Category: News

In the end, Armenians went with the heart. Early on Monday morning, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan declared victory in his country’s elections while wearing a hat and shirt depicting two hands forming a heart, his and his party’s unofficial symbol.  

Throughout the campaign, Pashinyan reaffirmed his support for continuing peace negotiations with Azerbaijan and normalization with Turkey, as well as his goal of further strengthening ties with the United States and the European Union. Not feeling the love, however, is Russian President Vladimir Putin, as the results are widely seen as a rebuke to the Kremlin for its attempts to intensify its influence over the South Caucasus region. Below, Atlantic Council experts answer four pressing questions about Armenia’s election and what to expect next in the region and beyond.

1. What kind of political mandate does Pashinyan have? 

Pashinyan has a clear mandate to govern, but not a decisive one. His Civil Contract party took just under 50 percent of the vote, more than double its nearest rival, and it is assured a governing majority in the National Assembly. Running against a fragmented opposition with no credible alternative to his Western pivot, this is an endorsement of his course: distancing Armenia from Russia, deepening ties with Europe, and pursuing peace with Azerbaijan and normalization with Turkey. 

The biggest qualifier on his victory is the threshold he missed. The peace process has, thus far, assumed Armenia’s constitution must change, removing preamble language that Azerbaijan reads as a territorial claim on Nagorno-Karabakh. That requires a national referendum, but the National Assembly must first vote by a two-thirds majority simply to put the question to voters, and Pashinyan has fallen well short of that two-thirds majority. He cannot, by these means, start the process of changing the constitution, let alone finish it. And a referendum put to Armenians on this question would likely fail. 

Peace, on the terms currently on the table, runs into an obstacle the election did not remove. None of this is an argument against the peace process, and the obstacle is not insurmountable. But it is a reminder that the path to peace can be difficult, and difficulties should not halt the process in its tracks. Pashinyan, and all others party to the peace, will need to keep working, proactively, to find a way forward, constitutional change or not. 

—Laura Linderman is a nonresident senior fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center and is the director of programs for the Central Asia Caucasus Institute.

2. What role did the Kremlin play in the election? 

Unnerved by Armenia’s play for peace with Azerbaijan and its foreign policy pivot to the West, Russia has not-so-secretly been trying to undermine the Pashinyan government and his reelection bid. After Russia failed to back its nominal ally Armenia in its 2020 and 2023 conflicts with Azerbaijan, Pashinyan froze his country’s membership in the Russian-led Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO). Since then, Moscow has sought to undermine Pashinyan, spreading false narratives online, threatening to hold up gas supplies, blocking Armenian agricultural exports, and reportedly deploying agents to distribute bribes to voters.  

Russia wants Armenia to be weak and in conflict with its neighbors to maximize Moscow’s leverage over Yerevan and advance Russia’s own interests in the South Caucasus. Pashinyan has dared to break that paradigm—putting Armenia first—an exercise in sovereignty to which Moscow has not yet grown accustomed. 

—Andrew D’Anieri is associate director of the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center.

Ahead of the June 7 Armenian parliamentary elections, Russia conducted one of the most intensive election interference campaigns in the region in recent years, deploying a wide range of tactics to shape the electoral outcome.

At the core of the interference were large-scale coordinated disinformation campaigns. Between April 2025 and April 2026, Armenia was targeted by Russian threat actor Storm-1516, linked to Russian military intelligence, more frequently than any other country in the world. Operation Matrioshka produced more fake videos targeting Armenia ahead of the election than it did ahead of Moldova’s 2025 elections, which had been one of the most heavily targeted elections previously by Kremlin. Russia-originated fabricated stories, including smear campaigns against Pashinyan and his government, were amplified and disseminated through multiple fake websites, Telegram channels, and social media accounts.

