Armenia, wedged between east and west, plays footsie with Europe

Irish Times

May 7 2026

Geographically and geopolitically at a crossroads, Armenia, the small encircled country in the south Caucasus that has for years been so close to Moscow, is playing footsie with Europe.

But recent history shows how pulling away from Russia’s orbit can be a risky game – look at Ukraine.

The Kremlin has put resources behind an effort to influence parliamentary elections taking place next month, warning Armenians against continuing down a path that would bring them closer to the West.

Armenia’s prime minister, Nikol Pashinyan, looks likely to defeat pro-Russian parties and return for another term.

The stakes are high. The country of about three million people is wedged between its old enemies, Azerbaijan and Turkey.

Armenia and Azerbaijan have at several points in the last three decades fought for control of the mountainous Nagorno-Karabakh border region.

A lightning offensive launched by Azerbaijan in 2023 saw its forces take over the territory, a source of deep national shame in Armenia.

The 100,000 ethnic Armenians who had been living in the region fled. Cities and villages emptied out within days in a large displacement of the population.

The failure of Russian peacekeepers stationed there to intervene prompted Armenia to reassess the extent it could rely on Moscow.

US president Donald Trump pressed Armenia and Azerbaijan into a truce last year that many hope will be a precursor to a binding peace deal.

The general view is that Russia, preoccupied with its own war in Ukraine, took its eye off its interests in the south Caucasus. The intense efforts to change the course of the June parliamentary elections seem to be an attempt to correct that mistake.

The scope of Armenia’s pivot westward should not be overblown though. The government basically wants to spread its chips across the geopolitical board. It has also pursued closer links to India and China. Yerevan is not looking to make a total break from Russia.

A Soviet republic from 1920 until 1991, Armenia is highly dependent on Moscow for the vast majority of its energy supply and Russia remains by some margin its biggest trading partner.

One of its big exports, Ararat brandy, has a huge market in Russia. The Armenian drink was said to have become one of Winston Churchill’s preferred tipples after he developed a taste for it during the Allied powers’ Yalta conference in the final months of the second World War.

Under communist rule Armenians maintained their own visible national identity. You can still see clear traces of its USSR history. Look out across the skyline from any of the hilly vantage points around the capital city and your eyes will certainly be drawn to ageing Soviet architecture.

Communist-era pins and military medals are sold from a park market stall for two thousand Armenian dram, which works out at a little less than €5.

A senior EU source involved in monitoring Russia’s disinformation operation in the upcoming elections said the message being pushed by Moscow was fairly textbook: “Don’t jeopardise what you already have … It would be a reckless choice to turn to Europe, Europe will not want you”.

The EU’s decision to stage a major summit of European leaders in Yerevan this week is perceived locally as a more subtle way of throwing weight into the election campaign.

This is not the first time Armenia has had to choose between staying under the wing of its old ally and making new friends in the West.

It spent three years negotiating a free trade deal with the European Union as part of a wider “association agreement” that would have formalised much closer co-operation between the country and the union. The agreement was ready to be signed in 2013.

Russia scuppered the trade deal at the last minute by convincing then-president Serzh Sargsyan to instead take Armenia into the Eurasian customs union made up of Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan.

There is a recognition at the highest levels of the European Commission, the EU’s executive arm that proposes laws, that Armenia has to be clever in how it picks a path out from under Russia’s thumb.

The east-west balancing act is just one of the geopolitical plates Yerevan has to spin simultaneously.

Armenia wants to keep itself in Trump’s good books, but also shares a southern border with Iran and so has to be mindful of not antagonising the Tehran regime.

Its neighbour to the north is Georgia, where the government has turned its back on the population’s ambitions for EU membership and decisively steered the country towards Russia in the last three years.

Moscow’s ultimate game plan is an administration in Armenia similarly happy to give the two fingers to Europe and shelve talk of having a warmer relationship with the West.

[ Canada contribution and Iran backdrop give Armenia summit feeling of Trump-therapy sessionOpens in new window ]

https://www.irishtimes.com/world/europe/2026/05/07/armenia-finds-itself-at-a-geographical-and-geopolitical-crossroads/