“There is a deep crisis in Armenian-Russian relations, and bilateral ties are currently at an unprecedented low level,” said political scientist Suren Surenyan in an interview with Panorama.am, commenting on Prime Minister Pashinyan's statements regarding the CSTO and the response from Russian President's press secretary Dmitry Peskov.
The immediate response from the press secretary of the Russian president to Pashinyan's speech, according to the political scientist, indicates serious problems in the relations between the two countries.
“The section on ‘Foreign Policy and Security’ in the government’s 2026-2031 program indicates Armenia's strategic course of consistently withdrawing from Russian integration projects, including the CSTO and the EAEU,” noted Surenyan.
Commenting on views that Russia is definitively leaving the South Caucasus, Surenyan described them as unscientific.
“The concentration of large resources in Eastern Europe and on the Ukrainian front has temporarily reduced Russia's activity in the region, but historical experience, particularly events of 1918 or the early 1990s, shows that such geopolitical retreats are inevitably followed by a return,” said the political scientist.
According to Surenyan, the created crisis, however, harms both sides.
“Russia suffers serious reputational losses and a weakening of regional influence, while a sharp change in Armenia's foreign policy course could lead to a 20 percent reduction in the economy and irreversible security consequences,” concluded Surenyan.
