Putin will host near Saint Petersburg on Wednesday an annual informal meeting of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) leaders. It will be followed by a summit on Thursday of the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU), a Russian-led trade bloc comprising five ex-Soviet states, including Armenia.
“A separate [Pashinian-Putin meeting] is not planned, but they will have a chance to talk ‘on the sidelines’ if need be,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told journalists.
Putin and Pashinian most recently held such talks right after the last EEU summit held in Moscow in May. Two weeks later, Russia recalled its ambassador in Yerevan for consultations amid lingering tensions with Armenia.
Pashinian refrained from hosting that summit as well as the upcoming Saint Petersburg gathering despite Armenia’s rotating presidency of the EEU in 2024. He said earlier this month that he did so because not all leaders of EEU member states are welcome in Armenia.
It was not clear whether he referred to 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 speculated 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).
Yerevan has so far been careful not to distance itself from the EEU as well, mindful of the Armenian economy’s heavy dependence on Russia’s vast market and relatively cheap natural gas.