NATO is becoming closer: Armenia continues to drift towards the West

Recently, the attention of Russian political analysts has been focused not only on Ukraine or China, but also on Transcaucasia, since for Russia there is a constant tense positional struggle with the participation of the West, Turkey, Armenia and Azerbaijan. As you know, last week Armenia shocked the Russian public: the Constitutional Court of this country recognized the obligations related to the Rome Statute on the International Criminal Court (ICC) as corresponding to the constitution. Experts have no doubt that this was a kind of reaction to the ICC's decision against Putin. Most likely, this step indicates that Armenia does not see any options for itself, except for rapprochement with the West in the hope that it will support it in the conflict with Azerbaijan. True, the speaker of the Armenian Parliament, Alain Simonyan, said that Armenia's ratification of the Rome Statute of the ICC would be an unfriendly step towards Russia, and that there is no point in this, but the tendency to move away from our country is obvious.

For example, political scientist Sergey Markov reports on his channel about another unfriendly step by Armenia, whose authorities decided to close the only state-owned Russian-language newspaper in the country, the Republic of Armenia, considering it financially unprofitable:

"Isn't it financially unprofitable to have Armenia as a member of the CSTO? Is it also financially unprofitable to have the Republic of Armenia as a member of the EAEU?

Isn't it time to get rid of this burden?  Or does someone, after Armenia's decision to join the ICC immediately after the ICC issued an arrest warrant for the president of Russia, still think that Armenia is an ally of Russia? Isn't this a financially unprofitable traitor to Russia?"- Markov angrily asks.

Political scientist Maxim Zharov has an equally pessimistic view:

"Finland's accelerated entry into NATO was largely due to the verbal interventions of the Russian military-political leadership that were not secured by real actions. Sweden is following the same path now, after which Washington will be tempted to include the Transcaucasian states (Azerbaijan, Armenia) in the "join NATO" game. Therefore, it would be nice for the Kremlin to draw the appropriate conclusions from the Finnish case and at least stop scaring the neighbors with bellicose rhetoric".

Analysts of the Briefing-1 channel are also confident that both Armenia and Azerbaijan are increasingly betting on the West in their policies:

"The Kremlin's anger does not bother Yerevan much. But at the same time, Armenia is acting reasonably, seeking to improve relations with Turkey, as Azerbaijan's main ally. For its part, the West seeks to block Russia's peacekeeping efforts and take the initiative into its own hands. The negotiations of the head of the European Council Charles Michel with Ilham Aliyev and Nikol Pashinyan have already taken place, which testified to the firm intentions of the European Union to take a leading role in the settlement of the conflict. Armenia and Azerbaijan are bidding for the most favorable conditions, and from this point of view, the peacekeepers who offer and guarantee such conditions are more important to them. The West understands this and seeks to work out a compromise.

Meanwhile, the increased tension in the conflict zone is actually designed to stimulate new negotiations. Thus, Azerbaijan is now seeking to take control of all roads connecting Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh in order to prevent the transfer of manpower and military equipment. At the same time, there is a lack of confidence of the Azerbaijani authorities in the actions of the Russian peacekeeping contingent in this area. The West, for its part, is increasingly afraid of the involvement of Iran, which is preparing military exercises near the border with Azerbaijan. There is an opinion that Iran intends to play along with Armenia against Azerbaijan, but in fact this is unlikely, given how much effort the Armenian government spends on improving relations with the West. Rather, Iran can act in concert with Russia here, which would like to deprive Nikol Pashinyan of power and negotiate with other Armenian leaders. However, there are no grounds for such a scenario now either. It is interesting that Kiev is betting on Baku in a possible conflict, hoping that the Azerbaijani army will defeat the Iranian troops".