Armenia’s 7 June election, won by the incumbent, could herald a regional reconfiguration, finally drawing a line under a decades-long dispute with Azerbaijan. With pro-Russia parties failing to take power, the result promises to bring Armenia closer to the European Union (EU). But the campaign also intensified concerns about Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s commitment to political pluralism and the rule of law.

After the conflict

Pashinyan was at the helm when Armenia lost Nagorno-Karabakh in September 2023. The disputed territory lies within Azerbaijan’s borders but had a predominantly ethnic Armenian population. The two countries first went to war when the Soviet Union collapsed, with Armenia the victor in 1994. Nagorno-Karabakh, along with surrounding territory seized from Azerbaijan, became the self-declared Republic of Artsakh, a de facto extension of Armenia.

The conflict stayed frozen until September 2020, when Azerbaijan, backed by Turkey, went on the offensive, reducing Artsakh to a rump territory linked to Armenia by a narrow corridor. Azerbaijan blockaded that corridor in April 2023, then attacked in September, winning in days. Nagorno-Karabakh emptied as over 100,000 people fled to Armenia.

A reversal this catastrophic might have ended Pashinyan’s career. Instead, he repackaged defeat as peace. He argues that a fixation on Nagorno-Karabakh held Armenia back, denying the country economic opportunities and yoking it to Russia through the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), a Russian-led defence pact. Armenia was long Russia’s biggest ally in the South Caucasus, but when fighting resumed it offered no help, preoccupied with Ukraine and warming towards authoritarian Azerbaijan, whose rising economic and military power stems from its extensive fossil fuel industry.

Armenia suspended its participation in the CSTO in February 2024, announcing its intention to withdraw four months later. Pashinyan has simultaneously moved to develop warmer EU relations. In March, Armenia’s parliament adopted the EU Integration Act, formally endorsing the goal of membership.

Pashinyan campaigned on a pledge to finalise the peace deal with Azerbaijan, drafted last year, and normalise relations with Turkey, Azerbaijan’s closest ally. But Azerbaijan won’t sign until Armenia amends its constitution to remove a reference it reads as making a claim to Nagorno-Karabakh. Meanwhile relations with Turkey, which closed its border with Armenia in 1993, are haunted by the Armenian Genocide, in which Ottoman Empire authorities killed up to 1.5 million ethnic Armenians during the First World War. Many European states recognise this as genocide, but Turkey point-blank refuses to.

Russia versus Europe

Meanwhile, the parties contesting power focused on repairing relations with Russia. Pashinyan’s chief challenger was Samvel Karapetyan, an Armenian-Russian billionaire whose Tashir Group has extensive construction, energy and retail interests in Russia. There’s little question of where his allegiances lie. In 2018, he appeared on a US list of oligarchs and politicians tied to Vladimir Putin, and his Russian passport reportedly connects him to the country’s main intelligence service, the Federal Security Service.

Like many recent elections in former Soviet and Eastern Bloc countries, Armenia’s vote was seized on as an east-west contest, with EU states and Russia each pushing for an outcome that weakened ties with the other. Both made their preferences clear. In May, Armenia hosted the annual summit of the European Political Community, a broad grouping of states formed in the wake of Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. The EU also held its first summit with Armenia and agreed to create a mission to combat foreign interference and make trade and visa concessions. French President Emmanuel Macron made no secret of his backing for Pashinyan.

Russia, meanwhile, mounted what was reportedly its most intensive influencing operation since its failed attempt to affect Moldova’s October 2025 election. Details are murky, but Russia’s campaign reportedly used bot farms to spread disinformation, including fake videos that smeared Pashinyan and boosted Karapetyan. There was even an alleged plan to bring 100,000 Russian-based Armenians to the country to cast their votes.

Some measures were more overt. Putin warned that if Armenia continued down its current path it could face a ‘Ukraine scenario’ and hinted that prices of Russian gas could rise. In the weeks before the vote, Russia applied economic pressure by restricting Armenian imports, including brandy, fruit and vegetables.

Russia’s efforts failed, and may have backfired, galvanising pro-European voters behind Pashinyan, while his supporters may have talked up the threat. Pashinyan’s Civil Contract party took just under half the vote and now holds 64 of 105 National Assembly seats. Karapetyan’s Strong Armenia became the main opposition with 29 seats, with the rest held by another pro-Russia party, Armenia Alliance.

Controversy has followed. The electoral commission annulled results from several polling stations, citing violations that may have affected results, but ordered no reruns. Its decisions affected the pro-Russia Prosperous Armenia party, which fell just short of the threshold for parliament. Its exclusion means extra seats for Civil Contract. Given that Civil Contract members of parliament had nominated the commission’s chair, the move raised political interference concerns.

