Robert Ustyan: Putin has put the question point-blank: Pashinyan must decide

Robert Ustyan, political scientist, commented to Alpha News on the upcoming meeting between Nikol Pashinyan, Armenia’s Prime Minister, and Vladimir Putin, President of Russia, and on the possible further development of relations between Yerevan and Moscow.

In the expert’s view, the upcoming meeting could become a moment when both sides will have to state their positions more clearly amid Armenia’s continuing rapprochement with the European Union. Ustyan believes Pashinyan is, for now, seeking to preserve the possibility of cooperating with different centers of power simultaneously, but that under the changing international system, such an approach, in his assessment, is becoming increasingly difficult to sustain.

“In my view, the upcoming meeting between Vladimir Putin and Nikol Pashinyan will mark the beginning of a civilized divorce between Moscow and Yerevan. Vladimir Putin has put the question point-blank and wants Nikol Vovaevich to finally decide which direction he wants to take Armenia. But the Armenian Prime Minister is stating very clearly that he does not want to do this right now. And here, I suppose, the logic is understandable: he wants to extract benefits while, on the one hand, showing the European Union in every possible way that his heart and soul are in Brussels, that he would like to be there,” Ustyan said.

According to the political scientist, Moscow, for its part, must take into account the possible consequences of a further deepening of Yerevan’s European foreign policy direction. The expert believes that if Armenia’s leadership fails to give an unambiguous answer regarding its foreign policy course, Russia could move to tougher measures in its relations with Armenia.

“At this moment in international relations, when crystallization is underway, and when countries like Armenia, which are bound, at a certain point, to decide where they want to go and with whom they want to be, must sooner or later give an answer, when a zero-sum game is being played, when nothing less than a new world order is at stake, continuing to fish in murky waters, as Mr. Pashinyan has been trying to do, is no longer possible. That is precisely why Russia needs to understand what cards it is left holding, both in the South Caucasus and in other directions. However harsh this may sound, having a person at the head of state who is, so to speak, with you but also not with you, who says he will stay by your side only until he is called to the other camp, could today be deadly for Moscow,” Ustyan concluded.