Ostap Bender was wrong — “The West will not help us”

Political practice shows that there are many political figures and political forces in Armenia who are guided by the “West will help us” slogan of Ostap Bender, the character from the novels by Soviet authors Ilya Ilf and Yevgeny Petrov.

Apparently, for this reason, there are still political actors in Armenia who believe that in conditions where the Armenian authorities are putting into practice a Western plan to oust Russia from the region, to create tension near the border with Iran, and to cut off China from the North-South project (the plan was explicitly announced a few days ago by the representative of the US State Department, James O’Brien), the West will bet on some other politician in the country who will be more “Nikol” than Pashinyan himself.

Apparently, the love for Bender’s phrase makes politicians think that the United States can condemn the actions of the police on June 12 outside the National Assembly building, when, after the visit of US Ambassador Kristina Kvien to Parliament, Pashinyan’s police dispersed the demonstrators with force.

It is no secret that the relations of countries are sometimes built on different grounds: the historical community of the peoples inhabiting certain states that are building relations today, sometimes even tactical, but nevertheless the coincidence of interests, as well as the personal relations of the leaders of those states.

We have already figured out that, from the point of view of the coincidence of interests, the West is completely satisfied with Pashinyan; however, he suits Armenia’s Western partners in terms of his personal qualities as well.

Pashinyan is dispersing demonstrators in Armenia, and British prime minister Keir Starmer is doing the same in Britain. He not only disperses the demonstrators, prepares many new places for them in prisons (as The Guardian writes), but also threatens them, saying that they will regret taking part in the protests. The only thing missing is the British counterpart of Andranik Kocharyan threatening the protesters to send them to the border, or, for example, to Ukraine, so that they use their force there.

Pashinyan’s harmony with modern Western trends could also be noticed during the latest Armenian-American Eagle Partner 2024 exercises, in which, according to official data, the military’s actions were focused on solving problems to stabilize relations between the conflicting parties while fulfilling peacekeeping tasks. Translating from the official language into human language, the exercises were aimed at acquiring skills to disperse protesters, which may be very useful to Pashyan in the fall of this year. It may be good that Armenian politicians read Soviet classics, but it would be better if they admitted that Bender was wrong: “the West will not help us”.

By the way, another nuance: doesn’t the Armenian political field want to react to James O’Brien’s statements about the use of Armenia as a tool in the West’s global war against Russia, Iran, and China? Why is Armenia’s political field silent, or are visas to Western countries more important than the security and integrity of your own country?

Think about it..