Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war of conquest against Ukraine was intended to restore Moscow’s hold on a key part of its old empire. It has failed. With no end in sight to the war, Russian influence is gradually eroding in its claimed “privileged sphere of influence” on its periphery. Nowhere is this more evident than in Russia’s evolving relationship with Armenia, as Yerevan is flirting with ratifying the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.
Russia is historically Armenia’s oldest and most vulnerable partner, bound to it by bilateral and multilateral security agreements signed in the wake of the Soviet breakup. Having succeeded in stopping the war between Armenia and Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh in 2020, Russia introduced its peacekeepers into the region, but it has been unable or unwilling to implement the very agreement it brokered. Peacekeepers have done little to stop Azerbaijani violations inside Nagorno-Karabakh; nor have they been able to maintain control over the Lachin corridor connecting Nagorno-Karabakh with Armenia, as it was stipulated they would in the agreement that the Kremlin brokered to end the war. Russia also ignored its bilateral security obligations to Armenia as well as its multilateral security commitments under the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) when Azerbaijan launched attacks at Armenia proper and established a military presence inside Armenia. Russia’s failure to intervene on Armenia’s behalf has rendered Yerevan’s security architecture with Moscow all but defunct.
Anna Ohanyan is a nonresident senior scholar in the Russia and Eurasia Program.
Armenia has responded by expanding its outreach to other countries. In addition to Armenia’s continued engagement with the United States in the areas of judicial and rule of law reforms, it has launched cooperation on civil nuclear energy. A series of high-level visits from Washington culminated in the September visit of a U.S. congressional delegation led by then Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. In addition, Armenia signed a defense cooperation agreement with India in 2022, in another sign of diversifying security partnerships.
Public attitudes toward Russia are also in decline. Although 50 percent of Armenians still consider Russia one of their country’s most important political partners, it now trails behind France, Iran, and the United States.
The most recent move by Armenia’s government, certain to affect its relations with Russia, was the government’s December request for the Constitutional Court to examine whether the Rome Statute on the International Criminal Court (ICC) is compatible with its constitution. The request was motivated primarily by the government’s desire to gain leverage against Azerbaijan, which has not signed the Rome Statute. By becoming a party to the ICC, Armenia would gain an additional forum to mobilize the international public and legal opinion against Azerbaijan for its attacks on Armenian territory. Strengthening its deterrence capabilities against Baku is the primary driver for Yerevan’s move towards the ICC.
Armenia signed the Rome Statute in 1999 but has not ratified it. In 2004, the Constitutional Court ruled that portions of the Rome Statute violated the country’s constitution, but since then, the constitution has changed. On March 24, a few days after the ICC issued an arrest warrant for Putin for alleged war crimes against Ukraine, the Constitutional Court concluded its monthslong deliberations and—citing constitutional changes since 2004—removed the legal obstacle to Armenia’s ratification of the Rome Statute and membership in the ICC. This moves the issue into the political arena, putting the responsibility for the momentous step on the Armenian National Assembly.
The ICC arrest warrant for Putin made Armenia’s parliamentary ratification even more challenging. Its ICC membership would obligate the government to arrest the leader of its traditional ally, should he decide to visit Armenia.
The Kremlin’s reaction was swift. The official Russian news agency TASS, citing unnamed sources from the Foreign Ministry, declared that Armenia’s decision was “absolutely unacceptable” and warned of “serious consequences.” For its opening salvo, Moscow appears to have dusted off its Georgia playbook from 2006, when it banned wine imports from Georgia for perceived transgressions by its former colony. This time around, the Kremlin banned dairy imports from Armenia, ostensibly for some newly discovered health and safety concerns. Armenia’s 2022 dairy exports to Russia totaled around $30 million—a small amount even in the context of Armenia’s $19.5 billion 2022 GDP, but an important income source for rural Armenians.
The reaction to this development in Armenia has ranged from “strategic necessity” to “strategic suicide.”
Advocates of ratification cite geostrategic, security, and moral arguments. They maintain that the failure of Armenia’s policy of relying on Russia as its security guarantor has made the country more vulnerable to external attacks. Russia’s turning a blind eye to Azerbaijani incursions into Armenian territory in 2021 and 2022 means the end of its role as a security provider to Armenia, a precarious security condition further compounded by the growing partnership between Russia and the Azerbaijan-Türkiye axis directed against Armenia.
