During the parliamentary elections in Armenia, which will be held on Sunday, June 7, Armenians will have to choose not only a new composition of the National Assembly, but also the country’s strategic course for the coming years: continuing accelerated integration with the European Union or returning to the orbit of Russia’s neo-imperial influence.
The main dividing line between the candidates is along foreign policy lines. The ruling party is moving towards rapprochement with the European Union, gradually distancing itself from Russia and the CSTO it leads. In this situation, Moscow does not cease its attempts to maintain control over Armenia’s security policy through its military presence, information influence, and blocking Yerevan’s cooperation with Western countries.
A distinctive feature of the current election campaign is also the discussions about the use of Russia to influence the elections. As voting day approached, the economic restrictions of Rosselkhoznadzor fell one after another. Since the end of may have introduced restrictions on the import of Armenian tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers and strawberries into the Russian Federation. Since June 2, the products of three major wine and cognac producers, flowers, mineral water, as well as live fish and trout have been banned. The official reason is a violation of phytosanitary standards.
In addition, the Ministry of Energy of the Russian Federation recently notified Yerevan of the possible suspension of the 2013 agreement on preferential supplies of gas and petroleum products to Armenia.
However, experts believe that such attempts by Russia to force Armenia into submission and a positive perception of the “Russian world“ in the current geopolitical realities are similar to the attempt of a man who brutally abuses a girl to get love from her.
Armenia's historical dependence on Russian security guarantees has become an instrument of hybrid control by the Kremlin, and the main element of the Russian military presence in this country remains the 102nd Russian military base in Gyumra, which serves as a tool for controlling and containing Yerevan's political independence.
The Russian presence is deeply integrated into critical elements of the security infrastructure, including the joint air defense system and border control. For decades, this has allowed Moscow to completely control Yerevan's defense planning and block any attempts to diversify military ties. Only now is Yerevan gradually regaining control over the checkpoint on the border with Turkey and Iran.
The complete ineffectiveness of Russian security guarantees and the CSTO's inaction during the last two Karabakh wars in 2020 and 2023 have finally destroyed the myth of Russia as a reliable partner. The Kremlin deliberately uses Armenia's vulnerability to achieve its goals in relations with other regional players, in particular Azerbaijan and Turkey.
Moscow's failure to fulfill its obligations has caused Yerevan to freeze participation in the CSTO and to seek alternative partners in the West. This step was a natural reaction to the understanding that the Russian military presence is a source of danger, not stability.
The attitude of Armenian society towards the Russian military presence has undergone dramatic changes towards deep skepticism and disappointment. After Armenia's defeats in the last two Karabakh wars, when Moscow did not provide military assistance to Yerevan, sociological data recorded a rapid decline in trust in Russia as a security partner and an increase in demands for the withdrawal of Russian troops.
According to the results of the IRI survey, 61% of Armenian citizens believe that the country as a whole is moving in the right direction and support the above-mentioned foreign policy turn in N. Pashinyan's foreign policy.
An important factor in the change in public sentiment was the high-profile incidents involving Russian military personnel in Gyumri, including the tragic murder of the Avetisyan family in 2015. The behavior of The Russian command and its attempts to cover up the criminals have been violating Armenia's sovereignty for years and have sparked mass protests. The result has been a noticeable cooling of relations with Russia.
Since Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan effectively suspended Armenia's participation in the military alliance in early 2024, the country has withheld its financial contributions. Even before that, Yerevan began boycotting CSTO meetings, military exercises, and other events.
In the election program of Pashinyan's party, relations with Russia are no longer called "alliance" - now they are "transformative" ties that Yerevan seeks to build on the basis of new realities. This is explained by the diversification of foreign policy, formulating its essence as a transition from "dependence on one geopolitical center to dependence on many".
The Pashinyan administration has made the diversification of Armenia's foreign policy and security partnerships away from Russia a central strategic goal. Two years ago, Security Council Secretary Armen Grigoryan suggested that Russia's share of arms purchases from Armenia had fallen from about 96% to less than 10% since January 2.
