Does Armenia Farewell Russia?

The former Armenian ambassador to the Russian Federation told how Yerevan chooses the path to the West.

Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan took part in some events of the NATO summit. The Armenian Foreign Minister said that he appreciates the close cooperation with the Alliance. This caused a nervous reaction among Russians, who saw this trip as "destabilization" in the South Caucasus.

Is Yerevan's Western political vector a conscious choice of the Armenian elites or is it still an attempt to maneuver? Charter97.org addressed these question to Stepan Grigoryan, one of the leaders of the democratic movement in Armenia in the 1990s, a former deputy of the Supreme Council of the Republic and former Ambassador of Armenia to Russia:

— I believe that the process of moving towards the West is inevitable. But if you look at the mood inside the government, there are different people who are trying to present this process in the form of maneuvering between the West and Russia. But I can give an example, from which it can be seen that this process is already irreversible.

Today, Mikhail Galuzin, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, reacted very painfully to the fact that Armenia was in Washington. There were very serious messages addressed to us that "you have obligations within the framework of the CSTO", "you have obligations in bilateral agreements", that "the West is against Russia" (even such a phrase was there), and "you go to Washington for the NATO summit" and so on. There was a rather tough text, but at the same time there was not a single word that Jeyhun Bayramov [Minister of Foreign Affairs of Azerbaijan — Ed.] was also in Washington. Do you understand? This means that our movement to the West must be irreversible.

Russia thinks it is frightening, warns, thinks it will deter Armenia. But the Russian Federation behaves biasedly, this is a very important point. This behavior further pushes our political elites towards the West. It can be understood that Russia did not like Armenia's participation in the NATO summit in Washington.

But the fact that the Kremlin did not say a single negative word because of Bayramov's participation in the summit proves that Russia is really hostile to Armenia. Therefore, Armenia has no other options but to move to the West.

— Russia is frightening Yerevan with the consequences. Does Moscow have any other tools of influence? May it be just horror stories?

— The matter is moving to the fact that these are only horror stories. Russia has less and less influence, because the main mechanism of influence is society. Everyone saw this trilateral meeting of Mirzoyan, Bayramov and Blinken, and the Russian Foreign Ministry opposes only Armenian participation.

Russia, of course, is in a very weak position, in a very difficult situation. Their influence on Armenian society is decreasing every day.

There were recently protests under Bagrat Galstanian [archbishop of the Armenian Apostolic Church — Ed.] lead. While people did not clearly understand who was behind him, they went to these rallies, he gathered quite large rallies. As soon as people realized that pro-Russian forces were behind him, the rallies almost stopped, everything was reduced to meetings of 500 or 1,000 people.

The number of Kremlin's levers of influence is decreasing, this is the first thing. Now an attempt is being made to play the card that our economic dependence is supposedly quite strong. We used to say that we are also militarily and technically dependent on Russia, but now military and technical cooperation with other countries gets to 90%, and only 10% with Russia. This is very important information. Three years ago, our level of interaction was almost 100%, and now it has dropped to 10%.

It is very easy to find alternatives in the modern world, this is done very quickly, so Armenia's dependence on Russia is now sharply decreasing in different areas.

But the main thing is that people are extremely negative about cooperation with Moscow. All these surveys that different centers are doing show that the mood for European integration has reached 60-70%, confidence in Russia has fallen to 10%. There are different numbers in different contexts, it's easy to see.

My opinion is that now these are just horror stories from Russia. Of course, the Russians can take some decisive step out of desperation but this is very unlikely against the background of the complication of the situation on the fronts in Ukraine.

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