When on April 1, Armenia’s Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan met Vladimir Putin in the Russian capital, the Armenian leader’s agenda was clear — to bolster his difficult position before the June parliamentary elections.
It did not go smoothly.
The Russian side used the opportunity to present an ultimatum to Yerevan and to broadcast the videoed exchange — choose us, Putin told Pashinyan, or choose the European Union (EU). You cannot choose both.
The Russian logic is clear — one cannot be a member state in mutually exclusive supranational economic entities such as the EU and the Russian-dominated Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU).
Read the full article on The Center for European Policy Analysis.
Emil Avdaliani is a Research Fellow at the Turan Research Center.