Why Russia Is Trying to Influence Armenia’s Elections

Excerpt

A geopolitical struggle is playing out in Armenia. At stake is whether the former Soviet state can break free of Russia’s orbit and move toward the West, and the battleground is the June 7 parliamentary elections. The outcome carries direct implications for US interests in the South Caucasus region, including efforts to secure a lasting Armenia-Azerbaijan peace and efforts to establish East-West connectivity outside Moscow’s and Tehran’s control.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has made the stakes explicit. In remarks on May 9, the Russian president warned Armenia against pursuing European integration, asserting that Kyiv’s “attempting to join the EU” ultimately led to the Russian invasions of Ukraine in 2014 and 2022.

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, whom President Donald Trump has endorsed, is making the opposite bet. Although the European Union has not yet invited Armenia to join, the country officially enshrined its goal of EU accession in law in 2025. As Pashinyan has put it, Armenia is ready to be “as close to the European Union as the European Union deems it possible.”

For decades, Armenia has been firmly in Moscow’s sphere of influence. The country is part of the Russian-led Collective Security Treaty Organization and Eurasian Economic Union, and it hosts a Russian military base. Moscow, in turn, exploited Armenia and Azerbaijan’s decades-long conflict over the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh to play each side off the other.

Keti Korkiya is a researcher specializing in international law and national security at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD).