Commenting on the EU’s decision to provide first-ever military aid to Armenia, Peskov said Russia respects its estranged ally’s “search” for more geopolitical partners.
“We just wouldn’t like this search to be carried out in the ‘either-or’ mode that the Kyiv regime once chose,” he told reporters. “Such a lack of alternative political vision is not what we would like to see.”
An unnamed Russian official quoted by the official TASS news agency charged last October that Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian is “following in [Ukrainian President] Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s footsteps” and helping the West “turn Armenia into another Ukraine.” The official reacted to Pashinian speech at the European Parliament in which he criticized Moscow.
The rift between Moscow and Yerevan has deepened further since then, with Pashinian freezing Armenia’s membership in the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) and pledging to eventually pull it out of the Russian-led military alliance.
Peskov insisted that Armenia remains an “ally and brotherly country” for Russia and is free to choose “priority areas of interaction” with foreign partners.
“We are intent on continuing our warm relations,” President Vladimir Putin’s press secretary added in remarks contrasting with stern warnings to Yerevan regularly issued by senior Russian diplomats.
Some Armenian analysts believe that Peskov’s remarks also constitute such a warning. Two of them speculated on Thursday that Moscow could incite Azerbaijan to attack Armenia again if Pashinian’s administration keeps drifting to the West.
Armine Margarian, an international relations expert, said Yerevan should talk “constructively” to the Russians to try to allay their concerns. In particular, she said, it must make clear that unlike Ukraine, Armenia has no plans to seek to join NATO.
Hakob Badalian, a veteran media commentator, also said the Russian concerns should be taken seriously. He noted that neighboring Georgia is showing such caution even though it was invaded by Russia and lost more territory in 2008.
“Seeing the example of Ukraine, they felt that Georgia should not become a training ground for opening a second front against Russia,” Badalian told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service. “Armenia is facing the same challenge. It too must not become a training ground.”
Pashinian’s office did not react to Peskov’s statement. Senior members of Pashinian’s Civil Contract party refused to comment on it on Thursday.