Armenia’s uncertain pivot: Between Moscow’s shadow and Europe’s promise

This May in Yerevan – mild, rainy, and blanketed in campaign posters – the candidates for the 7 June parliamentary elections are inescapable. Their faces stare down from every billboard, advertising hoarding, promising prosperity and, above all, peace.

“Peace” is the word that defines this election – though each party has its own vision of which peace. Its shadow is the lightning offensive Azerbaijan launched in September 2023, which expelled the Armenian population of Nagorno-Karabakh and dissolved the unrecognised Republic of Artsakh – a breakaway enclave with an overwhelmingly Armenian majority that had existed in legal limbo since the USSR's collapse. Four wars have been fought over this territory since 1991, at a cost of at least 35,000 lives.

The geopolitical context surrounding these elections is uniquely fraught. Turkey – a close ally of Azerbaijan and the state responsible for the 1915–1923 genocide that remains central to Armenian national identity – looms to the west. Russia, Christian Armenia's historic protector against its Muslim neighbours, looms to the north, its credibility severely damaged by its decision to stand aside during the 2023 offensive.

And Europe is moving closer: an unprecedented European Political Community summit, followed by the first EU-Armenia summit was held in Yerevan in early May, a signal that Yerevan's foreign policy pivot westward is gaining institutional weight – even as war continues to reshape the wider neighbourhood.

Rather than a clean break with Moscow, the summit marked a gradual attempt to reduce dependence on Russia after the loss of Nagorno-Karabakh. As György Folk’s report for HVG puts it, Armenia is seeking “a gradual recalibration” through deeper European ties, economic opportunities and reforms. For its part, Brussels is trying to gain a lasting foothold in the South Caucasus through investment, security cooperation, connectivity, visa liberalisation and support for Armenia’s sovereignty.

But the path remains cautious and conditional: visa-free travel, for instance, will depend on reforms in border management, biometric documents, migration, anti-corruption and fundamental rights. Meanwhile, Folk explains, Prime minister Nikol Pashinyan must prove that the European path is real without provoking an unmanageable confrontation with Moscow. 

The election is therefore taking place after the collapse of Armenia’s old security assumptions: Russia no longer looks reliable, Europe is not yet a protector, and peace with Azerbaijan remains deeply divisive. A context a political scientist we met in Erevan has described as a “highly fluid”. The small South Caucasus nation in left in a state of profound disorientation. The old rules, as he puts it, "are simply gone."

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‘There are no Armenians left in Nagorno-Karabakh – which is a point that none of us, or no generation before us, could ever think about’ – A representative of the Armenian civil society

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The rupture has a clear starting point. The 2020 war over Nagorno-Karabakh, followed by the 2022 Azerbaijani attacks on Armenia’s territory and Baku’s September 2023 offensive that completed what Armenian officials, rights groups and many local observers describe as ethnic cleansing, ended three thousand years of Armenian presence in the territory.

"It is not only that Nagorno-Karabakh does not exist as an entity," a representative from Armenian civil society who spoke on condition of anonymity, as did academic sources quoted in this article. "There are no Armenians left in Nagorno-Karabakh – which is a point that none of us, or no generation before us, could ever think about." Even during the Soviet, Tsarist, and Persian periods, the source notes, Armenians had always been there.

The trauma is still raw, and its political consequences are still unfolding. "We live in a very strong post-traumatic environment," the civil society source said. "As any trauma – you hit your head and you don't feel it immediately. But when you start realising, the pain gets stronger and stronger." For now, Armenia is trying not to feel it. The elections are taking place precisely in this anesthetised interval – before the full reckoning arrives.

The Russian guarantee shatters

For decades, Armenia's security rested – or appeared to rest – on its alliance with Russia, formalised through membership of the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO). That architecture has now effectively collapsed. When Azerbaijan launched its September 2022 aggression against sovereign Armenian territory – not Karabakh, but Armenia itself, leaving over 250 square kilometres still under Azerbaijani occupation – Moscow found reasons not to act. "Russians managed to find a way to dodge that diplomatically," the Armenian political scientist, who asked his name not to be mentioned, said drily.

The consequences for public opinion have been dramatic. Russia, which scored above 85–90% approval among Armenians two decades ago, is now considered a threat by roughly a third of the population. "It's more about cautiousness, more about pragmatism, more about not poking the bear," the political scientist said, "rather than sharing particularly positive sentiments towards Moscow."

Yet Armenia remains tightly bound to Russia in ways that make any clean break strategically perilous. Moscow controls critical infrastructure – railways, energy – and remains a dominant trade partner. When diplomatic relations sour, economic coercion follows swiftly: the political scientist noted that "they find some bacteria in Armenia's cognac or some mineral water."

Russia's military base in Gyumri, under contract for nearly two more decades, is barely discussed publicly, even by a government that has frozen its CSTO participation. "I don't think it's going to stay there for 20 years," the political scientist said, "but I don't know why it would leave."

Crucially, Moscow has so far calculated that retaliation is not worth it – at least within certain limits. Russia, isolated by Western sanctions and dependent on what few trade gateways remain open, including Armenia, is applying a cold pragmatism rather than punitive reflex. "I wouldn't call it empathy," the political scientist noted, "but more rational calculation."

