“It is the absolute sovereign right of our Armenian friends to develop relations in all directions,” said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov. “We continue to proceed from the main thing: we have our own bilateral relations with Armenia, we value these relations, and we intend to develop them further.”
Speaking to journalists hours before the scheduled signing of the agreement in Washington, Peskov said at the same time that the United States “has never played a particularly stabilizing role in the South Caucasus” and keeps “trying in every way to pull more and more countries into its wake.”
“The main thing is not what you signed or how you signed it but what stems from it,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told a separate news conference in Moscow. “We also used the term ‘strategic partnership’ in a number of agreements with Western countries, but they never required one or another participant to act against a third party.”
Lavrov claimed that Yerevan will come under U.S. pressure to take such action against Moscow and, in particular, join Western sanctions imposed on Russia since its 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
Armenian entrepreneurs have taken advantage of those sanctions by re-exporting goods to and from Russia. This has been the main driving force behind robust economic growth registered in Armenia for the last three years.
Russian-Armenian trade has skyrocketed since 2022 despite a deepening rift between the two longtime allies. Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s administration has been seeking to reorient Armenia towards the West in response to what it sees as Russia’s failure to honor security commitments to the South Caucasus country.
Pashinian froze the country’s membership in the Russian-led Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) a year ago. His government officially announced last week plans to join the European Union, prompting stern warnings from Moscow.
Lavrov repeated those warnings, saying that accession to the EU is “incompatible” with Armenia’s continued membership in the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU), a Russian-led trade bloc that gives it tariff-free access to Russia’s vast market.
Still, the top Russian diplomat spoke of a continuing “dialogue” with Yerevan. He revealed that Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan has accepted an official invitation to visit Moscow.
“I hope that the visit will take place soon,” added Lavrov.