The Eagle and the Trident

“I can only say that spring will bring many positive events to Armenia.”

The statement from Ukrainian charges d’affaires in Armenia Valeri Lobach all but confirmed the rumors of Zelenskyy’s visit to the region.

On February 23, 2024, Factor.am reported that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy will likely be visiting Armenia in the near future. Although a full itinerary hasn’t been circulated and President of the Armenian Parliament Alen Simonyan claims to have “no information”, it is currently believed that Zelesnkyy’s visit will occur around March 4 and will include a later stop in Baku. It is possible that the recent announcement that FSB officers would be removed from Zvartnots International Airport is partially in preparation for this visit, as we would expect that Yerevan would take steps to neutralize any opportunities for outside interference or obstruction by Moscow. 

One week prior to the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, EVN Report published a piece titled “Deconstructing the Divide: Armenia and Ukraine in Modern Eurasia”. This article examined the political factors that have led many observers to consider Armenia and Ukraine as countries with opposing interests. The closing paragraph of this article implores the reader to look past geopolitics and instead consider the deeper commonality between Armenian and Ukrainian society: the shared experience of being a democratic state under threat of invasion by a larger, authoritarian neighbor. While formally considered a neutral party in the conflict, Prime Minister Pashinyan has stated that Armenia is not Russia’s ally in the invasion and Yerevan has recently provided humanitarian relief to Ukraine. The delivery of aid and presence of the prime minister’s wife Anna Hakobyan in a humanitarian summit in Kyiv was interpreted as “hostile steps” by Moscow and led to the summoning of Armenia’s ambassador.

The past two years have shown us the fruits of authoritarian cooperation. Azerbaijan and Russia have cemented their wide-spanning partnership through an alliance treaty that was signed just two days before tanks rolled into Kyiv Oblast. As members of NATO and the European Union pledged their support for Kyiv, Azerbaijan and Russia agreed to share intelligence between one another. Azerbaijan would allow the Russian air force to use its airspace to launch cruise missiles at Kyiv, an act which constitutes a direct violation of the non-militarization clauses of the Caspian Sea Treaty. In exchange for this partnership, Moscow allowed Baku to ethnically cleanse Nagorno-Karabakh of its Armenian population. The usage of terms like “anti-terrorist operation” and the incorporation of upside-down letter “A” symbols should be seen as a vulgar, hollow attempt by Azerbaijan to mimic the visuals and aesthetics associated with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. After permitting the complete displacement of Karabakh’s Armenian population, the Russian peacekeeping forces deployed through the November 9 Agreement continue to patrol the ghost-town of Stepanakert.

News of Zelenskyy’s visit comes at a particularly tense moment for regional security in the South Caucasus. Prime Minister Pashinyan has warned of an imminent invasion of Armenia by Azerbaijan and has stated Yerevan has “frozen” its membership in the CSTO, setting the stage for a possible de jure exit from the alliance in the future. As Armenia concludes a high-level bilateral exchange with France on the topic of security cooperation and the sale of military equipment, Azerbaijan has finalized an agreement for the purchase of JF-17 aircraft from Pakistan. We should consider the possibility that Zelenskyy’s visit to Armenia will lead to some sort of reciprocity in response to Yerevan’s signaling over the past two years. While it may be premature to expect anything resembling an alliance agreement between Armenia and Ukraine, Ukraine’s political presence in the South Caucasus may provide another counterweight to future punitive measures from Moscow. Additionally, Zelenskyy’s visit will also provide a barometer for Azerbaijan’s bilateral relations with Ukraine — particularly as both states’ mutual support for each other’s territorial integrity is weighed against the growing partnership between Aliyev and Putin. If nothing else, we should consider that closer ties and greater political alignment between Kyiv and Yerevan may open the possibility for full extension of the European Peace Facility to Armenia in the future. 