That calculus could shift, however, the moment Armenia moves to exit the Eurasian Economic Union – a step sources describe as currently unthinkable without first finding alternative energy sources, markets, and infrastructure arrangements. "Unless Armenia finds new markets, new energy, whatever – it's just very suicidal," a civil society source said flatly.

A European aspiration, cautiously held

Into this vacuum, the European Union has moved with unusual speed. Following the 2022 aggression against Armenian territory, the EU deployed a civilian monitoring mission – now over 250 unarmed European and Canadian police officers patrolling the border. "The people on the border are pretty happy about this," the political scientist noted. "They have a sense of stability."

Public support for EU membership is striking: 73% of Armenians support it fully or somewhat, and a February poll suggested a hypothetical membership referendum would pass with 51%, with only 13% opposed. Support for an exclusively pro-Russian foreign policy stands at around 6–9%. "If you want to lose elections," the political scientist observed, "you stand up and say you're a pro-Russian party."

Yet Armenian civil society sources are careful to distinguish sentiment from strategy. Last year, Yerevan signed a strategic partnership agenda with Brussels – doing the reform homework, as one source put it, "without the political fanfare that might cause dislike among certain geopolitical centres." The approach has been described by scholars as Armenia's "silent Europeanisation" – a pattern, sources note, that predates the current government: even under the Eastern Partnership framework fifteen years ago, Armenia was quietly implementing European-aligned reforms without raising flags, sometimes literally.

Armenia's path is further complicated by its neighbourhood. Without Georgia's European trajectory being restored, sources suggest, Armenian EU membership is essentially unthinkable – both geographically and politically. The Armenian prime minister spent a significant portion of a recent European Parliament address urging MEPs to re-engage with Tbilisi.

Polarisation: a weapon, not just a symptom

It is against this backdrop that the 7 June elections are being fought – and it is here that sources are most alarmed. Political polarisation in Armenia is not simply an organic consequence of trauma and defeat. It is, in significant part, a deliberately engineered condition.

"Polarisation is a socially constructed situation," the civil society source said. "It is structured through top-down strategic actions by political elites, psychological reinforcement of group identities, and the structural impact of media." The binary being constructed – pro-European versus pro-Russian, as one source put it – erases the nuance that the vast majority of Armenians actually inhabit. Polling consistently shows that 86–87% of respondents want to balance relations between Russia and Western partners, not choose between them.

The ruling Civil Contract party campaigns under the EU flag with visible European endorsement, having successfully co-opted the pro-European narrative entirely – leaving smaller, genuinely reformist parties with almost nothing to campaign on. "If I'm a pro-European single-issue voter," the political scientist noted, "I'm going to vote for the ruling party, who has a chance to win, rather than for a party that is barely going to make the 4% threshold." Facing the government is a bloc of predominantly pro-Russian opposition parties led by former president Robert Kocharyan’s Armenia Alliance.

It features a nationalist alliance including Russian-Armenian billionaire Samvel Karapetyan’s Strong Armenia and the Armenian Revolutionary Federation/Dashnaktsutyun party. Its chances of success are however quite thin, the political scientist said, as “they are peceived as incompetent, disorganised and extremely hated. You just have to be barely bearable to win against them”. The latest poll credits the Civil Contract with 28.8% of voting intentions, followed by Strong Armenia (14.9%), Armenia Alliance (12.1%) and oligarch Gagik Tsarukian’s Prosperous Armenia (8.7%). 

The government's central electoral narrative rests on an “Orwellian reframing” of catastrophic defeat as pragmatic progress: peace has arrived, the economy is growing, roads are being built. "For a population that hadn't seen these things, it's really impressive," the political scientist conceded – before adding that what passes for "huge" infrastructure is "basic road construction and school renovations, in addition to massive urban developments. 

"Double-digit economic growth is largely due to the financial and the IT sector, and, since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, to Armenia's role in re-export flows circumventing sanctions against Russia”, the political scientist said. This boom is directly linked to the country’s unique geopolitical and economic positioning. Because Armenia is a member of the Russian-led Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) but maintains open financial and diplomatic channels with the West, it has become a primary conduit for parallel trade and capital flight.

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‘The elections are taking place precisely in this anesthetised interval – before the full reckoning arrives’ – A representative of the Armenian civil society

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A few specific groups and sectors primarily benefit from the growth, particularly in the re-export of goods such as electronics, cars and machinery, as well as gold and diamonds. The former are imported from Asia and the West and then re-exported to Russia, while the latter are imported from Russia, lightly processed or packaged in Armenia, and then re-exported to countries such as the United Arab Emirates and China. Other beneficiaries include relocated Russian professionals and businesses. The influx of Russian capital and migrants has triggered a significant expansion of Armenia’s service economy, particularly in the banking, real estate, hospitality, and retail sectors in Yerevan.

However, “the direct socio-economic impact on the wider circles of the population is rather limited in scope and range of businesses and individuals that benefit from it. The lower socio-economic class as well as the countryside are still largely excluded”, the political scientist explained.

