Deputy Prime Minister Alexei Overchuk held separate talks with Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian and one of his two deputies, Mher Grigorian.
According to the official Russian and Armenian readouts, Overchuk and Pashinian discussed Russian-Armenian relations as well as bilateral cooperation within the framework of the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU). No other details were reported.
Galuzin and Grigorian, who co-head a Russian-Armenian intergovernmental commission on economic cooperation, were joined by several officials from the two states at their ensuing meeting. A Russian government statement said they focused on the “implementation of joint projects in the fields of industry, energy, transport and logistics, finance and investment.”
The statement did not say whether those include the planned construction of a highway and a railway that would connect Azerbaijan to its Nakhichevan exclave through Armenia’s strategic Syunik province. Overchuk and Grigorian also co-chair, together with an Azerbaijani vice-premier, a trilateral working group tasked with working out the practical modalities of those transport links.
Late last month, the Russian Foreign Ministry accused the Armenian side of not complying with concrete agreements that were reached by the group in June 2023. Yerevan rejected the accusations that added to tensions between the two longtime allies. Russian and Armenian officials have traded more barbs since then.
Speaking during the meeting with Grigorian, Overchuk stressed that Russian-Armenian ties are continuing to deepen “in all sectors of the economy.”
“Figures and facts speak louder than words,” the Russian statement quoted him as saying. “In 2023, bilateral trade between Russia and Armenia grew by 55.8 percent, to $7.4 billion. This year, growth has accelerated. In the first half of this year alone, trade turnover between our countries amounted to $8.4 billion.”
Overchuk also emphasized the broader economic benefits of Armenia’s membership in the EEU. The South Caucasus nation’s GDP per capita has more than doubled since it joined the Russian-led trade bloc in 2015, he said.
One of the Russian officials accompanying Overchuk on the trip, Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Galuzin, claimed in June that the West will eventually pressure Armenia to leave the EEU. He warned that bowing to such pressure would mean “losing the main [export] market for Armenian business.”