Beyond Borders
This column explores the key issues shaping life in the South Caucasus, focusing on how the divergent paths of Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan reflect the region’s complex histories, economic developments, and political shifts. While new generations in these countries grow more isolated from one another due to language barriers and conflicting national trajectories, the same is true for local policymakers, who are often more familiar with distant capitals than their immediate neighbors. Each nation seeks its own path, sometimes in conflict with others, while international actors often treat the region as a whole, reluctant to craft policies specific to individual states. Drawing on personal experience with the region’s revolutions, conflicts and transformations, Olesya brings you Beyond Borders—a column exploring how decisions made in one corner of the South Caucasus impact all who live there.
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Two weeks have passed since the first sitting of the new National Assembly. Nikol Pashinyan has formally received a new mandate, the government is taking shape and messages of congratulations have arrived from many capitals. But none has come from Moscow. That may sound like a diplomatic detail, but in the current climate it is more than that. Armenian producers are already paying the price of export restrictions, while the old confidence in discounted Russian gas prices looks far less secure ahead of winter.
The Kremlin’s pressure has now become more explicit. Moscow has publicly urged Armenia to hold a referendum as soon as possible, asking voters to choose between pursuing membership in the European Union or remaining in the Russia-led Eurasian Economic Union. Yerevan insists the issue is not on the agenda and that, without a formal application for EU membership, such a vote would be premature. More importantly, it would pull Armenia more deeply into Russia’s confrontation with the West, intensify domestic polarization, and distract from more pressing priorities: consolidating peace with Azerbaijan and Turkey, advancing reforms, and building new trade and transport links.
The immediate economic pressure is real and it should not be dismissed. But it does not mean Armenia should return to its old pattern of dependence on Moscow or step back from closer ties with its neighbors and Western partners. If anything, it demonstrates the risks of relying on a single partner for vital markets, energy supplies and transit routes.
Argument 1: The Distrust Did Not Begin Yesterday
The current crisis did not begin with the latest election. Its roots go back to 2018, when Nikol Pashinyan came to power through mass protests. Moscow viewed his rise with suspicion. Russian officials understood how deeply Armenia depended on Russia for security, trade, energy and infrastructure. As one Russian official put it to me at the time: “Where else could Armenia go from our submarine?” Yet that confidence came with distrust. The Kremlin leaders who come to power through mass mobilization, especially around Russia’s borders, are often seen as people who must keep proving their loyalty.
Yerevan tried to do exactly that. Pashinyan repeatedly stressed the value of Armenia’s alliance with Russia, travelled there with large government delegations, and made clear that he was ready to cooperate. After the 2020 war that policy became even more pronounced. At a time when many Armenians were deeply disappointed with Russia, Yerevan still agreed to expand the role of Russian border guards along parts of the new border with Azerbaijan in Syunik. Russia also gained a more visible role in road security and future transport links in the south of the country, while discussion of a deeper Western role in energy and infrastructure was pushed aside.
That bet did not deliver what Yerevan had hoped for. By 2021, tensions along the Armenian-Azerbaijani border were already rising. Parts of the Goris-Kapan road came under Azerbaijani control and were blocked despite the presence of Russian border guards. Serious violations of the post-war status quo were also emerging in Nagorno-Karabakh. Pashinyan’s decision to join talks with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev in Brussels later that year reflected a growing sense that reliance on Moscow was no longer enough.
That old suspicion surfaced in public this spring, shortly before the parliamentary election. At a meeting in the Kremlin, Vladimir Putin spoke on camera about Armenia’s ties with the European Union and the participation of pro-Russian politicians in Armenia’s election campaign. Formally he spoke of partnership and Yerevan’s sovereign choice. In practice the message was clear: Moscow believed it had the right to state publicly which foreign and domestic decisions it considered acceptable for Armenia. Pashinyan responded by referring to the rules of Armenian democracy and the right of Armenian citizens to make the final decision. Yet the scene itself mattered more than the exchange. It showed that the Kremlin still sees him as a leader whose choices must be watched and whose loyalty must be tested.
Argument 2: The Dispute Is Not Only About Armenia
It would be too simple, though, to reduce everything to Moscow’s personal attitude toward Pashinyan. Another Armenian leader would not necessarily be able to remove this tension either. Its source lies beyond Armenia’s electoral choices.
Moscow does not see Armenia simply as a neighboring state with its own interests, elections and disputes. For the Kremlin, the South Caucasus is part of a much broader contest with the West over spheres of influence, the role of the United States and the European Union and the right of former Soviet states to determine their own foreign policy. In that context, Armenia can easily become a symbol: another place where Russia is either holding on to influence or, in its own view, watching it slip away.
Armenia has experienced the consequences of this before. In 2013, Yerevan spent months openly preparing an Association Agreement with the European Union. Shortly before the EU summit, that course was abruptly reversed and Armenia announced that it would join the Russia-led Customs Union instead. This happened at the same time as Moscow was increasing pressure on other Eastern Partnership countries, above all Ukraine and Moldova. Armenia’s agreement became part of a larger struggle that Russia was waging not with Yerevan, but with European influence along its borders.
Last year’s White House meeting between the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan culminated in the signing of the Washington Accords, a U.S.-brokered framework intended to advance the peace process and reopen regional transport links under the TRIPP initiative. Under other circumstances, such visible American involvement in the South Caucasus might have prompted a much sharper reaction from Moscow. Instead Russia’s response was notably restrained.
The restraint had little to do with Armenia itself. At the time, Moscow was engaged in intense talks with Washington over Ukraine and still hoped the Trump administration might prove more receptive to Russian demands. Only days after the White House meeting, Presidents Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump met in Alaska. As hopes for a broader understanding with Washington began to fade, the same transport project in the South Caucasus was increasingly cast in Moscow not as a regional opportunity, but as another geopolitical challenge from the West.
That is why it can be misleading to look for a simple bilateral formula in every new demand from Moscow: make a concession, offer an explanation and the tension will disappear. No degree of loyalty can resolve Russia’s conflict with the West, because that conflict is not in Armenia’s hands. What Armenia can do is not try to manage someone else’s confrontation, but steadily reduce its own exposure to the consequences.
Argument 3: Do Not Bet On Unpredictability
Russia today is acting in the context of a prolonged war over Ukraine and a deep conflict with the West. For its neighbors this means, above all, continuous unpredictability. It turns the relationship with Russia into a gamble. One day there may be a temporary gain, the next, a country may lose a market, an energy source or room to make its own choices.
Geography cannot be changed. Armenia and Russia will remain connected in the broader region and Yerevan will have to maintain and normalize relations with Moscow wherever doing so serves Armenian interests. But the old formula no longer works: loyalty in exchange for predictability and fewer alternatives in exchange for security. The world around Armenia is changing too quickly to build policy around the idea of permanent friends or permanent enemies.
There is no need to see the future in black and white. Better ties with immediate neighbors, closer relations with Europe and the United States, new markets, alternative energy sources and transport routes are not needed in order to oppose anyone. They are needed for Armenia. Not all of this will happen quickly or fully. After decades of conflict a new regional reality cannot be built overnight.
Yet diversification has a practical meaning. A fully opened border with Turkey and direct trade would give Armenian businesses another route and access to new markets. The European Union for its part is already proposing measures that could help Armenian producers redirect part of their exports toward European markets. None of this would replace Russia in a day. Together, however, these steps could ensure that the next economic restriction from Moscow does not become another economic shock for the entire country.
