The chairman of the Democratic Alternative party, Suren Surneyants, writes:
“The end of the alliance model: what did the Putin-Pashinyan meeting show?
Yesterday’s Putin-Pashinyan meeting showed that the parties did not resolve the existing contradictions, but agreed to continue managing them.
There was no substantive turn from April 1 to September 1. It seemed that we were witnessing a continuation of the previous meeting, with the same issues, but with more open and harsh formulations.
No convergence of positions was recorded on any fundamental issue. On the contrary, the disagreement over the EU-EAEU choice became clearer and more public. Putin actually qualified the law starting Armenia’s EU membership process as a declaration of withdrawal from the EAEU and demanded to take a decision as soon as possible. Pashinyan countered that no notice of withdrawal was sent, there is no expulsion mechanism in the EAEU, and the moment of choice has not yet come. This is an institutionalization of the contradiction.
Moscow’s invitation is just a tactical achievement for Pashinyan. After the meeting, he presented the agreement to continue “a frank and constructive conversation” in Moscow as the main result, describing the meeting as “very good.” Putin, in turn, clarified that specific issues should be discussed “point by point” in Moscow with the participation of specialists. The formulation “a very good meeting” in this case is just a political cover.
The issue of Armenia's railways may become key in the next round of negotiations. Putin directly linked potential investments to the volume of cargo transportation and economic feasibility. The issue is directly related to the unblocking of regional communications, the TRIPP project.
After Bishkek, there is still no reason to assume that Moscow is going to review the economic restrictions applied to Armenia in recent months. Pashinyan did not give any signal that Yerevan is ready to review the change in the country's strategic course.
The meeting also showed that the former allied model of Armenian-Russian relations is actually exhausted. Pashinyan had spoken about this a few days ago, and yesterday the Russian president also publicly considered such a prospect. Putin's statement that if Armenia does not need the Russian military base, Russia is ready to leave "even tomorrow" was extremely telling.
This, of course, does not mean that the Russian military base will be withdrawn from Armenia tomorrow.
Putin’s next question, “but is Armenia ready for it?”, shows that the base issue is also a negotiating lever at this stage. Moscow is raising the price of a possible rupture and at the same time shifting responsibility for its consequences onto Yerevan.
In essence, what took place in Bishkek was not a “reload” of Armenian-Russian strategic relations, but another round of negotiations on their controlled dismantling or reformulation. And they are not the same.
I am more inclined to talk about “reformulation,” which implies not an institutional rupture, but a “narrowing” of relations, their essential transformation.
Yerevan continues to change its strategic course, while Moscow continues to increase the political and economic cost of that change. At the same time, both sides are still interested in preventing this confrontation from turning into an uncontrolled rupture.