Beyond disinformation campaigns, Russia applied pressure ahead of elections across multiple fronts. According to leaked Russian documents, the Kremlin provided financial backing for pro-Russian opposition parties. Kremlin-affiliated organizationsoffered to buy flight tickets for Armenians living in Russia to travel to Armenia to vote. Pro-Kremlin actors also tried to instrumentalize the Armenian Apostolic Church to mobilize the Armenian public against the government. In an attempt to increase diplomatic pressure, Moscow also recalled its ambassador to Armenia for “consultations.” One day earlier, the Russia-led Eurasian Economic Union called on Armenia to hold a referendum on joining the European Union or remaining in the Eurasian Economic Union. Russia also restricted imports of Armenian products to put economic pressure on voters.

None of it worked to sway the elections. The ruling Civil Contract party won nearly half of the vote and secured a majority in parliament, which was not the outcome Moscow preferred.

That said, calling this an absolute Russian defeat would be too simplistic an approach. The Russia-backed Strong Armenia Alliance received over 23 percent of the votes, which still gives Moscow a strong foothold in Armenian politics. In a matter of a few months, a recently formed party founded by Kremlin-backed candidate Samvel Karapetyan managed to outpace long-established opposition leaders and parties. Russia now relies on a fresh political power in Armenia, around which will seek to build a long-term strategy. The Kremlin plays a longer game than just one election cycle.

—Givi Gigitashvili is a resident fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab.

3. What does this mean for Armenia’s relations with Azerbaijan? 

The victory of Pashinyan’s Civil Contract party in Armenia’s parliamentary election marks a profound shift in the strategic orientation of the Armenian electorate. 

For centuries, Armenians looked to Russia as a protector against threats from Turkic peoples—more recently, fears of Azerbaijan and Turkey. Pashinyan ran explicitly on reducing that dependence on Russia, committing instead to deeper partnerships with the European Union, the United States, normalized relations with Turkey, and peace with Azerbaijan. 

The Kremlin worked actively to undermine him. Russia launched a disinformation campaign, spreading false claims about Pashinyan’s health and intentions. In the campaign’s final days, Moscow even banned imports of some Armenian agricultural products, citing sudden health safety concerns. None of it worked. 

Pashinyan won 49.9 percent of the vote, translating into 61 of 105 parliamentary seats—a majority, though below Civil Contract’s previous 71 seats. The result far outpaced pre-election polling, including an International Republican Institute survey that projected only 32 percent support. 

The outcome reflects a clear Armenian desire for lasting peace with Azerbaijan. However, Pashinyan’s 58 percent parliamentary majority falls short of the two-thirds supermajority required to amend Armenia’s constitution to eliminate potential ambiguity regarding Armenia’s renunciation of claims on Azerbaijani territory. Azerbaijan has demanded such an amendment as a precondition for finalizing the two countries’ peace treaty. The text of that treaty was agreed to in March 2025 and initialed by both foreign ministers in August in President Donald Trump’s presence at the White House. 

A constitutional amendment would also require approval in a national referendum, another potentially serious political challenge. 

Azerbaijan’s leadership is nonetheless relieved. With Armenian voters having endorsed the peace process, Baku may even reconsider its constitutional precondition. And even without a formal treaty, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has stated repeatedly in recent months that Armenia and Azerbaijan are already living in peace. 

—Matthew Bryza is a nonresident senior fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Turkey Program, managing director for Straife, and a former US ambassador to Azerbaijan. He was the US mediator of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict between 2006 and 2009, and he covered the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict on the National Security Council staff at the White House between 2001 and 2005.

4. What does this mean for Armenia’s relations with the United States? 

Pashinyan’s success is both political and geopolitical, and it includes a notable warming of relations with Washington that began late in the Biden administration and quickened when Trump returned to the Oval Office.      

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio underscored this in congratulating Pashinyan’s election win, noting that “the United States stands with Prime Minister Pashinyan and Armenia in the pursuit of peace, and we are committed to advancing the goals of the historic Washington Peace Summit, including implementation of the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity (TRIPP).”   

