In a newspaper interview published late on Monday, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Galuzin reiterated that the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) is the only viable “mechanism for ensuring Armenia’s security.” Yerevan has frozen its membership in the military alliance under Western pressure, he claimed, adding that Western powers will also demand Armenia’s withdrawal from another Russian-led bloc, the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU).
“It’s not hard to guess that the country will be pressed to abandon the mechanisms that have ensured recent years’ record growth of its economy,” Galuzin told the Komsomolskaya Pravda daily. “The severance of economic ties with Russia will mean a loss of the main [export] market for Armenian business.”
Russia accounted last year for over 35 percent of Armenia’s foreign trade and 40 percent of its exports worth $8.4 billion. Armenian exports to Russia have skyrocketed since 2022, with local entrepreneurs taking advantage of Western sanctions against Moscow to re-export Western goods to the Russian market. These and other cash inflows from Russia have been the main driving force behind a significant increase in Armenia’s GDP recorded in 2022 and 2023.
Galuzin pointed to some of these figures, calling Armenia “one of the main beneficiaries” of the EEU, the trade bloc that gives it tariff-free access to the vast Russian market. He hinted that the South Caucasus country also risks losing a significant discount on the price of Russian natural gas meeting most of its energy needs.
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian stated last week that Armenia’s formal withdrawal from the CSTO is just a matter of time. It could happen in “one month, one year or three years from now,” he said vaguely.
The Armenian government accuses Russia and other ex-Soviet allies of refusing to provide it with military and political support requested following Azerbaijan’s offensive military operations launched along the border with Armenia in September 2022. It has also decried their failure to condemn the “Azerbaijani aggression.”
Galuzin against insisted that Moscow has not failed to honor its security commitments to Armenia and stands ready to “discuss the issues preoccupying Yerevan.”
“We have not received any response to our various initiatives after all,” added the Russian diplomat. “We hope that the Armenian leadership will have enough political wisdom to understand the illusory nature of the West’s promises and the critical importance of relations with Russia in terms of the country’s sovereignty, security and economic development.”