Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan stated during a press conference in Yerevan that Russia and the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) have failed to fulfill their security obligations toward Armenia.
According to the Operative Information Center-OMM, Pashinyan addressed the exclusion of Russia as a strategic partner in the Armenian government's 2026-2031 program. Referencing the border escalations between Azerbaijan and Armenia in September 2022, he emphasized that it has become difficult to characterize relations with Moscow as a strategic partnership since that period.
The Prime Minister noted that Russia and the CSTO did not meet Armenia's security expectations. "If we were to write 'strategic partnership' in the program now, you would ask why Russia and the CSTO did not fulfill their security obligations during that time," Pashinyan remarked.
The new Armenian government program indicates that relations with Russia will be reshaped "within the framework of new conditions for establishing peace in the region." According to the document, dialogue on mutually beneficial and multifaceted cooperation between the two countries is expected to continue.
This shift in rhetoric reflects the ongoing cooling of diplomatic ties between Yerevan and Moscow. Since the 2020 Patriotic War and the subsequent restoration of Azerbaijan's sovereignty over its territories, including the Garabagh region, Armenia has increasingly sought to diversify its security alliances, distancing itself from traditional reliance on the CSTO and Russian security guarantees.
