Jens Asbjørn Bøgen
Before the election, Putin urged the former Soviet state to remember what caused “the crisis in Ukraine”.
It’s not often that a domestic election in Armenia draws international attention, but during Sunday’s parliamentary election, many eyes from both the East and the West were turned toward the former Soviet republic.
Leading up to the election, both the West and Russia had tried to win over Armenians in an effort to sway the outcome in their favor, and now the results are in.
Bye-bye Putin
According to final results reported by The Guardian, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s ruling Civil Contract party won a slim majority.
Billionaire Samvel Karapetyan’s pro-Russian alliance secured a quarter of the seats.
This is a major diplomatic loss for Russia’s Vladimir Putin, as Armenia is a longtime ally of Russia but has pivoted away from Moscow since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Armenian support for Moscow plummeted in 2023 when Russia failed to do much to help Armenia’s military forces after Azerbaijan took control of the Nagorno-Karabakh region.
Pashinyan told POLITICO at the time that “we can’t rely on Russia to protect us anymore.”
This was the first domestic election since then.
Kremlin cries foul
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the Kremlin is now claiming that the Armenian election took place under “unprecedented Western interference” and pressure on the opposition, as Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Sputnik radio.
She claimed that the Armenian people have clearly shown a desire for the development of the relationship between Russia and Armenia, even though the pro-Russian alliance only got one in four votes in the election.
“We consider the Armenian people a brotherly nation, and we have always wished, and continue to wish, them peace and prosperity,” Zakharova said, according to the Russian TASS news agency.
A familiar warning
During a press conference in Astana following the Eurasian Economic Union summit, Russian President Vladimir Putin sent a clear message to neighboring Armenia.
The Moscow Times reported on May 29 that the Kremlin chief compared Armenia’s current push for European integration to the events that sparked the war in Ukraine.
According to the report, Putin argued that the current conflict in Ukraine did not start out of nowhere. Instead, he claimed the trouble began when Kyiv made its first moves to build closer ties with Europe.
“I already mentioned this. The crisis in Ukraine started with attempts to bring Ukraine into the EU. We weren’t against it,” Putin told reporters, according to Ukrainska Pravda.
Armenia has been moving away from Moscow’s orbit recently, seeking stronger economic and political security through Western partnerships.
But the view from the Kremlin remains highly suspicious of any post-Soviet state looking toward Brussels or Washington.
