Actions speak louder than words: does Pashinyan improve relations with Russia?

On September 19, Deputy Chair of the Russian Security Council Dmitry Medvedev, commenting on Nikol Pashinyan’s policy, told a remarkable episode from his conversation with the “newly-made revolutionary leader of Armenia.” According to Medvedev, one day a colleague told him: “Well, I’m a stranger to you, you won’t accept me.” Medvedev replied: “We will judge not by biography, but by actions.”

In general, it is a very pragmatic answer, and it is not difficult to modify Medvedev’s formula “to judge not by biography, but by actions” into “actions speak louder than words”. This formula is especially relevant in the context of Nikol Pashinyan’s recent interview with Armenian Public Television, followed by statements that Pashinyan again “sat on the pro-Russian chair” or “Pashinyan refuses to cooperate with the West and prefers the ‘3+3’ format”. The reality is completely different, and in order to understand it, one should use Medvedev’s “modified” formula – actions speak louder than words.

What do we have at the moment?

1. Pashinyan has assured that Armenia does not change its foreign policy vector, and does not reconsider relations with Russia.

2. Armenia still refuses to sign the draft “Declaration of the Collective Security Council of the CSTO and on joint measures to assist the Republic of Armenia”. In other words, Pashinyan still refuses to accept military and technical assistance from the CSTO, and also refuses to accept CSTO observers who have been ready to go to Armenia since November 2022.

3. After the fiasco in Granada—when official Baku was supposed to sign a declaration on the recognition of the territorial integrity of Armenia at the multilateral meeting promised to Pashinyan by the West, which did not happen in the end—new trilateral negotiations with the participation of Michel, Pashinyan and Aliyev in Brussels have already been announced. At the same time, official Yerevan refused to participate in the CIS summit of Foreign Ministers, although earlier official Moscow announced its intention to hold a trilateral meeting on the sidelines of the summit with the participation of the foreign ministers of Russia, Armenia and Azerbaijan.

Nikol Pashinyan refused to participate in person in the summit of the heads of the CIS member states, where it was also objectively possible to organize a new round of trilateral negotiations in the format of Armenia, Russia and Azerbaijan. That is, Pashinyan avoids even the possibility of holding trilateral negotiations with the participation of Russia in order not to give Moscow even a theoretical chance to intervene in the negotiation process. By the way, former Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili also periodically ignored the CIS summits, as did the president of Ukraine.

4. In January 2023, during his press conference, Nikol Pashinyan, in fact, stated that the Russian 102nd military base in Armenia is a security threat to the country, to which the Russian Foreign Ministry responded. During his recent interview, Pashinyan “opened the window of discourse even wider” and began to talk about the potential withdrawal of both the military base and the border guards of the FSB of the Russian Federation standing on the border with Turkiye.

The list can be continued, especially given the fact that Pashinyan’s propaganda machine is already working on the thesis that “it is absolutely necessary to leave the CSTO and the CIS, but at the same time it is necessary to develop bilateral relations between Yerevan and Moscow,” although none of the authorities and their “talking heads” explains how this is possible.

The fact is that the use of mitigation devices cannot speak of a change in Nikol Pashinyan’s foreign policy priorities. The semantic content of the foreign policy has remained unchanged. But what is the Armenian foreign policy priority today? Contrary to popular opinion, especially in Russia, the vector of Armenia’s foreign policy is directed not towards the West, but towards Turkiye.

Back in May of this year, US Senior Advisor for Caucasus Negotiations Luis Bono stated that the US is striving to ensure that “Yerevan and Baku can live together, strengthen economic ties, and even their collective security in the region.”

Bono’s statements concealed preparations for the creation of a temporary military-political association of Yerevan, Ankara and Baku in the region. Three months after the above-mentioned statement by Luis Bono, US State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said that Turkiye can play a “productive” role in the resolution of the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict. At the same time, Miller made this statement after saying that he “does not want to talk about Russia when it comes to official Yerevan and Baku.”

The State Department could not have been more honest about the fact that Armenia should agree to replace its in-depth military-political strategic partnership with Russia with a regional military-political union under the patronage of Ankara. And this remains a top priority in Pashinyan’s foreign policy.