MOSCOW — Armenia’s prime minister visited Moscow and held talks Wednesday with Russian President Vladimir Putin amid rising tensions between the estranged allies.
Putin hosted Nikol Pashinyan for talks after a summit of the Eurasian Economic Union, an economic alliance dominated by Moscow. which they both attended earlier in the day. The talks came a day after Putin began his fifth term in office at a glittering inauguration in the Kremlin.
In brief remarks at the start of the talks, Putin said bilateral trade was growing but acknowledged “some problems related to security in the region.”
Pashinyan, who last visited Moscow in December, said “certain issues have accumulated since then.”
Armenia’s ties with Russia, its long-time patron and ally, have become increasingly strained after Azerbaijan launched a lightning military campaign in September to recapture the Karabakh region, ending three decades of ethnic separatist rule. Armenian there.
Armenian authorities accused Russian peacekeepers deployed in Nagorno-Karabakh after the previous round of hostilities in 2020 of failing to stop Azerbaijan’s attack. Moscow, which has a military base in Armenia, rejected the accusations, arguing that its troops had no mandate to intervene.
The Kremlin, in turn, has bristled at Pashinyan’s efforts to deepen ties with the West and distance his country from Moscow-dominated economic and security alliances.
Just as Pashinyan was visiting Moscow on Wednesday, Armenia’s Foreign Ministry announced that the country will stop paying dues to the Collective Security Treaty Organization, a Russian-dominated security pact. Armenia previously suspended its participation in the group as Pashinyan sought to strengthen ties with the European Union and NATO.
Russia was also upset by Armenia’s decision to join the International Criminal Court, which last year indicted Putin for alleged war crimes related to Russian action in Ukraine.
Moscow, busy with the Ukrainian conflict dragging on into a third year, has publicly expressed concern about Yerevan’s turn westward but has sought to downplay the differences.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov admitted Tuesday that “there are certain problems in our bilateral relations,” but added that “there is political will to continue dialogue.”