Beniamin Matevosyan: Pashinyan is the founding father of Azerbaijani statehood

(What does the warning from a Russian Security Council representative mean?)

The statement by Alexei Shevtsov, Deputy Secretary of the Russian Security Council, regarding Armenia’s EU integration prospects should not be viewed merely as another routine warning or attempt at economic pressure. This address is yet another official acknowledgment of a deep systemic crisis in bilateral relations, one that has long ceased to be a collection of individual disagreements and has become a fundamental rupture. This is not the first time that, at such a senior level, it has been acknowledged that the problems between Moscow and Yerevan are not tactical but strategic in nature, and that this process of estrangement will only accelerate. The figures cited, a potential GDP decline of 23%, inflation at 22.6%, and a near-collapse of the transport sector, may seem significant to official Moscow, yet herein lies the central paradox of the current moment: Armenia’s leadership appears to be fully aware of these risks and is consciously accepting them.

Nikol Pashinyan’s current political course increasingly bears the hallmarks of the “Georgian scenario” of Mikheil Saakashvili’s era. The resemblance between these two leaders is striking not only in how they came to power, but in how they frame national catastrophes. Both provoked devastating military conflicts that resulted in territorial losses, yet both paradoxically present these as moments of “achieving true independence.” In Pashinyan’s particular logic, recognizing Artsakh as part of Azerbaijan is not a defeat; on the contrary, in his worldview it is a strategic victory that has stripped the Kremlin of a key lever of influence not only over Yerevan, but over Baku as well. By eliminating the very subject of Moscow’s mediation, Pashinyan seeks to nullify Russian presence in the region, casting himself, in his own eyes, as a kind of “architect” of a new reality in which Armenia supposedly sheds its role as an outpost.

This path inevitably requires dismantling the existing economic foundation, which again brings to mind Georgia’s experience. In his time, Saakashvili accepted the destruction of tea plantations and orchards oriented toward his northern neighbor, guided by simple political expediency: if there is no product for the Russian market, the market itself ceases to be a factor of political dependency. Pashinyan is demonstrating a similar willingness to make sacrifices. The Russian Security Council’s projections of a billion-dollar loss in tourism revenue, 80% of freight turnover, and a sharp rise in energy prices are perceived by the Armenian establishment not as a threat, but as the inevitable cost of exiting the Eurasian Union’s sphere of influence. Integration into the Turkic world, which outside observers may view as a dangerous gamble, appears to Yerevan’s current leadership as the only space in which Pashinyan sees a long-term political future for himself.

The introduction of European technical regulations and customs control systems, which Shevtsov mentions, would in effect erect an insurmountable barrier to the free transit of goods. A 20% drop in domestic consumption and mass unemployment represent a social shock that, under normal circumstances, would bring about a change of government. Yet the ideological imperative to “break with the past” proves stronger than economic calculations. Armenia today is becoming a testing ground for a risky experiment: can a state remain stable while deliberately collapsing a quarter of its economy in pursuit of hypothetical political dividends in the West?

Think about that…