Republican member of Congress Randy Fine has received widespread backlash after saying that ‘we don’t want Armenians to serve in Congress’. Fine is facing an already contentious primary challenge from Dan Bilzerian, a controversial figure known for his association with the so-called ‘manosphere’, as well as for his increasing dive into antisemitism and denial of the Holocaust. Bilzerian is an ethnic Armenian and has dual citizenship.

In an interview with the Jenny Beth Show on 30 April, Fine was asked about Bilzerian, and described him as a ‘little Armenian’ and a ‘terrible antisemite’.

Fine further added that Bilzerian had said, ‘President [Donald] Trump was a pedophile rapist who should be impeached. That’s not a winning argument. It may work in Armenia, where he’s from [sic], but that’s not an argument. That’s not gonna work in the United States’.

Bilzerian was born in Florida, and only obtained Armenian citizenship in 2018.

‘We don’t want Armenians to be able to serve in Congress. But I’m not gonna lose too much sleep about it’, Fine concluded.

In response, Gev Iskayjan, the advocacy director for the prominent lobbying group the Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA), said that Fine’s comments were ‘not just racist’ but ‘disqualifying’.

‘Saying Armenians shouldn’t be allowed to serve in Congress is blatant bigotry. No elected official who traffics in this kind of hate should be running for office’.

Following the initial round of backlash, Fine appeared to double down in a post on Twitter on Sunday.

The spat was the latest incident in an already nasty primary campaign.

Earlier, Bilzerian called Fine a ‘fat Jew’, and has based much of his campaign around attacking Israel and Jews, as well as Fine’s staunchly pro-Israel positions. He has also denied the Holocaust and suggested Jews were behind the 9/11 attacks and the assassination of President John F Kennedy. One of the eight ‘plans’ listed on Bilzerian’s campaign website is to ‘End Jewish Supremacy’.

For his part, Fine has a long history of making bigoted comments about Muslims, and suggested in 2025 that nuclear weapons should be dropped on Gaza. He has also used racist and Islamophobic language towards Muslim politicians in the US, such New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, whom he called ‘little more than a Muslim terrorist’, adding that his citizenship should be stripped and he ‘should be deported to the Ugandan shithole he came from’.

Fine was first elected in 2025 and is heavily favoured to win the primary scheduled for August.

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has claimed the EU Parliament wants to ‘sabotage’ the peace process with Armenia in his video address to the European Political Community (EPC) summit being held in Yerevan. The comments came just days after Azerbaijan severed ties with the EU Parliament following a resolution the body passed that called for the right of return for Nagorno-Karabakh Armenians and the release of Armenian prisoners held by Azerbaijan.

Representatives of about 50 countries attended the summit in person on Monday, but Aliyev’s address was given remotely via video. In his opening remarks, Aliyev said he was inviting the EPC members to Azerbaijan in 2028.

‘By the way, Armenia also supported our candidacy [to host the event]. This is a clear indication that peace between Azerbaijan and Armenia is a reality’, he added.

After more comments about the successes of the peace process, Aliyev said ‘not all European institutions demonstrate the same approach’ taken by the administration of US President Donald Trump.

‘Now, regarding the European Parliament, this body, instead of supporting the peace process, prefers to sabotage it’, he said.

‘Instead of addressing fundamental problems of some member states, such as xenophobia, Islamophobia, antisemitism, migration, competitiveness, and homelessness, the European Parliament targets Azerbaijan, spreading slander and lies’.

In conclusion, Aliyev said he ‘would like to congratulate Prime Minister [Nikol] Pashinyan on the EPC Summit in Armenia and say that, despite all the efforts of those who want to hinder the process, Azerbaijan is committed to the peace agenda, and the remarks of my Armenian colleague clearly demonstrate that’.

Russian–Armenian tycoon Samvel Karapetyan, the leader of the Strong Armenia Alliance of Parties, has claimed that the governments of Armenia and Azerbaijan were discussing settling ‘300,000 Azerbaijanis in Armenia’. He said that such a move would turn Armenia into a ‘Turkish–Azerbaijani enclave’, claiming former Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili had turned the western Georgian city of Batumi into such an enclave.

The comments came in an interview with Armenian media outlet Aysor, in response to a question about whether ‘Azerbaijani businesspeople can be trusted and allowed to invest in Armenia’.

Earlier, the interviewer asked Karapetyan about statements in which Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said that the resettlement of Azerbaijanis displaced from Armenia at the height of the conflict between the two countries and the return of Armenians to Nagorno-Karabakh were both off the table in the peace talks.

‘You can be sure that if [Azerbaijani President Ilham] Aliyev and Nikol Pashinyan manage to resettle 300,000 Azerbaijanis in Armenia, they will buy land, build factories, where Azerbaijanis will work. We have such an example in neighbouring Georgia. Due to Saakashvili’s mistakes, Batumi has become like a Turkish–Azerbaijani enclave’, claimed Karapetyan.

He claimed that his party would ‘stop all that’ and create 300,000 jobs for Armenians.

During the interview, Karapetyan additionally claimed that ‘all decisions about Armenia are made in Azerbaijan’ and that Pashinyan ‘did everything to antagonise relations with our main allies’ — an allusion to the continuously deteriorating ties between Armenia and Russia.

