Source: Armenia to quit Russia’s military alliance amid split with Putin – POLITICO
Armenia will formally withdraw from its military alliance with Moscow, the country’s prime minister announced Wednesday, as tensions grow with Russia.
“It turned out that the members of the alliance are not fulfilling their contractual obligations, but are planning a war against us with Azerbaijan,” he said.
The military bloc — Russia’s answer to NATO — is made up of six former Soviet states: Russia, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.
However, Pashinyan has accused the CSTO of failing to intervene after his country was attacked by neighboring Azerbaijan in 2022. He has also said Russian peacekeepers failed in the breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh last year, when Azerbaijan launched an offensive that sparked the mass exodus of its 100,000 ethnic Armenian residents.
As a result, Armenia had vowed it would “freeze” its membership of the alliance, recall its representatives and would not contribute financially to its budget. Moscow has insisted that Yerevan will be “obliged” to pay its dues regardless.
Instead, Pashinyan’s government has staged joint drills with U.S. forces, called for help from the West to strengthen its democracy and even hinted it could one day seek to join the EU. Russian border guards have since been withdrawn from their positions along Armenia’s borders with its neighbors.
However, according to Vasif Huseynov of Azerbaijan’s AIR Center think tank, Armenia’s ongoing economic dependency on Russia means “its complete departure from Moscow’s orbit does not seem realistic” at this stage. Russia maintains a monopoly over key parts of trade with Armenia, as well as over its energy and infrastructure.
The Armenian Foreign Ministry declined to provide any further details beyond the Prime Minister’s comments.
隨著與俄羅斯緊張關係加劇，亞美尼亞總理週三宣布，亞美尼亞將正式退出與莫斯科的軍事聯盟。 他說，「事實證明，該聯盟成員國沒有履行合約義務，而是計劃與亞塞拜然對我們發動戰爭。」這個俄羅斯回應北約的軍事集團由六個前蘇聯加盟共和國組成：俄羅斯、亞美尼亞、白俄羅斯、哈薩克史丹、吉爾吉斯和塔吉克。 然而，帕希尼揚指責集體安全條約組織在2022年其國家遭到鄰國阿塞拜疆攻擊後未能介入。他也表示，俄羅斯維和人員在納戈爾諾-卡拉巴赫分裂地區失敗了，去年阿塞拜疆發動的攻勢引發了10萬亞美尼亞族居民大規模逃亡。 因此，亞美尼亞發誓將「凍結」其聯盟成員資格，召回其代表，並且不會為其預算提供財政捐助。莫斯科堅稱埃里溫無論如何都「有義務」繳交會費。 相反，帕希尼揚政府與美軍舉行了聯合演習，呼籲西方幫助其加強民主，甚至暗示有一天可能會尋求加入歐盟。此後，俄羅斯邊防部隊已從亞美尼亞與其鄰國邊境沿線的陣地撤出。 然而，阿塞拜疆國際關係分析中心智庫的瓦西夫·侯賽諾夫表示，亞美尼亞對俄羅斯持續的經濟依賴意味著「現階段它完全脫離莫斯科似乎並不現實」。俄羅斯對與亞美尼亞貿易的關鍵部分及其能源和基礎設施保持壟斷。 除了總理的評論之外，亞美尼亞外交部拒絕提供任何進一步的細節。
