Armenia’s June 7 parliamentary election has become a vote on Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s efforts to normalize relations with Turkey through border openings, railway links and direct trade after decades of conflict tied to Nagorno-Karabakh.

The outcome of the election could shape not only Armenia’s political future but also regional transport projects and Yerevan’s efforts to reduce its dependence on Russia and deepen ties with Western countries.

The normalization process gained momentum this month after Pashinyan announced that a railway connection to Turkey through Georgia had reopened for Armenian imports and exports, calling it “a major development” for the country’s economy.

Turkey’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Öncü Keçeli also said Ankara had completed technical preparations for direct trade with Armenia as part of the normalization process launched in 2022. He added that technical work on reopening the shared border was continuing.

Pashinyan later said Armenia would begin renovating the Gyumri-Akhurik-Akyaka railway line linking the country to Turkey, which had already started on the Turkish side.

The Armenian leader has presented the projects as part of a broader effort to reopen Armenia’s closed borders and connect the country to regional trade routes after years of isolation.

Turkey closed its border with Armenia in 1993 during the First Karabakh War in support of Azerbaijan, its close ally and political partner. Relations between Ankara and Yerevan have remained frozen for decades despite several failed attempts at normalization.

Pashinyan and his Civil Contract Party have centered their campaign on promises of peace, economic development and regional connectivity, arguing that Armenia’s security can no longer depend only on Russia.

His government has increasingly showed normalization with Turkey and Azerbaijan as necessary for Armenia’s economic future and its long-term stability after Azerbaijan regained control of Nagorno-Karabakh in 2023.

The Azerbaijani offensive ended three decades of Armenian separatist rule in the region and triggered the departure of more than 100,000 ethnic Armenians, which deepened political divisions inside Armenia.

Pashinyan has since argued that Armenia should focus on the internationally recognized borders of the modern Armenian republic rather than historical nationalist claims tied to territories in eastern Turkey sometimes described by Armenian nationalists as “Western Armenia.”

The shift has drawn criticism from opposition groups, former leaders and parts of the Armenian diaspora, who accuse Pashinyan of making concessions to Azerbaijan and Turkey at the expense of Armenian national identity and security.

Former president Robert Kocharyan and other opposition figures have campaigned against Pashinyan’s normalization policies, arguing that closer ties with Turkey and Azerbaijan could leave Armenia more vulnerable while weakening relations with Russia, the country’s traditional security partner.

Some opposition parties have also called for restoring closer ties with Moscow and slowing Armenia’s growing cooperation with Western countries.

The campaign period has exposed deep tensions inside Armenia, with protests, arrests and confrontations involving opposition supporters, ethnic Armenians who fled Nagorno-Karabakh after Azerbaijan’s 2023 offensive and other critics of Pashinyan.

During a recent campaign event in Yerevan, protesters confronted Pashinyan over the 2020 Karabakh War and accused him of betraying the country. Human rights groups and election observers later criticized several detentions linked to campaign events and called for independent investigations.

Tensions also rose last month after demonstrators burned a Turkish flag during a march in Yerevan. Pashinyan condemned the act as a “provocation.”

Despite the backlash, opinion polls still place Pashinyan ahead of his rivals, although surveys suggest many voters remain undecided.

Recent polling cited by Armenian media outlets shows support for Civil Contract ranging between roughly 25 and 32 percent, while opposition parties remain fragmented among several competing alliances and smaller parties.

The election is also being closely watched by foreign governments.

The United States and the European Union largely view Pashinyan as a partner who could advance peace talks with Azerbaijan and help reduce Russian influence in the South Caucasus.

Meanwhile Russia has viewed Armenia’s growing ties with the West with suspicion. Moscow still retains significant influence over Armenia’s energy sector, trade and security institutions despite increasingly strained relations with Pashinyan’s government.

Turkey has supported the normalization process but has coordinated its approach closely with Azerbaijan, whose alliance with Ankara remains central to regional diplomacy.

The June 7 vote is widely seen as a decision on whether Armenia will continue efforts to reopen borders and transport links with Turkey or move back toward a more nationalist and Russia-oriented political course.

President Donald Trump’s legacy as a peace president is on the line. On June 7, Armenia will hold its first parliamentary elections since the Trump-brokered Armenia-Azerbaijan peace agreement in August 2025. Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s Civil Contract Party has a wide lead in the opinion polls and is favored to win a plurality of seats. Nonetheless, nationalist angst over Azerbaijan’s military recapture of its Karabakh region in September 2023 and growing economic inequities will likely prevent Pashinyan from obtaining a parliamentary majority. 

