The response of Ararat Mirzoyan, Foreign Minister of Armenia to the question regarding relations with Russia at the High-level conversation at the Warsaw Security Form:
Anja Wehler-Schock: "These developments impact the population’s stance towards Russia? Russia used to hold its hand over Armenia in this conflict, but stood by when the Azerbaijani offenses came last year. Has this pushed Armenians away from Russia possibly towards Europe?"
Ararat Mirzoyan: "Very interesting question. You know, it’s not a secret anymore that there is a huge frustration in Armenian society regarding Russia, Russia’s assistance and alliance with Russia, because for decades people of Armenia were thinking that if something like this happens Russia will help us, will protect us, etc. So, now people of Armenia saw that this is not the case, we don’t get assistance, moreover you know that after the war of 2020, Russian peacekeepers were sent to Nagorno Karabakh to ensure the security of the population of Nagorno Karabakh, and we saw that during this forced displacement the peacekeeping mission did not work, did not justify itself.
Moreover, we are a formal member of the Collective Security Treaty organization with Russia and other countries, and when we had attacks on our internationally recognized borders we saw that again neither Russia, nor our formal allies from CSTO did not react, at least their reaction was not fitting with our expectations. So, of course one can assume this created a huge frustration. Now people in Armenia are considering some other options, as I said.
And on the topic connected with democracy: we truly believe in democracy and understandably this brings us closer to the EU, to the US, so in the context of the values of the society we have been close to the EU, to the Western countries. In the context of security, psychologically the people of Armenia were connecting themselves to Russia. Now, this second component is crushed and people don’t see any other reason, why not to fully tie themselves with the EU."
