Beniamin Matevosyan: Is Azerbaijan ready to finance Armenia’s “war” against Russia?

(Alen Simonyan, Shahin Mustafayev and the “crusade” against Moscow)

The latest statements by Alen Simonyan, Armenian National Assembly Speaker, have definitively shifted the country’s domestic political debate away from discussion of the upcoming parliamentary elections and into the realm of an existential choice, the question of whether or not Armenia will become a battleground for geopolitical confrontation. By calling the upcoming June 7 vote “yet another referendum on independence” and framing it against the backdrop of a meeting with a certain Russian official who is, de facto, an advocate of permanent war in the region, the parliamentary speaker is effectively declaring open political war on Moscow. In his rhetoric, Russia appears not as a guarantor or mediator, but as an enemy with a vested interest in “eternal war” as a means of preserving its leverage over the South Caucasus.

Simonyan is deliberately constructing a narrative in which breaking with the northern ally equals to achieving genuine sovereignty, substituting the concepts of security and geopolitical loyalty in favor of the ruling elite’s current agenda.
Running parallel to this ideological campaign is a rather remarkable economic activity, concealed behind the facade of official border delimitation talks.

The visit of the Azerbaijani delegation led by Shahin Mustafayev to Aghveran, and his meetings with leading Armenian business figures, including Samvel Alexanyan and entities linked to the Khachatur Sukiasyan family, clearly illustrate the true direction of this “new independence.” While Simonyan holds forth on “geopolitical realities,” Nikol Pashinyan and Ilham Aliyev are attempting to convince Armenian oligarchs that the Turkish-Azerbaijani tandem can fully replace the Russian market and become a new “financial donor.”
In this scheme, Azerbaijan is effectively acting as the sponsor of Armenia’s pivot away from Moscow and toward the Turkic world, offering economic incentives and transit benefits in exchange for loyalty and the dismantling of Russian military and economic presence. Yet the enticing prospects of trade and “open borders” conceal conditions that Moscow, for all the difficulties in the relationship, has never imposed on the Armenian side. Russia, complex a state as it is, has never called into question the right of Armenians to their ethnocultural identity, history, or faith. Armenia was never asked to forget the Genocide, to strip the Armenian Apostolic Church of its influence, or to rewrite history textbooks by erasing national memory. Russia has never demanded a demographic reshaping of Armenia to suit the Russian people, no one has ever proposed, or is proposing, that Armenia hand over towns and villages for Russians to settle in place of Armenians.

Baku and Ankara’s demands are of a fundamentally different character that is destructive to Armenian statehood. Integration into the “system of regional peace” proposed by Simonyan and Pashinyan implies not merely a change of trading partner, but a deep demographic and territorial concession. Armenia is expected to abandon the pan-Armenian agenda and effectively consent to the gradual replacement of national sovereignty by Turkish dominance. In this context, the “independence referendum” the National Assembly speaker speaks of looks like a dangerous illusion: in trying to “escape Russian influence,” Yerevan is voluntarily accepting the terms of those who envision Armenia’s future solely as a compliant transit corridor, stripped of its historical roots and territorial integrity. > Alpha Julieta: The visit by Mustafayev, surrounded by dozens of security vehicles, is a symbolic image of the future Pashinyan is preparing for Armenia. It is a future in which Azerbaijani officials dictate terms to Armenian businessmen, while the ruling Civil Contract party’s ideological apparatus wraps the whole process in the appealing packaging of “breaking free from a colonial past.” The only question is whether Armenian society will recognize that the price of this “financing” from Baku is not simply a change of direction, but the final surrender of the values upon which the republic has been built over the past thirty years.

The June 7 elections are indeed becoming a fateful moment, not because they promise “peace,” but because what is at stake is the very survival of Armenia as a subject of history.

Think about that.