Choosing the wrong path could lead to Armenia’s historic demise: Alexey Anpilogov

Alexey Anpilogov, political scientist, commented to Alpha News on the state of Russian-Armenian relations ahead of the upcoming meeting between the leaders of the two countries.

“The meeting between Pashinyan and Putin is practically preprogrammed by the ellipsis left hanging after their previous meeting on the sidelines of the SCO summit in Bishkek, where the Russian president posed a simple and fairly trivial question, framing the simplest possible construction – ‘either-or’: either the European Union or the EAEU. Analyzing the documents, it’s clear that Vladimir Vladimirovich did not ask this question by accident: these structures are incompatible on a number of parameters. Armenia faces a question of civilizational choice, not merely a choice of economic partner, as the Armenian leadership is trying to present it. Pashinyan effectively disavowed Putin’s statements by claiming there exists an alternative interpretation allowing Armenia to combine participation in both the EAEU and the EU.

However, given the format of that meeting, it was inappropriate to pursue the discussion, and the question was left hanging. It has since found no firm footing in subsequent statements. Russia has held to its position that Armenia must make a historic, civilizational choice and decide with whom to build its future relations from economic to political and military-technical. This set of questions will be central to the planned meeting between the two leaders. It is the foundation on which everything else depends,” the political scientist believes.

According to Anpilogov, Yerevan needs to clarify precisely where it stands on the EAEU integration format, since the ambiguity of Armenia’s position has dragged on too long.

“Such uncertainty cannot last indefinitely. As the saying goes, no matter how long the string unwinds, it always reaches its end. When Armenia begins taking real action rather than limiting itself to declarations that contradict the body of agreements between Armenia and Russia, and when these are real actions rather than mere political statements, then Russia will shift, sharply and all at once, into an entirely different mode, one of concrete measures rather than the soft questions Pashinyan has so far answered evasively. The questions facing Yerevan are not rhetorical but very real. And by the time Russia moves to concrete action, it may already be too late for Armenia. The point of choice is here and now. And if Yerevan keeps running from it, it will be worse for Armenia, because while the losses for Russia would be painful, they would not be fatal, whereas for Armenia, choosing the wrong path could truly lead to historic demise, something we would absolutely not want to see,” the speaker concluded.