India and France have become key suppliers. APRI estimates purchases from India at $1.5 billion in 2022-23 alone, while that country’s Defense Ministry has pegged purchases from France at €278.5 million in 2023-24. Pashinyan said on the eve of the parade that Armenia was already buying weapons from six or seven countries. Armenia’s desire to deepen cooperation with France, the United States, and the EU has provoked an aggressive reaction from the Russian military-political leadership. The Kremlin sees Yerevan’s sovereign steps as a threat to its dominance in the South Caucasus and is trying to block contacts with NATO, its members and the Alliance’s allies.
In parallel, Yerevan has signed a series of security memoranda aimed at anchoring itself in the expanding web of European and transatlantic defense partnerships and away from Russia.
Armenia is using the two-day meeting of European leaders in its capital to promote its top priority – security – as it accelerates its shift away from Russia towards Western partners. During the European Policy Summit in Yerevan, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan also used his time in the European spotlight to meet with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, quietly pushing for deeper cooperation with the transatlantic alliance. The bilateral talks focused on regional stability in the South Caucasus, ongoing reforms and prospects for expanding capabilities and interoperability. The discussion took place after a preliminary engagement with NATO: On April 20-21, 2026, Ambassador Kevin Hamilton, Special Representative of the NATO Secretary General for the Caucasus and Central Asia, visited Armenia and met with President Vahagn Khachaturyan, Pashinyan, and officials.
Russian officials, state media, and pro-Kremlin military have launched a large-scale information campaign to discredit Western aid. Russian propaganda pays special attention to discrediting Western weapons, trying to prove their ineffectiveness in regional conditions, which actually seems absurd to both Armenians and experts from around the world who have the opportunity to receive independent alternative information. Such propaganda statements are taken seriously only by the Russian common man and the “adepts“ of the Russian world, for whom the statements of Russian propaganda channels are not subject to logical reasoning. Moscow seeks to maintain a monopoly on equipment supplies in order to preserve the technological dependence of the Armenian army on Soviet and Russian standards.
Despite the Kremlin's blackmail, in 2024-2026 Armenia made significant progress in modernizing its defense sector thanks to cooperation with France. Contracts for the supply of modern GM200 radars, Mistral air defense systems, and Bastion armored vehicles laid the foundation for the creation of a qualitatively new air defense system and mobile units. A French CAESAR self-propelled howitzer on Tigran Metz Boulevard after the parade. May 28, 2026.
Institutional support from the European Union, in particular through the European Peace Facility, provides Yerevan with access to funding for non-lethal military assistance and logistics. In particular, in July 2024, Armenia received 10 million euros from the European Peace Facility. Such financial assistance strengthens the resilience of Armenian state institutions and demonstrates Europe's long-term involvement in the processes of stabilizing the South Caucasus region.
Recently, Yerevan has been deepening its dialogue with Washington. On May 26, Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio signed a charter for a comprehensive strategic partnership and a memorandum on rare earth metals. An agreement was also initialed on the TRIPP (“Trump Road“) logistics project, which Yerevan hopes will eventually turn Armenia into a transit and infrastructure crossroads for the region.
An important step in the diversification of Armenia’s security policy was the expansion of cooperation with the United States through joint military exercises such as EaglePartner, held in August 2025. Such training allows for increasing the compatibility of Armenian units with NATO forces and introducing advanced standards of command and control.
On May 26 of this year, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio stopped in Armenia to sign three documents that concluded years of negotiations and, from Washington’s perspective, marked the consolidation of Armenia’s western turn. From Yerevan’s perspective, the signing of the three documents reinforces a paradigmatic shift in the security sphere, as deepening ties with the United States have become one of the main pillars of the country’s growing security architecture.
Armenia is at a turning point. It is trying to move from a strategy of “slow movement” towards a balanced security sector policy, taking concrete steps towards diversification, including the Eagle Partner exercises in 2023, 2024 and 2025 with the US.