MOSCOW (Reuters) – Armenia can no longer rely on Russia as its main military and defense partner because Moscow has repeatedly let it down, so Yerevan should think about forging closer ties with the United States and France, the Prime Minister said. Nikol Pashinyan saying.
Armenia, a small former Soviet republic surrounded by Georgia, Azerbaijan, Iran and Turkey, has long depended on Russia as a major power ally, although Pashinyan has angered the Kremlin by questioning the foundations of the alliance.
“We need to understand with whom we can really maintain military-technical and defense relations,” Pashinyan told Armenian Public Radio when asked about the reform of Armenia’s armed forces.
“Previously, this problem was simple because there was no such issue and there was no difficulty in creating a concept. Previously, 95-97% of our defense relations were with the Russian Federation. Now this cannot be both for objective and subjective reasons . ” he said.
Pashinyan said Armenia should think about what security ties it should build with the United States, France, India and Georgia.
Since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, Russia has faced competition from the United States for dominance of what were once Soviet republics and formerly parts of the Russian empire.
Pashinyan says Russia failed Armenia when Azerbaijan launched a lightning-fast military operation that regained control of the separatist enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh, prompting an outflow of ethnic Armenians living there.
Russia says Pashinyan’s own failure to navigate the complex rivalries of the South Caucasus was to blame for the defeat of ethnic Armenian fighters in Karabakh in 2023.
Azerbaijan has accused France of sowing the seeds of a new war by supplying arms to Armenia, which is also being courted by the United States.
(Reporting by Guy Faulconbridge; Editing by Andrew Osborn)