Armenia has announced plans to hold joint military drills with the United States next week amid rising tensions with Russia over Yerevan’s perennial dispute with next-door Azerbaijan.
Moscow, meanwhile, has voiced its discomfort with the planned military maneuvers, describing them as “unhelpful.”
“Under the current circumstances, these types of military drills do not contribute to stabilizing the situation,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Sept. 7. “Nor do they breed an atmosphere of mutual trust in the region.”
The exercises, scheduled for Sept. 11 to Sept. 20, are ostensibly focused toward preparing Armenia’s military to take part in international peacekeeping missions.
According to the Pentagon, 85 U.S. soldiers, including members of the Kansas National Guard, will participate in the drills alongside 175 Armenian troops.
The drills will occur amid mounting tension between Russia and Armenia, which recently accused Moscow of abandoning the South Caucasus region.
Despite occasional disagreements with Russia, Armenia is a member of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), a six-nation military alliance led by Moscow. Along with Russia and Armenia, current CSTO members include Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan.
On Sept. 7, Sergey Ryabkov, Russia’s deputy foreign minister, said CSTO member states should conduct drills with fellow alliance members.
“We have always operated on the premise that CSTO members should hold maneuvers with their allies,” he told Russia’s TASS news agency.
“We have stressed to our Armenian allies ... that we view [the planned drills] with an element of concern,” Mr. Ryabkov added.
The Nagorno–Karabakh Factor
Violence between Armenia and Azerbaijan has flared sporadically since 2020, when the two South Caucasus countries fought a six-week war over the Nagorno–Karabakh region.The most recent incident occurred on Sept. 1, when cross-border gunfire and artillery shelling left four Armenian soldiers dead and several Azerbaijani soldiers injured.
Both sides accused the other of starting the violence.
After the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, Armenian forces captured most of Nagorno-Karabakh, a mountainous area of roughly 2,730 square miles.
Yerevan remained in control of Nagorno-Karabakh (Artsakh in Armenian) until 2020, when Azerbaijan retook most lost territory.
Although most of the region’s 120,000 inhabitants are ethnic Armenians, it’s internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan.
The 2020 war, in which thousands of soldiers from both sides were killed, ended with a Moscow-brokered ceasefire agreement.
In the wake of the conflict, Russian peacekeepers were deployed along the Azerbaijan–Armenia border, where they still maintain a significant presence.
At a Sept. 7 Cabinet meeting, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan claimed Azerbaijan was “amassing troops” on the border.
Baku, for its part, dismissed the assertion, describing it as “political maneuvering.”
In a statement, Azerbaijan’s foreign ministry accused Armenia of staging “provocations” and “failing to withdraw its troops from Azerbaijani territory” in breach of the Moscow-brokered ceasefire agreement.
Unlike Armenia, Azerbaijan isn’t a CSTO member.
However, last year, Baku signed a political-military agreement with Moscow, which Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev later said was tantamount to “an alliance.”
‘Strategic Mistake’
In a Sept. 3 interview with Italian newspaper La Repubblica, Mr. Pashinyan accused Russia of failing to ensure Armenia’s security in the face of what he described as Azerbaijani “aggression.”Moscow, he said, was neglecting Armenia—a CSTO member—and the South Caucasus region in general.
Yerevan, he added, should therefore diversify its security arrangements—an apparent reference to the United States and the West in general.
“Armenia’s security architecture was 99 percent linked to Russia, including ... the procurement of arms and ammunition,” Mr. Pashinyan said.
“But today, we see that Russia itself is in need of weapons, arms, and ammunition [for the conflict in Ukraine], and in this situation, it’s understandable that ... Russia cannot meet Armenia’s security needs,” he added.
The Armenian leader asserted that “dependence on just one partner” in terms of security amounts to “a strategic mistake.”
The following day, TASS cited an unnamed diplomatic source who described Mr. Pashinyan’s remarks as “unacceptable both in tone and content.”
Western countries, the person claimed, “are trying to push Russia out of the South Caucasus and are using Yerevan as a means to achieve this goal.”
“Russia, as Armenia’s closest neighbor and friend, has no intention of leaving the region,” the person added.
Gunther Fehlinger, chairman of the European Committee for NATO Enlargement, added fuel to the fire this week when he called on Armenia to join the Western alliance.
On Sept. 7, Paruyr Hovhannisyan, Armenia’s deputy foreign minister, appeared anxious to reduce frictions with Moscow.
“Armenia can be critical of the CSTO,” he said at a press briefing, according to TASS. “But its withdrawal from the organization isn’t on the agenda.”
A day earlier, joint military drills held by CSTO member states wrapped up in Belarus, a key Russian ally, although Armenia didn’t participate.