Rising concerns

Europe’s leaders rightly deplored Russia’s interference but have said nothing about such evidence of ruling party advantage. In rushing to embrace Pashinyan, they risk overlooking other warning signs.

Pashinyan came to power in the 2018 Velvet Revolution, when outgoing two-term president Serzh Sargsyan had himself installed as prime minister in a blatant attempt to cling to power. Mass protests, during which Pashinyan was detained, forced Sargsyan out, and Pashinyan won a convincing mandate at the December 2018 election. But in recent years he’s adopted a more combative and populist approach, bolstered by a strong social media presence.

His sharpest dispute is with the Armenian Apostolic Church, a pillar of identity in a country that prides itself on being the world’s first officially Christian nation. Ninety-five per cent of Armenians say they belong to the church. Religious leaders grew more critical of the government over the Nagorno-Karabakh defeat and peace negotiations, while Pashinyan accuses them of corruption. Each sees the other as overstepping its role, and each is questioning the other’s legitimacy.

Last year, Pashinyan published a series of hostile Facebook posts crudely implying that senior clerics had breached celibacy vows and branding the church as ‘anti-national’ and ‘anti-state’, pledging to lead its ‘liberation’. The debate descended to a bizarre row over whether Pashinyan was circumcised, which he offered visibly to disprove. Police arrested several clerics, and Archbishop Mikael Ajapahyan was sentenced to two years in prison after calling for a military coup.

When Karapetyan spoke out in support of the church, police raided his home and put him in pretrial detention, and Pashinyan published a string of social media posts attacking him. Authorities raided his businesses, threatened to nationalise the electricity network he owns and even closed down a pizza chain he controls on dubious health and safety grounds. Local authorities in Yerevan removed billboards and posters calling for his release.

In response, Karapetyan founded Strong Armenia party. Eventually released on house arrest, he had to campaign from home. Other opposition figures have been arrested and pro-Karapetyan protesters detained, and Pashinyan has threatened opposition leaders with arrest. Just ahead of voting, Pashinyan publicly suggested parties should ask the electoral commission to ban Strong Armenia, and the leader of a minor pro-EU party obliged.

Pashinyan isn’t just picking fights with fellow leaders. He’s also punching down. In May, Arthur Osipian, an activist who lived in Nagorno-Karabakh, argued with Pashinyan at a campaign event, criticising his policies on the territory. Pashinyan responded by calling him a ‘scumbag’ and asked why he hadn’t died defending his homeland. Arguments like these were a feature of the campaign, and Pashinyan has called other displaced people ‘runaways’. Osipian paid a high price, detained on public order charges and released only after the election.

Behind the lurid headlines lies quieter evidence of a decay in respect for the rule of law and key freedoms. Civil society has flagged growing concerns over Civil Contract’s use of state resources and its sway over the judiciary and law enforcement, which has enabled politically motivated surveillance and prosecutions of government critics.

Press watchdogs report worsening media freedom conditions, with political attacks on journalists, defamation lawsuits filed by public officials and compromised state media neutrality. Changes to the audiovisual media law made last December give the state broad powers to act against ‘propaganda of violence and cruelty’. In November, police arrested two anti-government podcasters and put them in pretrial detention for insulting Speaker of Parliament Alen Simonyan.

Protesters have faced the same treatment. In March, two activists were detained and fined for arguing with Simonyan at a protest demanding publication of a parliamentary report on Nagorno-Karabakh. Iranians based in Armenia who’ve been protesting against Iran’s theocratic regime have also reported security force harassment and intimidation following criticism by Iran’s ambassador to Armenia. One of their protests was banned in January and participants detained.

Challenges ahead

Pashinyan lacks the two-thirds supermajority needed to trigger the constitutional referendum that would finalise the peace deal. This implies he’ll have to cooperate with the pro-Russia politicians he’s repeatedly vilified and threatened and whom he vowed in his victory speech to arrest.

He must also balance east and west. He envisions Armenia acting as a regional economic hub, anchored by a Donald Trump-backed plan to build transport and pipelines connecting it to Azerbaijan, Turkey and Nakhchivan, Azerbaijan’s exclave between Armenia and Turkey. But its economy remains closely linked to Russia. Around 40 per cent of its exports go there and it has benefited financially from Russian businesses and citizens relocating since Russia went to war against Ukraine.

Navigating these pressures will demand the opposite of Pashinyan’s combative instincts. It will take governance institutions that are stronger than any leader and firm guarantees of essential freedoms, alongside vigilance against covert Russian influence. The danger is that Europe’s leaders, eager to curb Russia’s influence in the South Caucasus, mistake a useful partner for a fully democratic one. European states should choose caution over denial, making deeper engagement with Armenia contingent on Pashinyan’s respect for the rule of law, pluralism and civic freedoms. They should step up their support for Armenian civil society, the surest check on the drift towards one-man rule.

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