Pashinyan Says Goodbye To Russia

European leaders converge on Armenia for two unprecedented summits.

The symbolism of this event for a country of less than three million people cannot be overemphasized: Armenia is a member of the Eurasian Economic Union created by Russian President Vladimir Putin, and a Russian military base is located on Armenian territory, reports BBC.

On Monday, more than 30 European leaders and Canada's prime minister will attend the European Political Community (EPC) summit in Yerevan.

On Tuesday, the first-ever bilateral summit of the European Union will be held in Yerevan.

The first-ever bilateral meeting of the Eurasian Economic Union will be held in Moscow on Tuesday. It buys Russian gas at preferential prices - Putin specifically mentioned this during Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan's visit to Moscow on April 1.

He noted that Russia sells gas to Armenia at a price of $177.5 per 1,000 cubic meters, while in Europe it costs $600.

"The difference is big, it is significant," the Russian president said.

How did a country so embedded in Russia's orbit end up hosting most European leaders?"

The turning point was the 2023 war between Armenia and neighboring Azerbaijan.

Then Azerbaijan launched a lightning-fast military operation to complete its takeover of Nagorno-Karabakh, expelling more than 100,000 ethnic Armenians. Russia, which had peacekeepers on the ground, stayed away.

Azerbaijan's earlier incursions into Armenian territory have also gone unanswered by the Russia-led Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO).

"We realized that the existing security architecture is not working," Sargis Khandanian, chairman of the Armenian National Assembly's Foreign Relations Committee, told the BBC.

A year earlier, the EU brokered a border recognition agreement in which it deployed a civilian monitoring mission.

"The physical presence of the European Union has changed the perception of our citizens," Khandanian said. "We have realized that the population has a demand for closer relations with the EU," he adds.

In March 2025, the Armenian parliament passed a law to start the EU accession process.

The peace process between Armenia and Azerbaijan has also accelerated.

In August, the leaders of the two countries signed a historic agreement at the White House aimed at ending the long-running conflict.

They also announced the launch of Trump's Route for International Peace and Prosperity, a major transportation corridor that will run along Armenia's border with Iran and connect the region to European markets.

The peace process between the two neighboring countries remains fragile, however, and Europe's rapprochement with Armenia has come at a diplomatic cost.

Last week, Azerbaijan's parliament voted to suspend relations with the European Parliament over a resolution by MEPs calling for the right of return for Nagorno-Karabakh Armenians who fled in 2023, as well as the release of Armenian prisoners held by Baku.

In the meantime, Moscow is watching Armenia's increasingly warm relations with the EU with undisguised irritation.

In a meeting in the Kremlin, Putin chuckled as Pashinyan boasted of freedoms in his country.

"Social media in Armenia is 100 percent free, without any restrictions," he told the Russian leader. In Russia, all major Western platforms are blocked.

Putin, however, reminded Pashinyan that his desire to join the EU is incompatible with membership in the Eurasian Economic Union.

"It is impossible to simultaneously enter a customs union with the European Union and the Eurasian Economic Union," the Russian president said, adding that it is "simply impossible by definition."

Just days before the ENP summit, Russia imposed a ban on imports of Armenian mineral water.

"This is a typical example of how hybrid threats operate," said Arthur Papyan of CyberHUB-AM, an organization that monitors Armenia's information space.

He noted that pro-European statements by high-ranking officials or visits to Brussels were often followed by decisions to detain Armenian trucks on the Georgian-Russian border, as well as threats from hackers to attack government websites.

Last month, the EU approved a new civilian mission in Armenia for the next two years to counter Russian disinformation, cyberattacks and illicit financial flows, particularly ahead of Armenia's parliamentary elections in June.

It is modeled after a similar EU mission in Moldova that appeared before the 2025 elections, which resulted in pro-European forces in Chisinau retaining power.

"I have studied these cases, especially the cases in Moldova and Romania, as well as in Ukraine," Papian said. - "I see that common tactics and technological processes can be traced here."

In January, his team recorded a massive attack on WhatsApp, which is estimated to have compromised several hundred thousand accounts. The messenger is widely used by ministers and government officials, he said.

In a separate operation, hackers created a fake account on the Signal app, posing as EU Ambassador to Armenia Vasilis Maragos, and invited NGO leaders to a fake conference on Armenia-EU relations.

The registration link looked authentic. Even experienced staff members of civil society organizations fell for the ruse. When it was possible to trace the source of the attack, the IP addresses pointed to the Russian city of Zelenograd, northwest of Moscow.

On the eve of the summits in Yerevan, Papyan said that in one morning alone he had counted six or seven bursts of activity on Telegram promoting the same idea: that the events mark a point of no return for Armenia and that Russia will punish the country for holding them.

"Armenia's democratic institutions are functioning and have made real progress, but they are under pressure," said Council of Europe Secretary General Alain Berset, who is attending the summits.

His main concerns ahead of the June elections in Armenia were foreign interference, disinformation and political polarization on the Internet.

He said Armenia has some legal instruments to counter these threats, but, as in many other countries, "they do not yet fully correspond to the scale and complexity of the threat."

While European leaders go to Yerevan with promises of civilian missions and visa liberalization in the next two years, no concrete timetable for EU accession, defense commitments or plans to substitute Russian gas has yet been set.

Without such firm commitments, Armenia's "balancing act" between Russia and the West is far from complete.

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