Putin also again blamed Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s government for the recent Azerbaijani takeover of Nagorno-Karabakh and the exodus of its ethnic Armenian population.
“I don’t think that it is in Armenia’s interests to end its membership in the [Commonwealth of Independent States,] the [Eurasian Economic Union,] and the [Collective Security Treaty Organization,]” he told a year-end news conference in Moscow. “Ultimately, this is still the choice of the state.”
“As for the absence of the prime minister of Armenia [Nikol Pashinian] from common events, we know that this is due to some processes in Armenia and is not related to a desire or unwillingness to continue working in these integration associations. We'll see how the situation develops,”
Those processes are “connected with Karabakh,” Putin said, referring to Azerbaijan’s September 19-20 military offensive in the region launched despite the presence of Russian peacekeeping forces there.
“But it’s not we who abandoned Karabakh,” he went on. “It’s Armenia that recognized Karabakh as a part of Azerbaijan. They did so purposefully and did not quite inform us that they are about to make such a decision.”
Putin already claimed earlier that the Russian peacekeepers could not have thwarted the Azerbaijani assault because Pashinian had downgraded their mandate by recognizing Azerbaijani sovereignty over Karabakh during Western-mediated negotiations.
Armenian leaders have faulted the Russians for their failure to prevent, stop or even condemn the Azerbaijani military operation despite the 2020 ceasefire brokered by Putin.
The resulting mass exodus of Karabakh’s ethnic population added to unprecedented tensions between Moscow and Yerevan. Pashinian and other senior Armenian officials have since attended no meetings of their counterparts from other ex-Soviet states making up the CSTO, the EEU and the CIS, raising more questions about Armenia’s continued membership in those organizations. They have sought instead closer relations with the United States and the European Union.
The Russian Foreign Ministry has repeatedly accused Pashinian of systematically “destroying” Russian-Armenian relations. Last week, it rebuked Yerevan for ignoring its recent offers to organize more Armenian-Azerbaijani peace talks and warned that Pashinian’s current preference of Western mediation may spell more trouble for the Armenian people.