On May 26, a round table was held in the State Duma: "Armenia without Russia and Russia without Armenia. causes, results and consequences". Based on the results of the discussion, the participants agreed on a number of recommendations. The main one is the proposal to gradually suspend Armenia's membership in EAEU and CSTO.
Leonid Kalashnikov, chairman of the CIS Committee of the State Duma, noted that the previously provocative topic has now become a "work agenda". According to him, under the leadership of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, Armenia is consistently moving in the direction of severing alliance relations. the country votes against Russia at the United Nations, joins separate sanctions initiatives, and in March 2025 it started the process of joining the European Union. Kalashnikov emphasized that this actually means leaving the Eurasian Economic Union.
"The leadership of Armenia wants to take advantage of the dividends of EAEU and CSTO membership, while leaving the allies at the same time. However, as it has already been said, it is impossible to endlessly take advantage of the alliance's advantages by conducting a hostile policy towards the ally. We have been saying for a long time that alliance and partnership are a two-way street. The only language that the current Yerevan regime understands is the language of symmetrical and asymmetrical measures. And it's time to start speaking in that language," Kalashnikov said.
The deputy also presented the economic justifications for the review of relations. The price of Russian gas for Armenia is $177.5 per thousand cubic meters, while European consumers pay significantly more. Remittances from Russia amounted to 3.9 billion dollars in 2024, about 13 percent of Armenia's GDP, and almost the entire volume of the republic's agricultural exports goes to the Russian market. According to Kalashnikov, the model of such relations needs to be reinterpreted.
The deputy speaker of the State Duma, Pyotr Tolstoy, stated that abandoning friendly relations with Russia is a serious mistake and may lead to the loss of economic and political advantages associated with EAEU membership. Tolstoy also questioned the possibility of maintaining the simplified rules for the stay of Armenian citizens in Russia and the operation of Armenian businesses if bilateral relations continue to deteriorate.
"Unfortunately, during the last few months, both the representatives of the Armenian parliament and the executive power have made a number of statements and actions, which testify to the rapid reorientation of the country's leadership in the European or American direction. This, of course, causes us regret, especially because Armenia consistently ignores meetings at the CSTO level as well," said the deputy speaker of the State Duma.
The first deputy chairman of the Security Commission, Andrey Lugovoi, linked Yerevan's actions to foreign influence and accused the Armenian authorities of turning the country into a "platform for gathering anti-Russian assets of Western sponsors".
"It is necessary to create, and this is an important issue, an official register of anti-Russian decisions, actions and projects related to the Armenian direction. "Every decision should have its price and consequences: voting, agreement with foreign military structures, discrimination against Russian mass media, expulsion of the Russian language, refusal of alliance obligations, support for sanctions initiatives," said Lugovoi.
Dmitry Novikov, the First Deputy Chairman of the Committee on International Affairs, did not rule out that Russian parliamentarians may question the advisability of Armenia's continued participation in the Collective Security Treaty Organization against the background of rapprochement with the EU, which, in his opinion, creates a contradiction with the obligations assumed within the CSTO framework.
