Moscow is looking to block US progress in creating a Caucasian trade corridor.
The war with Iran has consumed Washington’s bandwidth for the last month and a half. But the conflict has distracted from more than Ukraine. In the South Caucasus, Russian President Vladimir Putin is waging a quiet campaign to reverse one of the Trump administration’s signature foreign policy achievements—the Armenia-Azerbaijan peace deal—and doing so on the cheap.
The centerpiece of that deal is the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity (TRIPP). This transit corridor would link Azerbaijan to its exclave, Nakhchivan, through Armenian territory and open a land bridge from Central Asia to global markets, bypassing both Russia and Iran. TRIPP is more than infrastructure. It is America’s foothold in the South Caucasus and the key to unlocking Central Asia’s vast rare-earth reserves—resources essential for smartphones, electric vehicles, and advanced weapons systems—at a moment when the United States relies on China for roughly 70 percent of those critical imports.
Armenia holds parliamentary elections on June 7. The vote is a referendum not just on Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s government but on the country’s geopolitical orientation—West or Russia, peace or managed conflict. If TRIPP becomes reality, Russia loses its chokehold on Caucasus trade routes and its leverage over two former colonies.
The campaign is brazen. At an April 1 meeting in Moscow, Putin personally lobbied Pashinyan to allow dual Russian-Armenian citizens to run in the election—a pointed reference to Samvel Karapetyan, the Russia-based billionaire funding the opposition “Strong Armenia” party, under house arrest on money laundering charges and allegations of plotting a coup. Putin added, with undisguised menace, that Russia has “many friends in Armenia—many.”
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov subsequently declared that Moscow “reserves the right” to discuss Armenia’s elections, as though the internal affairs of a sovereign nation were a matter for Russian approval. Deputy Prime Minister Alexei Overchuk warned that Armenia is approaching a “point of no return” and threatened to restructure economic relations—bureaucratic language for punishment.
The threats are already being carried out. Moscow has reportedly banned enterprises and cultural organizations linked to the Pashinyan government from operating in Russia. Armenian agricultural exports face escalating restrictions—dairy bans, broader import curbs, and a devastating blow to the flower trade. Russia withheld millions in prepaid arms deliveries. Karapetyan—from house arrest—warns Armenians that electing Pashinyan means “poverty and enmity with Russia,” while promising that his party will “befriend all countries.”
One detail has gone largely unnoticed. As one Armenian parliamentarian recently observed, Armenians in Russia are now the only group in the entire country permitted to hold public demonstrations—and only when Armenian officials visit, and only against them. That Moscow organizes and permits these protests while crushing all other forms of public dissent tells you everything.
But the most dangerous weapon in Moscow’s arsenal is information warfare. Russian-aligned disinformation targeting Armenia has surged since late 2025, according to local fact-checkers. The playbook is familiar from Moldova, Romania, and the United States itself: cloned websites mimicking legitimate media, coordinated social media amplification, and anonymous Telegram channels pumping out fabricated stories.
The narratives exploit sensitive domestic issues: allegations of secret territorial concessions, claims that Western countries are conducting experiments on Armenian citizens, and friction between the government and the Armenian Apostolic Church. Church leaders accused by dissidents of maintaining ties to Russian intelligence have turned against the government, providing the Kremlin with an institutional lever that mirrors the role of the Moscow-aligned Orthodox Church in pre-war Ukraine.
Karapetyan, for his part, has retained the lobbyist Robert Amsterdam, whose previous client was Vadim Novinsky—the pro-Kremlin Ukrainian oligarch. That the same operative who championed Russian interests in Kyiv is now working on behalf of Putin’s preferred candidate in Yerevan ought to raise alarms. Meanwhile, Tucker Carlson—who has a well-documented record of amplifying Kremlin narratives—has lent his platform to anti-Pashinyan voices whose messaging dovetails neatly with Moscow’s line on Armenia. The effect is a pincer that squeezes the Armenian government from every direction.
As Pashinyan himself has warned, if a Kremlin-backed candidate wins in June, the peace process with Azerbaijan collapses. A pro-Russian government in Yerevan would revive the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict as a tool of leverage—exactly as Moscow did for three decades, playing both sides to keep them dependent and divided. TRIPP dies. And with it dies American access to the Middle Corridor.
The Iran conflict provides the opening. With Tehran weakened and the broader Middle East in flux, the South Caucasus matters more, not less.
First, Washington should publicly reaffirm support for Pashinyan. Visible diplomatic backing raises the cost of Russian interference. When the EU’s enlargement commissioner visited Yerevan, pledged €140 million, and affirmed support for Armenia’s integration into the Trans-Caspian transport corridor, it sent a signal. The United States should send a louder one.
Second, invest now. Armenia’s budding AI sector and its educated, English-speaking workforce make it a natural candidate for American technology partnerships. Investment announcements before the election would show Armenian voters that the Western path delivers tangible benefits, not just promises.
Third, accelerate TRIPP. Moving the corridor from the conceptual phase to the construction phase demonstrates that the peace dividend is real. Every month of delay is a month Moscow can use to convince Armenians that the West offers nothing but words.
Russia’s hybrid warfare against Armenia is not a sideshow. It is a direct assault on an American-brokered peace deal, on a transit corridor vital to US supply chains, and on the sovereignty of a nation trying to chart its own course. If the administration looks away from the South Caucasus for two more months, it may find that Putin has already won.
Joseph Epstein is the director of the Turan Research Center, a senior fellow at the Yorktown Institute, an expert at the N7 Foundation, and a research fellow at the Begin Sadat Center for Strategic Studies at Bar Ilan University. He also sits on the advisory board of the Alekain Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to providing education to women and girls in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan. He specializes in Eurasia and the Middle East, and his work has been featured in various outlets such as Newsweek, The Wall Street Journal, The Hill, the Atlantic Council, Novaya Gazeta, RFE/RL, Foreign Policy, and others.
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