Contributor/Getty Images
- Armenia said it doesn't see any need to engage with Putin's Collective Security Treaty Organization.
- Its prime minister said it has "frozen" participation in the military alliance "at all levels."
- It's snubbed the CSTO, considered to be Putin's answer to NATO, for almost a year, per a think tank.
A key Russian ally said it doesn't feel the need to engage with the Collective Security Treaty Organization, a group widely considered to be President Vladimir Putin's answer to NATO, after snubbing it for almost a year.
Nikol Pashinyan, the prime minister of Armenia, one of six member states of the CSTO, made the statement during a press conference on Saturday, according to local media reports.
"Armenia has frozen its participation in the CSTO at all levels," he said, according to a translation by US think tank the Institute for the Study of War.
Pashinyan said the Armenian public and other officials may hold different opinions about Armenia's choice, but his government does not see the need to reconsider the decision.
However, he added that Armenia may "see the need to make another decision" in the future, per the ISW.
Pashinyan announced his decision to leave the CSTO — a military alliance made up of Russia, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Belarus, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan — in February.
But since mid 2023, Pashinyan and Armenian representatives have failed to participate in several CSTO events, including military exercises and political meetings.
In doing so, Armenia has effectively abstained from participating in the CSTO for almost a year, the ISW reported.
Experts told BI earlier this year that Armenia's actions have damaged what Putin hoped to achieve through the alliance, which is to project the image of Russian power.
Tensions have risen between Russia and Armenia since Putin's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, which Pashinyan has repeatedly refused to support.
In June 2023, Pashinyan said his country was "not Russia's ally in the war with Ukraine" and that it felt caught between Russia and the West.
Armenia's discontent also comes from its conflict with neighboring Azerbaijan, and the CSTO's response to it.
The CSTO has a clause similar to NATO's Article 5, where members are supposed to aid each other when one is attacked. But when Armenia asked for help during clashes with Azerbaijan in 2022, the CSTO did not send troops.
Pashinyan called the response "depressing" and "hugely damaging to the CSTO's image both in our country and abroad."
Tensions between Armenia and Russia have worsened since then, and Armenia appears to have strengthened its ties to the West, including by buying Western weapons and holding military exercises with the US.
Pashinyan then announced in Armenia's parliament in June that he was taking the country out of the CSTO altogether.
At the time, Dmitry Peskov, a Kremlin spokesperson, said that Russia "will continue to work with our Armenian friends" to clarify their position.
Other CSTO members have also snubbed Russia since it launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Kazakhstan, for example, denied Russia's request to send troops when the invasion began, and has sent aid to Ukraine.
Tajikistan's president, meanwhile, seemed to berate Putin during a meeting of central Asian leaders in October, demanding more respect for his country, despite its small size.
However, these countries have kept their opposition to a minimum.
Experts on the region previously told BI that Russia, as the leader of the group and by far its biggest member, holds so much power over member countries that it is unlikely that other members will leave the alliance.
Thomas Graham, cofounder of Yale University's Russian, East European, and Eurasian studies program, told BI earlier this year that Armenia was never as close to the other members as it is to each other and to Russia, making it the most likely to leave.