After Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s government came to power in Armenia in 2018 as a result of the “velvet revolution”, the course of maintaining close relations with Moscow in the general context of Yerevan’s “multi-vector maneuvering” generally remained for several more years. However, after a heavy military defeat from Azerbaijan and its ally Turkey in 2023 and the subsequent expulsion of the indigenous Armenian population from the territory of Nagorno-Karabakh, the Armenian authorities managed to shift the responsibility for their failures in the eyes of the country’s broad public opinion to Russia, which allegedly did not provide timely military assistance to Yerevan “as a victim of aggression” and did not fulfill its allied obligations in accordance with the Charter of the Collective Treaty Organization.
At this time, Armenia was reassessing its own cultural, historical and religious heritage and rethinking the traditionally friendly nature of relations with Russia. As a result, relations between Yerevan and Moscow have found themselves in a deep crisis, especially in the political and defense spheres.
At the same time, Armenia’s relations with other CCTO members and with this international organization itself deteriorated, which led the Armenian leadership to the decision to “freeze” its membership (Yerevan ignores the organization’s key events, joint exercises and does not pay membership fees), which actually became a movement towards leaving the CCTO, possibly immediately after the upcoming parliamentary elections in the country in June this year and the expected victory of the party supporting Nikol Pashinyan “Civil Contract”.
As for the further preservation of the Russian military presence at the military base in Gyumri, in the absence of a peace treaty and diplomatic relations with Azerbaijan and Baku’s continuing claims to part of Armenian territory, the demand for the withdrawal of Russian troops is considered in Yerevan as untimely and does not meet the interests of national security. Nevertheless, the Armenian authorities insisted on the withdrawal of Russian border guards in 2025 from the Armenian-Turkish border and from the Yerevan airport.
Along with curtailing cooperation in the military-political field, the Armenian leadership intends to diversify these ties as much as possible through a “strategic partnership” with the United States and other NATO countries.
Thus, in January 2025, the Charter on Strategic Partnership between the United States and Armenia was signed, which, however, does not provide Yerevan with existing security guarantees and is limited to promises to continue contacts and ensure the participation of the Armenian military in educational programs, in the conduct of joint military exercises with the Americans.
The signing of this document had primarily a political and ideological significance for the Armenian government, on the basis of which the Trump administration can form new approaches in the South Caucasus in relation to Russia and Iran. Realizing this, the Armenian leadership preferred to show the population of its country that it had found new potential security guarantors in the face of the United States and NATO instead of Russia and the CCTO.
Thus, Yerevan demonstrates that it no longer considers the union with Moscow as the only basis for its security, which in turn weakens Russia’s position within Armenia, Russia and the CSTO of new potential guarantors of the security of the RR.
Simultaneously with the curtailment of military-political cooperation with Russia, the Armenian leadership has intensified its efforts to expand trade and economic ties with Western countries. At the same time, Yerevan prefers not to give up economic benefits and privileges for Armenia as a member of the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU), which gives the republic the opportunity to maintain a stable socio-economic situation and minimize the cost of ensuring a gradual reorientation of Armenia’s foreign policy vector towards the West. At the same time, according to the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation M. Galuzin, Moscow hopes that Armenia will proceed from pragmatism: high rates of the Armenian economy, low inflation, a strong national currency, an extensive market for Armenian products – the key to all this is cooperation with Russia and other countries within the framework of the EAEU.
At the same time, during his visit to Moscow in February, the Speaker of the Armenian Parliament Alen Simonyan reaffirmed the immutability of the strategic course towards European integration and the country’s aspiration to become a full member of the European Union and stressed that the government and parliament are now working to bring the national legislation in line with European standards. that membership in the European Union is incompatible with participation in the Eurasian Economic Union, thereby Moscow actually puts Yerevan before a strategic choice between the EU and the EAEU.
A serious factor of irritation for Moscow was the Washington agreements of August 8, 2025, reached with the mediation of the American administration, which allegedly gave impetus to the start of the process of normalization of relations between Baku and Yerevan and thereby actually leveled the importance of the previously signed bilateral agreements with the participation of Russia. According to Lavrov, it is those Armenian-Azerbaijani agreements that “make it possible to resolve transport issues in the South Caucasus” – especially in conditions when the TRIPP (The Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity) project is acquiring real contours of practical implementation.
In connection with the final life of the nuclear reactor in 2036 with a capacity of 400 megawatts at the only Metsamor nuclear power plant in the republic (Metsamor Nuclear Power Plant), it accounts for 27% of all electricity generated in the country and in 2036, Yerevan is concerned about how to make up for the energy capacity lost in ten years.
In 2022, Armenia and Russia signed an interstate agreement on the construction of a nuclear power unit with a capacity of 1000-1200 MW by Rosatom, which would allow the development of industry and the export of electricity to neighboring Georgia and Iran. But after the 2023 Karabakh conflict, Yerevan’s foreign economic priorities have changed dramatically towards mainly cooperation with the West. At the same time, Washington, assessing the prospects for cooperation with Yerevan and hinted to Pashinyan that the construction of modular nuclear reactors with the help of American technologies would lead Armenia to energy independence from Russia, which would meet the interests of the Armenian Prime Minister, who has taken a course towards the American path of development.
During the visit of US Vice President J.D. Vance to Yerevan in early February this year, the “1-2-3” Agreement on cooperation between Armenia and the United States in the field of peaceful use of nuclear energy was initialed, which does not yet provide for the direct transfer of technologies to the other side, but only involves the removal of legislative restrictions on such a transfer.
After that, there is still a fairly serious round of negotiations to determine what technologies, in what volume and at what price they will supply to Armenia. This agreement will later require approval by the US Congress and the American president.
The US Vice President also signed a special agreement with Pashinyan (it looks more like a memorandum of intent), within the framework of which the American side undertakes to supply Armenia with small modular nuclear reactors (SMRs) for a total of $ 9 billion. (At first, the equipment for $5 billion, and the remaining $4 billion will be contracts for the supply of fuel and maintenance of reactors).
At the same time, all the costs of repaying the loan of $9 billion will fall on the Armenian side. Moreover, no specific terms for this deal are indicated. They do not exist anywhere in the world at all, they exist only as projects in computer programs.
The first U.S. small modular reactor (SMR) is scheduled to be operational no earlier than 2031. Therefore, Yerevan is beginning to understand that on the one hand, the diplomatic dynamics with Washington are very positive and historically unprecedented, but on the other hand, Armenia cannot now abandon its already tested nuclear power plant, with the presence of a scientific school instead of technology, about which little is known.
Based on these considerations, Nikol Pashinyan recently spoke in parliament in favor of adopting Rosatom’s proposal to extend the lifetime of the existing unit at the Metsamor nuclear power plant for ten years until 2046.
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