As Pashinyan edges toward an inconclusive election victory, Russia is intensifying its efforts to discredit him and derail his pro-peace agenda. By mobilizing local surrogates, corrupt oligarchs, and like-minded international actors, Russia seeks to establish its hegemony over Armenia and reignite its decades-long frozen conflict with Azerbaijan. If the Kremlin’s election interference campaign succeeds, the U.S. could suffer a major geopolitical setback and surrender its newfound influence in the strategically critical region of Eurasia. 

Armenia’s alliance with Russia has slowly unraveled

Over the past decade, the Armenia-Russia treaty alliance has incrementally unraveled. As Pashinyan came to power through anti-government popular unrest in April 2018, the Kremlin viewed him with immediate suspicion. Armenia’s frustrations with Russia’s aloof response to Azerbaijan’s victorious 2020 and 2023 campaigns in Karabakh converted latent discontent into outright animosity. 

As Armenia courted economic and security cooperation with Western powers, senior Russian officials publicly rebuked Pashinyan. This war of words intensified after Pashinyan declared in December 2024 that Armenia’s relationship with the Russian-led Collective Security Treaty Organization, or CSTO, had passed its “point of no return.” Sensing the evaporation of its influence over Armenia, the Kremlin doubled down on its historic alliance with Russia-friendly former President Robert Kocharyan and courted backers within the Armenian Apostolic Church, which has a history of cooperation with Soviet-era security services. 

When ethnic Armenian Russian billionaire and Church mega-donor Samvel Karapetyan was arrested in June 2025, the wheels fell off the wagon of Russia-Armenia cooperation. Pashinyan accused Russia of using Karapetyan as a pawn in a “hybrid operation” against Armenia. 

Karapetyan’s supporters accused Pashinyan of authoritarianism and began to mobilize politically. The result was Karapetyan’s creation of the Strong Armenia Party in December 2025, which has emerged as Pashinyan’s leading challenger in the parliamentary elections. 

Russia takes aim at Armenia’s elections

As the elections draw closer, Russia has sharpened its rhetorical and coercive knives. Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev described Pashinyan and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in the same breath as “brainless Russophobes.” Armenia’s hosting of the May 2026 European Political Community Summit and Pashinyan’s snub of the May 9 Victory Day celebrations in Moscow escalated tensions further. Russian President Vladimir Putin depicted Armenia’s courtship of European Union membership as incompatible with its current membership in the Russian-led Eurasian Economic Union and ominously warned of a “Ukraine scenario” if Armenia continued along its pro-European path. On Monday, May, 18, the Armenian Investigative Committee launched a probe into an alleged attempt to assassinate Pashinyan.  

To augment its support for Kocharyan and Karapetyan, the Kremlin found international surrogates to further its destabilizing aims. One notable example is Luis Moreno Ocampo, former prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, and his son. According to video materials that circulated online in late April, the Ocampos are organizing campaigns aimed at removing Pashinyan from power and damaging the image of Armenia’s peace partner, Azerbaijan. 

The pair is working with Armenian American lobbyists and members of the European Parliament to further their cause. These efforts align with Russia’s desire to restore power to sympathetic forces and facilitate the release of pro-Moscow Karabakh separatist clan leader Ruben Vardanyan from prison.  

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Russia’s multi-pronged election interference campaign in Armenia is driven by much more than pique with Pashinyan. It is the latest chapter in a centuries-long geostrategic power play. By framing itself as the protector of Christian Armenians against the Persian and Ottoman Empires, the Romanov Tsars ensconced Russian hegemony over Armenia. After the Bolshevik Revolution and during the 1988-94 Karabakh War, Russia rallied in support of Armenians against their Azerbaijani and Turkish adversaries. As international sanctions and its full-scale invasion of Ukraine weakened its capabilities, Russia has surrendered its paternalistic role, and Armenia is on the cusp of fulfilling its age-old desire to decouple from Moscow’s imperialist yoke. 

As its image of great power has been battered by military stagnation in Ukraine, Russia is desperate to reverse this trajectory and avoid being isolated in its own sphere of influence. If Pashinyan is re-elected, the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity (TRIPP) will connect Azerbaijan’s Nakhchivan exclave to Armenia. If TRIPP attracts sufficient international investment, it will emerge as the South Caucasus’s dominant transit corridor and derail Russia and China’s connectivity ambitions in the region. 

It would also deal a crushing blow to Russia’s partner Iran. Under Kocharyan’s leadership, Iran used Armenian territory to smuggle military technology and Armenian banks to launder funds for the Islamic Republic. Pashinyan’s victory would deny Iran yet another lever of access to the international community at a time when its economy has been battered by war and sanctions. 

