Pashinian chaired a meeting of the prime ministers of those states in Moscow at the end of a yearlong Armenian presidency of the EEU. He will travel to another Russian city, Saint Petersburg, later this month for a summit of the leaders of Russia, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan.
Pashinian said on December 4 that he refused to host the summit in Yerevan because not all of those leaders are welcome in Armenia. It was not clear whether he referred to Russian President Vladimir Putin or Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko. The latter provoked a fresh diplomatic spat between Minsk and Yerevan earlier this year with pro-Azerbaijani comments made during a visit to Azerbaijan.
Armenian analysts and opposition figures have suggested that the Armenian authorities are reluctant to receive Putin more than one year after controversially ratifying the founding treaty of the International Criminal Court (ICC) also known as the Rome Statute. Earlier in 2023, the ICC issued an arrest warrant for Putin over war crimes allegedly committed during Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The ratification of the Rome Statute highlighted Armenia’s deepening rift with Russia accused by Yerevan of not honoring its security commitments. Pashinian made clear on December 4 that he will not unfreeze Armenia’s membership in the Russian-led Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO). But he remained careful not to threaten its exit from the EEU.
“In the conditions of modern realities, the EEU’s activities have provided an additional impetus to the development of economic cooperation between member states, contributing to the dynamics of economic growth of our states on various scales,” he told the Moscow meeting of the EEU premiers.
He said that eliminating “barriers to mutual trade” and creating “new opportunities for businesses in our countries” has been one of the top priorities of the Armenian presidency of the trade bloc.
Russia accounts for around 98 percent of Armenia’s trade with the other EEU member states. Russian-Armenian trade has skyrocketed since the February 2022 outbreak of the war in Ukraine, with Armenian entrepreneurs taking advantage of Western sanctions against Moscow.
Armenian government data shows that Russia’s share in Armenia’s foreign trade rose from 31.4 percent in 2021 to 41.5 percent in January-October 2024. This has been the main driving force behind the Armenian economy’s robust expansion registered in the last three years.