Russian President Vladimir Putin hosted later in the day a meeting of the leaders of the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) member states. He is due to chair on Tuesday a separate summit of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), a larger and looser grouping of ex-Soviet republics.
Pashinian skipped EEU and CIS gatherings held in Kyrgyzstan in early October. He went on to boycott a Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) summit held in Belarus’s capital Minsk in late November.
Other Armenian officials have also boycotted high-level CSTO meetings held in recent months. One of them, parliament speaker Alen Simonian, has not ruled out the possibility of Armenia’s exit from Russian-led military alliance accused by Yerevan of not honoring its security commitments. Pashinian’s government has said, though, that it is not yet considering such an option.
Speaking during a December 14 news conference, Putin suggested that Armenia is not planning to quit the CSTO and attributed Yerevan’s boycott of the organization to internal “processes” taking place in the South Caucasus country. And he again blamed Pashinian’s government for the recent Azerbaijani takeover of Nagorno-Karabakh and the exodus of its ethnic Armenian population. Pashinian hit back at Putin a few days later.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov indicated on Monday that the two leaders will meet on the sidelines of the Saint Petersburg summits. The Armenian government did not comment on Pashinian’s decision to attend them.
Simonian said on December 15 that Armenia should not leave the EEU or the CIS. He pointed to its economic dependence on Russia and described the CIS as a “platform for cooperation that benefits our country.”
Armen Baghdasarian, a veteran political analyst, believes that Yerevan’s current foreign policy is contradictory and not realistic even if Pashinian has reason to be unhappy with Russia and other ex-Soviet allies.
“You can’t be part of one bloc for economic reasons but see solutions to your security problems in another security system,” Baghdasarian told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service. “That’s not possible. You can’t simultaneously sit on two chairs.”
“Armenia has previously made such attempts and their results were disastrous,” he said.