The U.S. is on the cusp of either a strategic triumph or a crushing setback in the South Caucasus. If Armenian voters triumph over Russia’s dirty tricks, Trump’s foreign policy legacy will achieve a critical pre-midterm election boost.

Dr. Samuel Ramani is an associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, or RUSI, in London. He specializes in Russian and Eurasian foreign policy and global security and is the author of books including “Putin’s War on Ukraine” and “Russia in Africa.”

https://www.northjersey.com/story/opinion/2026/05/25/donald-trump-armenia-elections/90178405007/

The Kremlin declared that Armenia risks losing the “very favorable” price for Russian gas if it opts for European integration.

Armenia, a member of a Russia-led economic union, depends on energy supplies from Moscow, but has sought to strengthen its relations with the European Union, including by adopting a law for accession. The Kremlin’s spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, emphasized that the price structure within other integrations is different and that the price paid by Armenia is significantly lower than that in Europe.

The Armenian Foreign Minister, Ararat Mirzoian, stated that Armenia does not intend to sever ties with Russia. Relations between the two countries have deteriorated recently, especially after the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh.

Russian President Vladimir Putin discussed gas prices and suggested organizing a referendum in Armenia regarding aspirations for EU membership.

Former Armenian President Kocharyan believes this

Moscow is increasingly using tools of economic coercion to keep former Soviet republics within its sphere of influence. The latest stage of this strategy has been large-scale restrictions against Armenian alcohol producers, which analysts describe as a politically motivated response to Yerevan’s rapprochement with the European Union. By exploiting the structural dependence of neighboring economies on its market, the Kremlin is turning trade relations into an instrument of hybrid warfare, repeating a scenario previously tested on Georgia, according to analysts at the Robert Lansing Institute.

Rospotrebnadzor announced the suspension of sales and the withdrawal from circulation in Russia of wines and cognacs from several Armenian producers, including Vedi-Alco, the Abovyan Brandy Factory, and the Shahnazaryan Wine and Brandy House. The agency stated that laboratory tests found that products such as Getap Vernashen, Armenian brandy 5 Stars, and Shahnazaryan XO did not meet mandatory physical-chemical standards. This move continues a series of trade restrictions, including bans on Jermuk mineral water and flower imports. It is evident that the removal of alcohol is a response to Yerevan’s attempts to pursue an independent foreign policy and a course toward closer ties with the EU.

Russia is deliberately targeting the alcohol sector because it is critically dependent on its market: previously, exports to Russia accounted for up to 90% of total production. By restricting imports, the Kremlin is using economic pressure as leverage over the Armenian leadership. Despite attempts to present this as a technical regulatory measure, the political context confirms the geopolitical nature of the sanctions. The measures coincide with Armenia’s distancing from Moscow after the Karabakh crisis, criticism of the CSTO, and the search for new partners in the security sphere. Moscow’s goal is to pressure not only the government of Nikol Pashinyan but also business groups whose stability depends on access to Russian consumers.

The situation mirrors the pressure campaign against Georgia in 2005–2009. At that time, under the pretext of sanitary issues, Moscow imposed an embargo on Georgian wine, mineral water, and agricultural products. In reality, this was driven by Georgia’s pro-Western course under Mikheil Saakashvili and its aspiration to join NATO. The Georgian case revealed key elements of Russia’s strategy: the use of regulatory bodies as political instruments, strikes at symbolic national industries, and exploitation of market dependence. Economic restrictions allow Moscow to punish neighbors while avoiding direct military confrontation, forming part of hybrid coercion alongside energy pressure and information operations.

Although the Georgian embargo caused damage, in the long term it failed: Georgia diversified its exports and modernized standards, accelerating its reorientation toward Europe. This precedent is important for Armenia, which may also be pushed by Russian measures to seek new markets in Asia and the Middle East to ensure national security. Moscow’s actions reflect concern over its weakening influence in the South Caucasus. However, the repeated use of coercion undermines Russia’s reputation as a stable partner, leading neighboring countries to see economic distancing from Russia as the only way to protect sovereignty.

The wine embargo against Georgia once served as a prelude to the 2008 war, demonstrating the Kremlin’s willingness to escalate. Today, similar tactics are being applied against Ukraine, Moldova, and now Armenia. Restrictions on Armenian exports are not merely a trade dispute but a signal to all post-Soviet states that foreign policy independence will carry financial consequences, analysts note. The Kremlin expects economic hardship to generate domestic discontent and strengthen pro-Russian forces. However, as experience shows, such policies often produce the opposite effect, ultimately breaking down the regional ties that Moscow is trying to preserve.