It's no wonder that fancy cafés and restaurants in Yerevan are now packed with a booming nouveau riche class, displaying kinky fashion brands and luxury cars that one would expect to see in a casino town rather than a former Soviet capital.

Although this wealth is highly dependent on the continuation of the war in Ukraine and is not evenly distributed – it heavily favors the urban elite, landlords, and specific trade sectors while inflation has squeezed ordinary citizens who don't earn in foreign currencies or work in tech – it has nonetheless created a genuine constituency for stability, particularly among rural and older voters. 

So, adds the political scientist, “when it comes to the political effect of the economic output, the subjective perception of it seems to be at least equally as important as the numbers. While the fight against poverty is not as impressive, the baseline of comparison in public perceptions is rather low due to their prolonged poverty and disenfranchisement since independence”. In other words, he adds, “even basic capital spendings and infrastructure building, or increase in the pension and introduction of the universal health care system translate into solid political support for the ruling party especially in the rural and elderly population.”

Moreover, in a country where military service has long haunted every family, even the reduction of mandatory service from two years to eighteen months has, as one source put it, "won very many mothers' hearts."

But the civil society source warns that beneath this veneer, the rule of law is being quietly dismantled. The government has placed changing church leadership in its electoral manifesto – something described as "mind-blowing from an international human rights perspective." 

A young man who raised his hand at a bodyguard in a church was jailed; a driver from the prime minister's motorcade who struck and killed a pregnant woman has yet to serve a day in prison four years later. Independent voices are pressured with labels – "they're with the Russians," "they're with the opposition" – that serve, sources say, to legitimise extralegal treatment. "The biggest outcome of polarisation," a civil society source said, "is a competition that denies the other side the right to even politically exist."

What concerns sources most is the erosion of the democratic institutios that could, in time, channel public demands for genuine change. "We may not have that time," one source said. "By the time change becomes on demand, the institutions that could actually bring it about might be eroded."

The warning echoes a broader pattern: the mistake made with Georgia under Mikheil Saakashvili, when European partners turned a blind eye to internal abuses for the sake of the geopolitical headline. "If something shifts here towards Russia," the civil society source said, "there will be a huge question about why it happened. And it will have happened because this government was playing with fire."

A country that does not want to choose

Beneath the noise of elite polarisation, the picture that emerges from polling is of a population that is neither pro-Russian nor naively pro-Western, but stubbornly pragmatic, and desiring simply not to be forced to choose.

The existential pressures facing Moldova or Georgia applies to Armenia too, doubled down by the existential threat from Turkey and Azerbaijan to the east and west. The 7 June vote will not resolve that equation. But it will reveal how much patience remains – and how much time Armenia has left to spend it.

Meanwhile, on the steps of the “Cascade”, a monumental Soviet-era open-air museum in the shape of a staircase overlooking Yerevan, tourists and groups of schoolchildren from across Europe and the Middle East mingle as though in a Caucasian Tower of Babel. On the other side of the city, Mount Ararat rises above the clouds from nearby Turkey. In a country that prides itself on being the first Christian state in history, the Bible is never far away.

A man we met near the opera house, puts it simply: "Armenians have fought and lived under the oppression of the Arabs and the Persians, and in the end found a way to get along and work together with both. Why can it not be possible today? How long can you keep fighting?"

Karen Harutyunyan, editor-in-chief of Civilnet, Armenia's leading independent media organisation, has watched this election campaign up close. He shared his unsentimental reading with us.
On the peace deal that defines Pashinyan's campaign, Harutyunyan draws a sharp distinction between the absence of war and a genuine settlement. The fate of 19 former Nagorno-Karabakh leaders – including three former presidents and philanthropist Ruben Vardanyan – currently detained in Baku remains, he says, conspicuously absent from the government's agenda. It was not raised at either of the landmark summits recently hosted in Yerevan. "This is not a priority," he says. The reason, he implies, may be political: "If Ruben Vardanyan is back in Armenia, he can be a political opponent for Pashinyan." On Russia, Harutyunyan is equally unsparing about the structural reality. Moscow supplies Armenia's natural gas at roughly a third of average European prices, operates its only nuclear plant – which provides around 30% of the country's electricity – and controls the Upper Lars checkpoint through which more than 60% of Armenian exports pass. Russian remittances still account for around 10% of GDP. "You cannot easily replace that," he says. "It's really difficult." On disinformation, he pushes back against the assumption that the main threat is Russian. The more significant problem, he argues, is domestic – local politicians with the resources to run their own influence campaigns. The ruling party controls public television; opposition oligarchs control their own channels. "Three groups," he says: Russian actors, the government, and a fragmented opposition. "And the opposition is not a homogeneous entity."

🤝 This article is part of the PULSE collaborative project and was possible thanks to n-ost's Seizing Sinergies initiative. It is based on a background briefing with sources from Armenian civil society and an Armenian political scientist, who both spoke on condition of anonymity. György Folk (HVG, Hungary), and Victoria Dumbravă and Anastasia Antoceanu (Agora.md, Moldova) contributed to it.

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