Will Armenia choose a European future on 7 June?

Speaking to the European Parliament in March, Armenia’s Prime Minister, Nikol Pashinyan, said the Armenian elections to be held on 7 June “must make peace irreversible, and then peace will make democracy irreversible”.

Peace in the South Caucasus has been a long time coming. As the Soviet Union was disintegrating, Armenian nationalists with the support of the Soviet and (after 1991) Russian army and security services defeated Azerbaijan and occupied a fifth of its territory situated around the former Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast.

This occupation was frozen until 2016 (briefly) and 2020, when Azerbaijan defeated Armenia in a war lasting 44 days. Over the next three years, Russian “peacekeepers” proved to be a failure for both sides and were sidelined when Azerbaijan retook the last remaining occupied territory of Nagorno-Karabakh.

The end of the conflict and the withdrawal of Russia’s “peacekeepers” opened the door to peace talks. US President Donald Trump came late to the process but typically claimed credit for initiating it, with Pashinyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev signing a joint declaration in Washington D.C. in August 2025.

Against this backdrop, the election on 7 June will be a vital moment in determining the outcome of the peace process and could also set the stage for a potential path to future European integration for Armenia.

Pashinyan’s gamble

Türkiye, which closed its border with Armenia in the early 1990s, has supported the peace process. Azerbaijan’s President, Ilham Aliyev, has also said his country “has no intention of destroying Armenia or depriving it of its independence”.

In contrast, Russia and its allies in Armenia – the old guard that was in power prior to the 2018 Velvet Revolution and the Armenian Apostolic Church – are against the peace process. They argue Yerevan should not relinquish control over so-called “historic lands”. In his speech to the European Parliament, Pashinyan made reference to this by citing “certain clergy and political opposition forces” seeking to undermine peace efforts.

Pashinyan is sticking his neck out in the current election campaign by confronting these forces. In a video in May, Pashinyan asked with reference to Nagorno-Karabakh, “How was that land ours? How was it ours? Please explain how it was ours?”, adding that it had been a “fatal mistake” to occupy Karabakh and large swathes of Azerbaijani territory. Whether this approach succeeds or not will determine the country’s future trajectory.

Russia, Armenia and Azerbaijan

Since the disintegration of the USSR, the Kremlin has always adopted a Janus-faced approach to its neighbours. On the one hand, Russia officially upholds the territorial integrity of states. But on the other, the Kremlin has preferred to keep conflicts frozen, as in Georgia and Moldova, to divide and rule those affected. In the case of Ukraine, Russia has annexed territory.

Russia welcomed the unrecognised separatist leaders of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, two occupied regions of Georgia, to the recent 9 May Victory Day events in Moscow. But most former states have drifted away from Russia, underlined by the fact that only three former Soviet states – Belarus, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan – attended the Victory Day events.

Azerbaijan’s relations with Russia have been cool since Russia shot down Azerbaijan Airlines Flight 8243 in December 2024. The incident was followed by months of disinformation and obfuscation, laying the blame on Ukraine, the British and the West more generally, and calling it an anti-Russian provocation. After nearly a year, the Kremlin finally agreed to pay compensation to the families of the passengers.

Meanwhile Vladimir Putin has always been suspicious of Pashinyan because he came to power in what the Kremlin believes was a western-orchestrated democratic revolution in 2018. The appointment of Russian-Armenian oligarch Ruben Vardanyan as State Minister of the Republic of Artsakh (Karabakh) in 2022 gave Russia a potential challenger to Pashinyan.

However, Vardanyan was detained in 2023 by Azerbaijan while trying to cross into Armenia and later sentenced to 20 years in prison. It is noticeable that Pashinyan has not demanded the release of Vardanyan, presumably because it is convenient for him as it removes him from the domestic political process.

Armenia and European integration

If Vardanyan’s arrest was the first defeat for the Kremlin’s strategy in the South Caucasus, the second has been Pashinyan’s re-orientation of Armenia away from Russia’s sphere of influence to Europe.

Over a decade ago, the Kremlin successfully pressured Armenia’s pro-Russian leaders to reject an EU Association Agreement and instead join the Eurasian Economic Union. Now, there is a real prospect of Armenia exiting the Eurasian Economic Union and moving closer to the EU. This has been made more likely by Ukraine’s success on the battlefield, as well as Russia’s deteriorating economic situation and declining enthusiasm among Russian citizens for continuing the war.

After Pashinyan snubbed the opportunity to attend the 9 May Victory Day events, Putin stated that Armenia should hold a referendum to settle the question of its membership of the Eurasian Economic Union and its aspirations to join the EU. At the same time, Putin noted that the conflict with Ukraine began “with Ukraine’s attempt to join the EU”.

Pashinyan replied to Putin that Yerevan is “not currently planning to put this to a referendum”, which “will only take place when there is an objective necessity”. Armenia is a long way from EU membership and therefore there is currently no need for a referendum.

Nevertheless, the historic European Political Community (EPC) conference and EU-Armenia summit held in Yerevan in May reflected Pashinyan’s support for turning Armenia away from Russia towards Europe. This will ultimately hinge on the success of the peace process with Azerbaijan.

From Russia’s perspective, much will depend on the war in Ukraine. Unlike Georgia and Ukraine, Armenia is not seeking to join NATO, which would be more of a red flag for Russia. Meanwhile, Azerbaijan has not expressed interest in joining the EU, NATO or the Eurasian Economic Union. Instead, Azerbaijan is an active member of the Organisation of Turkic States and the Non-Aligned Movement.

France, with the second largest Armenian diaspora after the US, has the greatest stake in Armenia’s European re-orientation. During the EPC summit, French President Emmanuel Macron strongly supported Armenia’s European choice.

The stakes are therefore high for the 7 June elections, with Armenian voters being given the option of moving to Europe with Pashinyan or returning to Russia’s embrace with the old corrupt leaders ousted by the Velvet Revolution. The results will no doubt be watched keenly in both Moscow and Brussels.

Note: This article gives the views of the author, not the position of LSE European Politics or the London School of Economics.

—