Pashinyan’s success consists of freeing Armenia from its over-thirty-year confrontation with Azerbaijan. With the mediation of the United States, Pashinyan was willing to back away from Armenia’s claim to Nagorno-Karabakh, a former Armenian ethnic enclave internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan—an act that has opened the door to peace. Trump’s intervention last August, when he invited Pashinyan and Aliyev to the White House, sealed an agreement that had been tantalizingly close for several years. This development also provided an impetus for the longstanding talks on normalizing Armenian-Turkish relations—a major goal of Yerevan’s foreign policy. Proof of progress came just before the parliamentary elections when a group of Armenians entered the Turkish region of Kars by bus, the first time that border had opened to Armenia in thirty years. 

All of this works well for US interests in the South Caucasus and extending into Central Asia. Trump’s promotion of peace in the South Caucasus has enhanced US influence there, including with Turkey. It also includes the prospect of a new transportation corridor into and out of landlocked Central Asia. Trump’s efforts have also effectively ended Kremlin hegemony in the area. Moscow has used the tension over Nagorno-Karabakh as a way to keep Armenia under its sway and to court Azerbaijan. No more. The US role in the South Caucasus and Central Asia is growing, and those who believe Trump is in the tank for Putin have trouble interpreting his creative diplomacy in this large region. No wonder Rubio hailed Pashinyan’s election win. 

—John E. Herbst is senior director of the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center and a former US ambassador to Ukraine.

Related Experts:

• John E. Herbst,
• Andrew D’Anieri, and
• Matthew Bryza

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The US House of Representatives has passed a bill calling for an investigation into Russian and Chinese influence in Georgia, including potential intelligence activities and the intersection of Moscow and Beijing’s interests. The document also proposes a review of Washington’s relations with Tbilisi. In Georgia, the response to the criticism has been an even greater shift in foreign policy cooperation in favor of Beijing.

The “Countering Chinese Influence in the Caucasus Act” was introduced in Congress back on February 24. The initiative, sponsored by Republican Joe Wilson and Democrat Steve Cohen, stipulates that within 180 days, the State Department, intelligence agencies, and the Pentagon will prepare a report on the penetration of Russian and Chinese intelligence and their associated assets into Georgia.

In addition, a five-year strategy must be developed regarding Tbilisi, which will determine whether to continue financial assistance to Georgia and how ready the country’s government is to expand economic and political cooperation with the US and Europe.

This could signal a shift from the previous logic of strategic partnership to a more selective model. The United States may review not its interest in Georgia as a country, but the format of engagement with the current authorities: which programs to maintain, which to restrict, whom to direct support to, and what conditions to set for further cooperation.

For many years, American aid has been an important tool for supporting Georgian state institutions, civil society, reforms, security, and Euro-Atlantic integration. If the new strategy concludes that the Georgian government is not demonstrating a readiness to engage with the US and Europe, it could lead to the reallocation or reduction of some programs.

Following the vote in the House of Representatives, bill co-sponsor Joe Wilson issued a sharp statement targeting Tbilisi’s ruling party:

“The illegitimate ‘Georgian Dream‘ regime is selling out the country to the Chinese Communist Party, war criminal Putin, and Iran—against the will of the Georgian people and the interests of the United States.”

However, the latest warning message from Washington was demonstratively ignored in Tbilisi. The very next day, during a morning briefing, Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze announced that Georgia had signed an agreement with the PRC, this time on a comprehensive strategic partnership.

According to the head of the cabinet, a total of 14 important international agreements have been signed between Georgia and China since 2023, with another six under final consideration. Kobakhidze also reported that trade turnover between the countries grew by 17% in 2024, by 21% in 2025, and by 45% in January-April 2026.

“Today, China ranks third among Georgia’s trading partners in terms of total trade volume and second in terms of exports of Georgian products.”

The Prime Minister added that following the establishment of the strategic partnership between the countries, a visa-free regime was introduced, direct flights expanded, and tourist flow increased.

One of Kobakhidze’s most telling statements was that China is “the only peaceful superpower on the planet”:

“It is particularly important that the Chinese side treats our country as an equal partner, which, against the backdrop of the shortcomings of global politics, is especially notable and valuable.”

Separately, the Prime Minister compared Georgia’s relations with China to its former strategic partnership with the US. According to him, what existed between Tbilisi and Washington for years was “a strategic partnership only on paper” and “lacked substance.”

