Dmitry Suslov: Actions of the Armenian authorities could lead to the collapse of Armenian statehood

Speaking with Alpha News, Dmitry Suslov, Deputy Director of the Center for Comprehensive European and International Studies (CCEIS) at the Russian Higher School of Economics, noted that the Armenian authorities are taking a lot of symbolic actions that highlight Armenia’s desire to worsen relations with Russia.

“Today, from Russia’s point of view, Armenia is reorienting its security policy towards the West and is doing this at a very difficult and unpleasant moment for Russia, when Russia is in hybrid war with the collective West. The Armenian authorities are taking a lot of symbolic actions that highlight Armenia’s desire to worsen and weaken relations with Russia and, at the same time, build relations with those countries that are most hostile to Russia. Accordingly, Russia perceives this as a switch to the enemy’s side,” the political scientist noted.

Commenting on the reorientation of Armenia to the West and Zelensky’s possible arrival, Dmitry Suslov stressed that this is another step demonstrating the current Armenian leadership’s desire to worsen relations with Russia.

“If the information about Zelensky’s arrival in Yerevan is confirmed, this will be another very loud step, demonstrating the desire of the current Armenian leadership to deliberately worsen relations with Russia and move into the camp of opponents. It seems to me that they believe that, on the one hand, Russia is absorbed in the war in Ukraine and its resources are largely limited, and on the other hand, Russia still depends on Armenia in terms of trade and economy to circumvent sanctions, so this switch of Armenia to the side of the West will be relatively safe for it.

That is, there will not be any retaliatory or repressive steps from Russia. In addition, it seems to me that one of the basic factors that spurred this reorientation was the Armenian leadership’s conviction that Russia would be defeated in Ukraine and that the entire security system in the post-Soviet countries, oriented towards Russia, would collapse. Thus, Russia will no longer be able to provide Armenia or anyone else with security support, and that’s why Armenia needed to quickly switch to the West.
The assumption about Russia’s defeat in Ukraine was hasty, since now we see that the situation has fundamentally changed in the opposite direction.

Of course, Russia will not take any repressive steps; Armenia has already paid a serious price for this reorientation. I mean Karabakh, which is no longer a region inhabited by ethnic Armenians because Armenia was moving toward the West and spoiled relations with Russia. But the price can be much higher. To spoil relations with Russia without normalizing relations with neighbors and receiving clear security guarantees from the West—and I believe that the West will never give those guarantees—is a very risky step. This step will simply put Armenia on the brink of statehood collapse,” Dmitry Suslov noted.