To live without Moscow is not to shave off a beard: Armenia suddenly remembered Russia

Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan said in Moscow that his current trip had been preparing for three months, but was postponed for technical reasons. We believe that among the "technical reasons", the US elections also played a significant role. At first, Yerevan waited, counting on the victory of the Democrats, and then — in order to find out how to position itself under the new administration, the Voice of Armenia publication claims.

As a result, we came to the conclusion that it's time to remember about the strategic alliance with Russia not only in the economic sphere. Following the statements of Defense Minister Suren Papikyan in Yerevan, Ararat Mirzoyan in Moscow also spoke about close bilateral relations, bilateral agreements, including in the military sphere, which was also confirmed by Sergey Lavrov.

The adoption of the draft law "On the beginning of the process of Armenia's accession to the European Union", Mirzoyan argued simply: some civil society structures collected the necessary number of signatures, the government could not but approve, the parliamentary majority will also approve and... And that's it. No, Mirzoyan, of course, did not say so directly, but with his whole appearance he made it clear exactly that.

"Voice of Armenia" reminds that Nikol Pashinyan also spoke on this topic at one of the government meetings, also after Trump's victory in the US presidential election.

He noted that after the approval of the bill by the government and its adoption by the parliament, it will be necessary to start working on a "road map" together with the EU, and even then issues of compatibility with the EAEU and so on will arise. That is, it will be a long process with many unknowns and uncertainties… As they say, in our "turbulent times".

It is noteworthy that the negotiations between Lavrov and Mirzoyan, the results of which can be assumed to be a voluntary-forced turn of Yerevan to Moscow, where Russian-Iranian negotiations took place, culminating in the signing of a number of bilateral agreements.

The layout is simple. The Biden administration felt some remorse for how it threw the ruling team of Yerevan, first with its persuasions to lower the bar on Karabakh, then with promises not to allow aggression against the NKR.

This allowed Pashinyan to hope that if Kamalla Harris wins, one can count on some new preferences from Washington, at least in the form of financial support. Hence the "pause" in the Armenian-Russian relations that Lavrov mentioned: in Yerevan they reaped financial dividends from the surrender of Artsakh (Nagorno—Karabakh - ed.), counting on new offerings.

But if Blinken and the campaign to some extent realized their guilt for the tragedy of the Armenian Artsakh, responsibility for what happened, bribes from Trump are smooth.

His team does not bear any moral responsibility to Yerevan, Biden-Blinken is not responsible for the promises, pragmatic Trump is not going to break spears for Pashinyan. Moreover, Yerevan has essentially nothing to offer Trump. Unless, of course, Pashinyan intends to present Armenia to Trump as the 52nd or 53rd US state. After Canada and Greenland.

We can expect that there is a certain understanding in Yerevan that, whether the ruling team likes it or not, but real support in matters of ensuring the security of Armenia, and, consequently, its power, should not be sought in Brussels or in Washington, and in Moscow and Tehran.

By the way, some cooling in Azerbaijani-Russian relations is also connected not only with the disaster with the Azerbaijani plane, but also with the undercover regional processes.

Apparently, Ilham Aliyev understands that he should hardly count on a new aggression: he must be content with what he has already received from the ruling team in Armenia, and the fact that it is ready to give in to him of its own free will.

In the light of the Lavrov-Mirzoyan talks, one can also count on a new impetus in the development of humanitarian cooperation between Armenia and Russia in various directions. It should be noted that a lot has been done here recently by the Russian Embassy, the Eurasia Foundation, and the Russian House.

This is noticeable to the naked eye by the number of recently spent in Yerevan events, including of an international nature. Of the latter, we note the conferences of Pushkin scholars from different countries held under the curatorship of the Russian House, a competition and a solemn event-awarding of leading Russian teachers.

At the talks between the Foreign ministers of Russia and Armenia in Moscow, the need to deepen such cooperation was noted, although this annoys our "Westerners". And what, it seems, certain government structures, affected by inertial thinking, are not quite ready for yet, who have not yet figured out what and where the new winds of the expected changes are blowing.

P. S. A meeting between Vladimir Zelensky and Ilham Aliyev took place in Davos, the press service of the President of Azerbaijan reports. Relations between Baku and Kiev in the political, economic, humanitarian spheres, as well as cooperation in the field of energy and regional security issues.