Lessons From Kyiv

Ukraine’s experience over the past two years can provide insights into how smaller democracies must fight against their larger, authoritarian neighbors. Despite Russia maintaining an absolute advantage in manpower and firepower, Ukraine has managed to deliver multiple blows to critical elements of Russian industry and military infrastructure through the usage of UAVs. Even with a severe shortage of naval assets the Ukrainian military has managed to dislodge Russia’s Black Sea Fleet from Crimea through repeated usage of “Seababy” naval drones and limited usage of munitions like the Neptune anti-ship missile. While the naval aspects of the war in Ukraine are irrelevant to a future confrontation between Armenia and Azerbaijan, we should turn our attention to Kyiv’s successful usage of drones and loitering munitions to strike targets deep in Russia. UAVs like the Bober loitering munition launched from Ukrainian territory have managed to hit military targets in Moscow. Damage brought about by Kyiv’s campaign against refineries and energy infrastructure have led to a six month ban on the export of petroleum products from Russia. Ukraine’s success in dislodging the Black Sea Fleet and striking targets in Russia suggests that disparities in military size and volume of fire may be compensated through select strikes on critical pressure points. This is especially relevant as Armenia would be on the defensive footing and would not be launching an invasion of Azerbaijani territory. Rather than focusing on the numerical advantage of the Azerbaijani military, observers should consider how Armenia may emulate Ukraine’s strategy of “smart” asymmetrical warfare. Purchase and usage of Ukrainian-produced drones like the Bober or multi-role UJ-22 UAV may enhance Armenia’s counter-offensive strike capabilities and provide an alternative to systems like the Iranian-designed Shahed-136 loitering munition. 

A crucial element of Ukraine’s national security strategy has been the usage of platforms like Telegram to keep citizens informed of immediate threats and mitigate loss of civilian life. Examples of this include services like eRadarrua that report inbound munitions or oblast governors using the platform to keep their constituents updated on any local military activity. These channels have served as important points of contact between local governments and their constituents, as well as members of the press and humanitarian relief groups tracking developments on the ground. While elements of the Armenian government such as the Ministry of Defense and Prime Minister’s Office have already used Meta-owned platforms like Facebook as a means of providing information to the public, developing a service that emulates eRadarrua’s granular tracking of inbound projectiles and loitering munitions would be of great utility to the public in the event of a future attack by Azerbaijan.

The war in Ukraine has also shown the necessity of unobscured movement across allied terrestrial borders. Since February 2022, nearly all movement into and out of Ukraine has involved traversing the Polish border. While Ukraine is not nearly as limited by its geography as Armenia (as Ukraine has access to the Black Sea and multiple open borders with EU/NATO members) the dependency on this terrestrial crossing has created a major logistical bottleneck. The current gridlock brought about by a trucker protest along the Ukrainian-Polish border has prevented the export of Ukrainian grain and complicated the import of necessary aid and military supplies. The cascading strategic impact of this bottleneck becomes especially apparent when we consider that all the repair and maintenance facilities for Ukraine’s western equipment are located hundreds of miles outside of Ukraine in European NATO members. It is crucial that in the event of a conflict in the near future, all possible steps are taken to avoid a similar buildup along the Armenian-Georgian border. References to construction and infrastructure projects in the recent “Strategic Partnership” signed between Armenia and Georgia suggests that both governments have a shared understanding on the importance of this vector of movement (even if only focused on civilian and commercial matters). Although the Georgian government has historically limited the movement of Russian military equipment to Armenia through its territory and airspace, Tbilisi’s decision to permit the transit of French Bastion APCs suggests that Georgia would be willing to facilitate the movement of European arms and equipment.

Just like Ukraine on the eve of its invasion, Armenia is facing its greatest threat to its sovereignty and security since gaining independence. With calls for reunification with “Western Azerbaijan” there is no reason to believe that Baku would settle for anything less than the elimination of Armenian national sovereignty. The silence from the international community during the 2020 Karabakh War and the Fall of Artsakh has only emboldened Aliyev to draw his plans against the entirety of Armenia. With the possibility of war in the near future, lessons from Ukraine’s defense against Russia’s invasion should be internalized and seen as a potential model for national defense. Just as Russia has shown us how quickly the military of a corrupt, autocratic regime crumbles to resistance, Ukraine has shown us how quickly a state and society may be mobilized for defense. 

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