, shows Armenia’s hostility towards Russia.

“More and more it appears that the Armenian leadership is playing a double game. Or, as they say, multi-vector. When they meet with Russian officials, they speak about centuries-old friendship and cooperation. But as soon as Russian officials leave, they prove the opposite with their actions. Joining the EU’s ‘Magnitsky list’ is the same as joining the sanctions that the collective West is now imposing against Russia. That is, Armenia, despite the alliance agreement that it has with Russia, behaves not as an ally but as an adversary. But what is interesting is that the agreement still exists, and the actions of the Armenian government are clearly destructive,” Leonkov said.

“The fact is that Armenia deliberately took this course of separation from Russia. The Armenian leadership does a lot of things that fall under the concept of unfriendly relations. They are actually playing the Ukrainian scenario, but only at an accelerated pace. This won’t lead to anything good. Most likely, in the short term, it will lead to all those events related to the severance of friendly ties, the alliance agreement, the expulsion of Russian military personnel from the Gyumri base, and so on. But this whole process goes two steps forward, one step back. In order not to burn all the bridges, they will say, well, excuse us, there was such a need, we are still friends and will develop our relations. This is the dual policy that Armenia, or rather its leadership, is pursuing now,” the expert emphasized.

“Russia has never taken preventive measures against anyone. For example, the same relations with the United States. They were deteriorating, and it was already clear that America was not our friend. It became an unfriendly country for us, even a hostile country, although it did this much earlier. Russia gave the United States a chance to come to its senses. But no one, apparently, was going to come to their senses there.

It’s the same with Armenia. Russia will consistently convey to its leadership and the people of Armenia that nothing hostile will come from our side. And this can happen only as a response, but only when all friendly ties with Russia are severed,” Leonkov concluded.