‘We should have very friendly relations with the US, with England, with France, with China, as well as with our friend, Russia. Only in this way can we secure serious guarantees from the superpowers’, Karapetyan said.

Asked about Azerbaijani Deputy Prime Minister Shahin Mustafayev’s visit to Armenia on 29 May, Karapetyan accused Pashinyan of shying away from asking the Azerbaijani official ‘all questions related to Armenia’s interests’, such as the destruction of Armenian heritage in Nagorno-Karabakh and the fate of the 19 Armenians — including former Nagorno-Karabakh officials — in Azerbaijani prisons.

‘When the deputy boss comes, Nikol [Pashinyan] has no right to ask any questions, he is only in the role of the listener’, Karapetyan said.

According to recent public opinion surveys, Karapetyan and his Strong Armenia Alliance are poised to be Pashinyan and his ruling Civil Contract party’s biggest opponents in the June parliamentary elections.

A scene once unthinkable for Armenia: European leaders, the prime minister of Canada, NATO secretary general and Ukraine’s president in a country long regarded as Russia’s closest ally in the South Caucasus.

For Yerevan, hosting the European Political Community summit and the EU-Armenia meeting is a turning point.

“Let’s be honest, eight years ago, nobody would come here,” French President Emmanuel Macron said on Monday.

“Eight years ago, this country was seen by a lot of countries around the table as a sort of de facto satellite of Russia.”

The French president further praised Armenian Premier Nikol Pashinyan for “organising the Velvet Revolution” and “de-risking this country from Russia.”

“And it was and it is still attacked on a daily basis because of that,” Macron said.

Putin’s ultimatum over closer ties with EU

Armenia’s relations with Russia have grown increasingly strained after Azerbaijan fully reclaimed the Karabakh region in 2023.

Decades of bloody conflict ended as the two former bitter rivals embarked on a historic peace process, launching an economic revival in the region amid new stability in the South Caucasus.

In 2024, Armenia suspended its membership in the Russia-led Yerevan Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO) after Moscow failed to support Yerevan during the 2022 Karabakh escalation.

Then in 2025 Pashinyan even declared an intention to join the European Union in the future.

Moscow stated categorically that it will not tolerate Armenia’s closer ties with the EU, with Russian President Vladimir Putin issuing a warning to Pashinyan during a rare and tense meeting at the Kremlin in April, in a not-so-veiled threat over Russian gas supplies.

“We see that there is a discussion in Armenia about developing relations with the European Union,” Putin said at the meeting with Pashinyan, adding that Moscow treats it “absolutely calmly”.

“But it should be obvious and honestly stated upfront that membership in a customs union with both the EU and the Eurasian Economic Union is impossible,” Putin told Pashinyan on camera.

One month after the heated exchange at the Kremlin, Pashinyan made his choice clear.

Zelenskyy’s first visit to Armenia

There is one leader whose presence in Yerevan makes Moscow even more angry than the visits by the EU leaders or NATO secretary general – it is Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

For Zelenskyy, this represented his first visit to Armenia since he took office in 2019.

But the record is even more striking in a bigger picture – it is the first visit of the Ukrainian head of state to Armenia in 24 years.

At the meeting with Pashinyan, Zelenskyy said it was important that the two countries “are restoring active dialogue”.

Ukraine’s president also stated that the leaders discussed the “development of our economic partnership.”

“I proposed resuming the work of the Joint Intergovernmental Commission on Economic Cooperation and holding its next meeting this year in Kyiv.”

But most importantly Zelenskyy and Pashinyan discussed the security aspect of the cooperation.

“We discussed the situation in the region, as well as security challenges and threats. I briefed the Prime Minister on the diplomatic efforts aimed at achieving a real peace,” Zelenskyy said.

Ten days ago in a statement next to Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev in Gabala, close to the border with Russia, Zelenskyy said he is ready to meet Vladimir Putin in Azerbaijan after the US-led diplomatic talks had stalled over the past weeks.

By raising the issue of the diplomatic peace process with Pashinyan, Zelenskyy appears to broaden the range of potential venues for a meeting with Putin — one that the Kremlin has repeatedly declined to entertain altogether.

And while Russian officials have been quiet and refrained from any comments on his visit to Armenia, the Kremlin-controlled outlets have been very vocal, calling it “humiliation” and even lashing out at the Kremlin officials.

Russian military bloggers criticised the defence ministry for not “capturing” Zelenskyy or not shooting down his plane.

“I don’t know how much lower Russia can fall on the foreign policy arena,” one of the most popular Telegram bloggers wrote, saying, “This is the most shameful page in history.”

Plenty of criticism was also lobbed at Armenia, with Russian journalists calling Zelenskyy’s visit “a gut punch from Russia’s strategic partner.”

Margarita Simonyan, the head of Russia’s biggest propaganda media network RT, said Zelenskyy’s visit to Yerevan is “such a ungrateful move on the part of Armenia — a country we have rescued so many times — that I am lost for words.”

Simonyan, who often voices the official Kremlin narrative, even suggested Moscow might respond with military intervention.

“It is high time we considered how to protect the Russian population and our interests in that country,” she said.

The wording has been used by Russia to justify its invasions and occupations of Moldova, Georgia and Ukraine.

Under its existing defence pact with Armenia, Russia maintains a base in the Armenian city of Gyumri with approximately 3,000 troops.