There is no lack of opportunities for discussions on Armenian-Russian relations in Armenia. In recent days, two such incidents have occurred. The first was the ban on the entry of Ukrainian Parliament member Mustafa Nayemi to Armenia by the border guards “at the request of a third country” during the border crossing at the “Zvartnots” airport, and the second was the outburst of laughter of the Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev after the RA Prime Minister asked a question during the EAEU intergovernmental council session. Such public discussions regularly held on various occasions in relation to Armenian-Russian relations prove that there are significant concerns among citizens in this matter. Therefore, the government should take serious steps to get rid of them.

If the second incident can be explained by the lack of trust of a large mass of the public towards Russia, then the creation of unnatural obstacles by the Russian border guards who control the RA border in connection with the visit of a member of parliament of another country to Yerevan, is a direct blow to Armenia’s international credit. It is noteworthy that thousands of people responded to Mustafa Nayem’s post on his Facebook social network page, and hundreds of people posted the post on their own pages. In the comments under the post, the citizens of Ukraine, Russia, Armenia and other countries debate on the issue of our country’s dependence on Russia in the context of the achievements of the “velvet” revolution.

By the way, Hovhannes Igityan, deputy chairman of the NA Standing Committee on Foreign Relations, also responded to Nayem’s post. Asking for forgiveness and expressing regret for the incident, he also noted that what happened to Nayem at Zvartnots airport is not the first case against Ukrainian citizens and is related to the existence of a list by the Russian authorities prohibiting the entry of certain individuals. Armenia has to take into account the practical effect of the latter for now, because the principle of reciprocity applies. According to Igityan, if our country stops responding to such “lists”, then Russia will not respond to Armenia’s inquiries either and will turn into a country that shelters corrupt and criminal elements. “Recently, in Russia, the General of Justice of RA, accused of embezzlement and other abuses and on the run, was arrested. We hope that he will be extradited to us,” says Igityan.

What happened to Mustafa Nayem has caused intense reactions, because it is related to a problem to which Armenian officials find it difficult to give any clarification or avoid answering. And the problem is that the presence of the Russian border guards at the Zvartnots airport has never been argued and cannot be argued as a situation or reality arising from the interests of Armenia. In the case of the Armenian-Turkish border, where the existence of Russian border guards is justified by many as a factor of restraining Turkish military aggression, the presence of Armenia’s state interests along with geopolitical or other regional interests finds at least some reasonable explanation. In spite of all that, in the case of “Zvartnots” airport, we have been talking for years about the harmfulness and groundlessness of the presence of the Russian border guards, and the fact of the presence of the border guards themselves – violation of the sovereignty of our country, desubjectification, undignified attitude, etc. No logical explanation has ever been given as to why border guards from other countries should be standing at Armenia’s largest civil international airport and their country’s law enforcement agencies and special services should monitor the movement of people entering and exiting our country with entry ban lists.

It is obvious that after the “velvet” revolution, Armenia is trying to become an independent regional factor. From the point of view of the current government, the fact that Armenia is currently in the same foreign-political environment, under the same geopolitical realities and challenges, as it was a decade or two ago, should be taken into account. There is a place for the claim that, being politically insignificant and in the orbit of Russia, which is not subject to transformations, and in the situation of global confrontation between Russia and the West, Armenia can change the tactics of solving the same problems and achieving the same goals in the same situation.

However, the current problematic situation at the “Zvartnots” airport already forces everyone to pay attention to the somehow difficult Armenian-Russian relations and to speak out about the existence of a serious problem that has been burdened for decades in the country’s sovereignty. It seems that the RA leadership has a wide field to dodge the request to replace the Russian border guards with Armenian border guards. When fixing the presence of the Russian border guards in “Zvartnots”, they can justify their position by the inadmissibility of a new strategy to solve the problem and achieve the goals in the given situation, and in case of wanting to solve the problem, by changing the tactics. However, such explanations have no value in all cases when the phenomena surrounding us are the expression of objective reality, internally endowed with the power to develop independently.

From that point of view, the incident with the member of the Ukrainian Parliament showed once again that the problems of sovereignty accumulated in Armenian-Russian relations for years are self-sufficient and cannot be taken under the control of any superpower or force. Neither Russia nor Armenia can position themselves as if there is no problem of the unnatural presence of the special service of a foreign country at the Zvartnots airport. This problem exists and needs an urgent solution. The more the RA government tries to keep its distance and hide it, the more it will hit not only the credit of Armenia, but also the reputation of the RA political leadership in the eyes of our citizens, proving that not fulfilling the requirement of the RA Constitution to build a sovereign country becomes a threat to national security.

Of course, the “blockade” of “Zvartnots” airport will not be easy for us. There will be resistance either inside the country, with the silent or open intervention of the 5th column, or in the form of threats and obstacles from an external beneficiary. But we have no alternative, the state must recover by gaining sovereignty. And in that case, “Zvartnots” airport is the first stop of the Armenian plane of sovereignty.

Saro Saroyan