“As for the strategic partnership with China, and now the comprehensive strategic partnership, this is not a partnership on paper; it has concrete substance and concrete results.”

Kobakhidze accused critics of Georgia’s rapprochement with the PRC of double standards. According to him, the US administration itself seeks to deepen relations with Beijing, and therefore cannot “objectively criticize” Tbilisi for pursuing a similar course: “That would be illogical.”

Georgia began its rapprochement with China even before the current crisis in relations with the West. In January 2018, a free trade agreement came into force, covering nearly 95% of Georgian exports. In 2023, the parties announced a strategic partnership. Following this, cooperation was expanded in trade, logistics, tourism, aviation, education, and infrastructure.

A special place on the Georgian-Chinese agenda is occupied by the Middle Corridor—a transport route designed to connect the PRC and Europe via Central Asia and the South Caucasus.

According to Kobakhidze, in January-August 2025, the number of containers transported along the Middle Corridor grew by 71%, while the volume of cargo transported in 2024 was 15 times higher than the previous year’s figure.

The Chinese vector has gradually expanded to other areas as well. In April 2026, during a visit to the PRC, Economy Minister Mariam Kvrivishvili discussed the possibility of oil and gas extraction in Georgia with representatives of Geo-Jade Petroleum Corporation and China ZhenHua Oil.

However, critics are concerned about more than just China’s economic or infrastructural presence. According to them, Beijing is strengthening its political, ideological, and even media influence in Tbilisi. One of the latest examples is the situation with the Obieqtivi TV channel. According to data from the Media Development Foundation (MDF), in the second quarter of 2025, the television company received funds from the Chinese Embassy for “broadcasting placement.”

Irakli Tsilikishvili, chairman of Obieqtivi’s board of directors, confirmed that the funds were used to produce several 50-minute episodes of the program “Chinese Panorama.” The show airs in a talk-show format against the backdrop of a Chinese flag and provides positive coverage of the PRC’s economy, politics, and its role in world events.

In early June, America’s top diplomat Marco Rubio stated that the US has serious concerns regarding the growing Chinese influence in Georgia. During a House hearing, Congressman Wilson asked the Secretary of State how he assessed the “rapid radicalization” of Tbilisi’s ruling “Georgian Dream” party, particularly its support for the Chinese Communist Party. In response, Rubio expressed hope that the US would see “a change in Georgia’s current trajectory.”

Shortly thereafter, Prime Minister Kobakhidze stated that “Georgia is not a schoolboy who can be held back for a second year and told to improve.” However, he assured that the authorities want to resume the strategic partnership with Washington through some kind of new “roadmap.”

Critics of the Georgian government do not believe the statements about wanting to reset relations with the US. The opposition is convinced that the government is effectively trying to replace its strategic partnership with the West with rapprochement with China. According to Grigol Gegelia, a member of the “Lelo – Strong Georgia” party, such a substitution is “an _expression_ of the deplorable collapse” that the ruling party has experienced in its relations with the US and the EU.

“Today, the de facto prime minister has already openly and publicly declared an attempt to alter the main trajectory of Georgia’s foreign policy development and has presented China as our main strategic partner.”

Gegelia recalled that the PRC opposes NATO expansion, which contradicts Georgia’s key foreign policy goals enshrined in the country’s Constitution. Furthermore, according to the opposition politician, while the strategic partnership document mentions the “One China” principle, it makes no mention of supporting Georgia’s territorial integrity within its internationally recognized borders.

Notably, about a week ago, the UN General Assembly adopted a new resolution on internally displaced persons from occupied Abkhazia and South Ossetia. The document was supported by 107 states, including the US and other Western partners of Tbilisi, while China abstained.

Journalists asked Prime Minister Kobakhidze to comment on Beijing’s decision against the backdrop of the strategic rapprochement between the two countries. The politician stated that he “respects China’s arguments” regarding its refusal to vote in favor of the resolution for Georgia. According to the Prime Minister, the PRC has “its own specific reasons,” and he does not wish to delve into them.

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