Armenia: From Crisis to Crisis

Protests in Armenia have been ongoing for over a month.

They began with the start of border demarcation between Armenia and Azerbaijan. The demarcation, Pashinyan had announced,  was crucial for Armenia as a condition for signing a peace agreement with Azerbaijan and potentially with Türkiye.

However, the demarcation process has turned out to be rather different than what it had been  promised to be.

Initially, it was announced that real demarcation and possible land exchanges would occur only following negotiations and reaching a compromise on all contentious issues.

But on 19 April, the Armenian authorities announced the agreement to delineate the border in the Tavush region, resulting in four villages (or rather, the territory where four villages used to be) coming under Azerbaijan’s control.

Within a few days, demarcation work began in this region and was completed last week.

Armenian society was outraged not so much by returning these territories (as the villages in question were part of the Azerbaijan SSR during the Soviet period, and demarcation should follow Soviet borders), but by Armenia’s unilateral concessions.

The Armenian government violated its declared principle. What guarantees are there that similar pressure from Baku won’t become regular?

Moreover, Yerevan surrendered the territories without guarantees of similar steps from Baku. In 2021, the Azerbaijani army captured several strategic positions on the border with Armenia, advancing, according to Yerevan, into Armenian territory.

There is no guarantee of returning this territory.

As a result, mass protests in the Tavush region turned into a march on Yerevan, led by the head of the local AAC diocese.

The protests also come at a time of Armenia’s strained relations with Russia over the latter’s perceived lack of support to its military ally during the Nagorno-Karabakh war of 2020, and thereafter, during a number of border skirmishes and incursions by Azerbaijan into Armenian sovereign territory. Armenia is a member of the Moscow-led military bloc- the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO) and houses Russia’s 102nd military base in Gyumri,  close to the Turkish border.

As a result the government of Pashinyan has been working to cultivate closer relations with the West, primarily the USA and France, while “freezing ” relations with the CSTO.

Archbishop Bagrat Galstanyan, however, does not intend to lead the country westward, but rather aims to maintain a situation where Russia remains Armenia’s security guarantor.

The parliamentary opposition (which is quite pro-Russia) has also supported Galstanyan’s protest.

Do the current protests pose a threat to Armenia’s current government. The answer is both yes and no.

The current protests coincide with another escalation in relations with Russia.

The catalyst for the crisis was Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko, who made a statement on 16 May in Azerbaijan that he had known Baku’s plans before the second Karabakh war and had supported them.

In response, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan attacked not only Belarus but also Russia: “I know of at least two CSTO countries that participated in preparing the war against us.”

Subsequently, Russia recalled its ambassador from Armenia “for consultations.” This kind of demarche by Russia in the post-Soviet space has only been made towards two countries: Georgia and Ukraine. It seems the Kremlin is seriously angered by Armenia’s current course and is looking for ways to “punish” it.