By ratifying the Rome Statute, Armenia would gain leverage and exercise some degree of accountability versus Baku. Membership in the ICC would give Armenia new legal tools to utilize in its efforts to constrain Azerbaijan. Advocates of ratification cite the extrajudicial execution of at least seven Armenian soldiers taken prisoner by Azerbaijani troops—an alleged war crime—during the September incursion into Armenia. Membership in the ICC would offer Armenia at least some prospect of holding Azerbaijan accountable.
Existential necessity is another argument. In an interview for this piece, one prominent Armenian legal scholar noted that “Armenians as a nation have experienced a genocide. We owe it to our next generations to ratify the Rome Statute.” He added that the ratification would improve Armenia’s security by enhancing its ability to hold Baku accountable, considering its territorial advances inside Armenia. The ratification also would extend the ICC jurisdiction over Armenia, allowing the ICC to regulate Armenia’s behavior if the ongoing precarious diplomacy with Azerbaijan breaks down and hybrid war tactics by Baku escalate into active warfare in the territory of either state. Armenia’s willingness to submit to the jurisdiction of the ICC would remove potential obstacles to weapons purchases from advanced industrialized democracies. In return, those countries would be reassured that the weapons would be used for defensive purposes only and in line with international laws governing the conduct of states at times of war.
Most, but not all, opponents of ratification come from the Republican Party, which ruled Armenia for many years before the 2018 Velvet Revolution, and the political elites aligned with its previous presidents Serzh Sargsyan and Robert Kocharyan. They have argued that ratification will cause “unpredictable consequences for the country.” Describing it as “political myopia,” they reflect the view of many who remain skeptical of the effectiveness of international organizations as deterrents against Azerbaijan. Provoking the wounded Russian bear is fraught with existential danger for Armenia, they say.
The political positions on the ratification transcend the “velvet divide,” the split in Armenian politics between those who backed the 2018 revolution and those who opposed it. The executive branch has reportedly debated the wisdom of proceeding with ratification and the security benefits that could be derived from it.
One lingering question is whether the Armenian government would arrest the Russian president if he traveled to the country. Armenia would be the third post-Soviet country outside the EU to ratify the Rome Convention, after Georgia and Tajikistan. Putin has visited Tajikistan several times without fear of being arrested. The established consensus dictates that the requirements of the Rome Statute supersede the principle of diplomatic immunity, but the track record on this is mixed at best. If Armenia ratified the statute, it would be obligated to arrest Putin if he traveled there, but the chances of that happening are virtually zero. Other ICC member countries have refused to arrest political leaders for whom arrest warrants have been issued. The risk to Armenia from refusing to arrest Putin would almost certainly be only reputational.
Discussions about ICC ratification have taken place alongside Armenia’s downgrading of its relations with CSTO. Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s government canceled a CSTO military exercise planned for the fall of 2022 and refused to fill the post of CSTO deputy secretary-general. It also rejected an offer from CSTO to deploy a monitoring mission on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border. The concern then was that the CSTO mission would do little to stop Azerbaijani incursions under the guise of impartiality—let alone help Armenia, even though it is a CSTO member and Azerbaijan is not. Pashinyan has even raised the possibility of freezing or terminating Armenia’s membership in the CSTO.
The Pashinyan government’s initiative to ratify the Rome Statute has become a major test of Armenia’s relations with Russia and Russia’s sway over its former dominions. Intended primarily to strengthen Armenia’s position against Azerbaijan, ICC ratification has landed squarely in the middle of Armenia’s reevaluation of its long-standing relationship with Russia. Uncontroversial and most likely quite popular had it been confined to the context of relations with Azerbaijan, the ICC decision has emerged as a major controversy in Armenian politics because of its likely impact on relations with Russia. The ICC debate has also exposed the limits of Russian statecraft since its invasion of Ukraine: that its longtime ally would consider breaking loose from its strategic embrace is a sign of Russia’s diminished soft and hard power in the region. The ratification vote in the Armenian parliament is bound to be a momentous event for the country, as well as for the entire South Caucasus region.