Andrey Areshev: So-called Western partners are openly trying to fit Armenia into the sanctions regime around Russia

Speaking with Alpha News, Russian political scientist Andrey Areshev commented on the current stage of Armenian-Russian relations and emphasized that Russia is now showing the utmost patience so as not to lose established ties.

“For several years now, Russia has been facing a tough political, diplomatic, and sanction-related confrontation, which, by the way, affects Russia’s allies and partners, including the Republic of Armenia. We understand perfectly well that recently, actions have been taken to organize an additional front for Russia in the Caucasus, turn this place into a source of challenges and threats, and try to disorganize and blur those integration associations that were mentioned by Sergey Lavrov.

First of all, the Eurasian Economic Union will be targeted. For a year and a half now, the Republic of Armenia has frozen its participation in CSTO events for a number of reasons and has reduced its representation within the CIS, including in the ministerial meeting. This is very unfortunate, in my opinion, but it seems to me that now the Russian side is showing the utmost patience and making every effort to not cut off ties. So, we see Dmitry Peskov’s statement and some other steps that indicate that all possible efforts will still be made to maintain ties—first of all, economic ties, which are beneficial to both Russia and Armenia—although the Western, so-called partners, are seriously trying to bring down the energy partnership between Russia and Armenia and are already directly and openly talking about attempts to fit Armenia more closely into the sanctions regime that is being created around Russia,” the political scientist noted.