For about three decades after the Soviet collapse, Armenia anchored its foreign and security policy to Moscow.
The genesis of that relationship was in May 1992, when Armenia became a signatory to the original Collective Security Treaty as part of a broader Russian-led security framework. 10 years later, in May 2002, treaty members agreed to transform that arrangement into a more formalised international military alliance, which became known as the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), rendering Armenia a founding member of the organisation.
Armenia’s partnership with Russia was a pragmatic trade-off: Moscow provided security guarantees, symbolised by its military base in Gyumri, in return for strategic alignment.
This relationship was driven less by ideology than by necessity, as Armenia’s landlocked geography, small population and modest economy made reliance on a powerful external patron a practical choice rather than a purely political preference.
The deterioration of trust was a sequence of perceived Russian inaction during moments Armenia believed it needed Russia to act.
The first crack in the relationship came during the 2020 Garabagh War (also known as the Second Garabagh War), when another armed conflict broke out between Azerbaijan and Armenia alongside the unrecognised separatist entity in Garabagh, which is a formally recognised region in Azerbaijan.
The 44-day war resulted in a decisive Azerbaijani victory and ended with the signing of the trilateral ceasefire declaration brokered by Russia on 10 November 2020.
The decisive moment came in September 2023, when Azerbaijan restored its full sovereignty over the remainder of Garabagh through what it officially described as a counter-terrorism operation.
The circumstances leading to that outcome had developed over several years. The mandate of the approximately 2,000 Russian peacekeepers deployed under the November 2020 trilateral ceasefire declaration was subject to differing interpretations, as the agreement did not explicitly define the scope of their authority.
Their position became increasingly constrained after Armenia recognised Azerbaijan's territorial integrity, including Garabagh, during talks in Prague in October 2022. Then in April 2023, Azerbaijan established a border checkpoint on the Lachin Road, the sole land route connecting Armenia with the region. By the time of the one-day counter-terrorism operation in September, the Russian peacekeepers' room for manoeuvre had become extremely limited.
During and after the 2020 war and following the war in 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin repeatedly stated that while Armenia was a member of the CSTO, Garabagh was internationally recognised as part of Azerbaijan. As a result, he argued, the CSTO's mutual defence obligations did not extend to the region.
Not long after that, Russian President Putin appeared to criticise Armenia’s decision to recognise Garabagh as part of Azerbaijan. Referring to the Prague understandings on mutual recognition of territorial integrity, he suggested that the issue should perhaps have been left for future generations to determine.
The issue remained a source of tension between Moscow and Yerevan. In late 2024, Putin stated that there had been "no aggression against Armenia", a remark that prompted formal protests from the Armenian government.
For Moscow, the stakes extend beyond Armenia itself. Were Yerevan to leave the CSTO, it would join Georgia, Azerbaijan, Ukraine and Uzbekistan as non-Baltic former Soviet republics that have distanced themselves from Russia's security architecture - a development that could further weaken Moscow's influence across the post-Soviet space.
Despite the rupture, Russia supplies most of Armenia’s natural gas, with Gazprom controlling critical energy infrastructure and structural dependencies remain formidable:
If Moscow were to significantly reduce ties, the risks to Armenia would be acute across multiple domains:
The EU has moved decisively to deepen engagement, though the scale and nature of that support remain qualitatively different from Russia’s security guarantee:
Armenia faces a dilemma. In the short term, Russia retains coercive dominance: it controls the gas, the bases, the remittance flows, and the only kinetic mutual-defence treaty Armenia has. The EU’s support, while significant, remains modest in security terms; €30 million in non-lethal assistance does not replace the Gyumri garrison.
The EU offers institutional integration, rule-of-law conditionality, economic diversification and a path toward association with the world’s largest single market. The visa-liberalisation process, connectivity investments, and Resilience and Growth Plan all point toward structural integration rather than transactional patronage.
As Yerevan is attempting to decouple from its dominant security and economic partner, the question remains: can the EU accelerate its support sufficiently to close that gap? This remains the critical uncertainty.
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