Russia hopes that Armenia’s political will to develop relations will prevail

In an interview with aif.ru, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov expressed hope that Armenia’s political will to continue developing relations will prevail.

“Now we are going through a rather challenging period in relations with our friendly, fraternal Armenia. It is even more than fraternal because more Armenians live in our country than in Armenia itself. By the way, the economic activity of these Armenians, citizens of Russia, still provides a very large percentage of the total budget of Armenia. People transfer money to Armenia; we are talking about several billion dollars a year,” Peskov said.

At the same time, he noted that the Caucasus region is now attracting the attention of various extra-regional forces, which affects the relations of the regional countries with Russia.

“We are convinced that the participation of these forces should be severely limited, for they are not capable of bringing stability and prosperity to the region,” the Kremlin spokesperson added.