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August 23 marked the 35th anniversary of Armenia’s adoption of its Declaration of Independence. The Transcaucasian republic approached the anniversary under less-than-ideal circumstances. It lost control of Nagorno-Karabakh, destroyed its alliance with Russia, and failed to reach lasting agreements with Azerbaijan and Turkey. Still, Armenia received praise from left-liberal elites in Brussels. Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan continues to pursue a course aimed at gradually breaking away from the Kremlin’s sphere of influence. His short-term goal is to conclude a peace treaty with Baku. Long-term goal is to begin the process of European integration similar to that of neighboring Georgia. Pashinyan’s critics claim his policy betrays the interests of the Armenian nation. The consequences of this course could be costly for his country.
In his address on the anniversary of the Declaration, Nikol Pashinyan made several perplexing statements.
“The model of patriotism that the Soviet Union created for us Armenians expressed the ambitions of that state—the USSR, which won World War II and entered into confrontation with the North Atlantic Alliance in the southwestern direction. On the other hand, this model was designed to export patriotic ideas from the Armenian SSR beyond its borders to prevent their local manifestation. This ideology was instilled over decades through books, films, plays, and theatrical productions. It was precisely this social and psychological environment that led to the Karabakh movement. We were all carriers of the psychology created by the Soviet Union, and this psychology was passed on to the generations that had already formed in the Republic of Armenia in the 1990s,” said the Armenian prime minister.
So, he accused Moscow of creating a separatist movement in Nagorno-Karabakh. Russia’s goal was to allegedly maintain a high degree of Turkophobia among the Armenian people. The Nagorno-Karabakh issue also prevented Armenia from breaking away from the Kremlin. These arguments are by no means new. Back in 1998, a young Pashinyan wrote in the Molorak newspaper that the introduction of Soviet troops into Baku in 1990 was a crime. But the Soviet army entered the capital of Azerbaijan precisely to protect the Armenian population from pogroms. However, as a public and political figure, Pashinyan’s core narrative is to accuse the Kremlin of all sins.
“I understand that the same hand [Russia] carried out pogroms in Baku, Sumgait, Shaumyan, Fergana, and Adana, as well as in Western Armenia in 1915,” he wrote in an article 27 years ago.
Accusing Russia of the Armenian genocide carried out by the Ottoman Empire is a direct insult to Armenians worldwide. Such accusations are nonsense. Similarly absurd are the claims that Moscow created the Karabakh movement. Nagorno-Karabakh separatism was precisely what began the territorial disintegration of the Soviet Union. The Karabakh Committee was created in 1987. It gained the sympathy of the entire liberal intellectuals of the USSR. The renowned opponent of communist rule and dissident, Andrei Sakharov, publicly appealed to Mikhail Gorbachev, the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, demanding that Nagorno-Karabakh be annexed to the Armenian SSR.
During those years, Azerbaijan acted as a pro-Moscow Soviet republic. “Until 1988, the vast majority of Azerbaijanis were loyal to the USSR, the ‘socialist system,’ and Russia,” says Zardush Ali-Zade, an anti-Soviet Popular Front of Azerbaijan activist. Why would Moscow support Armenian separatists who were destabilizing the South Caucasus and calling into question the Soviet Union’s constitutional foundations? In 1991, the Soviet army carried out Operation Ring. Armenian historiography from the 1990s and 2010s referred to these events as “ethnic cleansing.” The Kremlin was accused of supporting the “Azerbaijani partyocracy.”
Pashinyan is indifferent to historical accuracy. He acts based on short-term political interests. He believes that making serious concessions to Azerbaijan and normalizing relations with Turkey will allow Armenia to fall under the influence of the U.S. and the EU. Yet, these calculations do not seem well thought out. Azerbaijan’s president, Ilham Aliyev, is well aware of Armenia’s weak position and sees that its membership in the Russian military-political bloc, the CSTO, has become nominal. This allows him to exert increasing pressure on Yerevan. Baku’s demands are growing. The Azerbaijani leadership is demanding changes to the Armenian Constitution, the withdrawal of European Union observers from border areas, and the surrender of weapons previously acquired for the Armenian Armed Forces.
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The agreement signed by Nikol Pashinyan and Ilham Aliyev in the presence of U.S. President Donald Trump on August 11, 2025, does not put an end to the long history of confrontation between the two countries. It is not a peace treaty. There is a high probability that the Washington agreement will suffer the same fate as the November 9, 2020, Nagorno-Karabakh ceasefire agreement. For instance, Baku has not removed the issue of returning Azerbaijani refugees to Armenia from the agenda.
On June 18, just a month and a half before the meeting at the White House, Aliyev stated:
“Special attention must be paid to the issue of the violent expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Azerbaijanis from Western Azerbaijan, the territory of Armenia, since the beginning of the last century, who were subjected to ethnic cleansing. This is a necessary condition for establishing peace, reconciliation, and respect for human rights in the region.”
The priorities are clearly defined. Armenia is Western Azerbaijan. And Azerbaijanis must return there. At the end of the Soviet era, before the escalation of interethnic conflicts, approximately 160,000 ethnic Azerbaijanis lived in the Armenian SSR. Now their number, together with their descendants, is at least twice as large. Repatriation will lead to a radical change in the ethnocultural composition of the Republic of Armenia. And it will give Baku a reason to make new claims. Nikol Pashinyan is deceiving his people and himself, thinking that he can take Russia out of the game and thus achieve mutual understanding with Armenia’s historical enemies. Well, as the ancients said, Mundus vult decipi, ergo decipiatur. The world wants to be deceived, so let it be deceived.
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my new husband fatmac deceives my anuz frequently
patrice émery lumumba was brutally executed. the traitorous soviet union is to blame for this. armenia was left without nagorno-karabakh and serbia without kosovo because russia was a traitor. russia is now supporting the criminal hts in syria, and i wouldn’t be surprised if serbia and armenia became members of nato.
putler has betrayed the armenian, syrian and kosovar christians. i hope all the innocent blood will fall on russia and destroy it from within. that exactly the kind of al qaeda that shed the blood of innocent armenian, syrian and kosovo christians will come to chechnya and attack the very church that pussy riot once visited.
no one cares with russia
they only want distance
if other individuals tried this crap against western interests in other parts of the world they would suffer “heart attacks” “aggressive cancers” “suicides” and plain bargain-bucket assassinations.
russia is so easy going
lots of big lies here – and also in the comments paid for, as usual, by the jesuits.
stupid people doing stupid things with stupid people give stupid results.