Vladimir Putin met with the Armenian prime minister after months of tensions and Yerevan’s rapprochement with the West

Russian President Vladimir Putin had a meeting with Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian on Wednesday, the Kremlin announced, after Yerevan distanced itself from Moscow for months, reports AFP, quoted by Agerpres.

Armenia, a traditional Russian ally, has been questioning ties with Moscow for months after a Russian peacekeeping force failed to intervene during an Azerbaijani offensive in Nagorno-Karabakh last year.

“As far as our bilateral relations are concerned, they are developing successfully”, declared Putin during the meeting with the Armenian Prime Minister, who is visiting Moscow on the occasion of the Eurasian Economic Union summit.

The meeting took place five months after Armenia joined the International Criminal Court, which requires the arrest of President Putin if he is on Armenian territory.

This is the first visit to Moscow by the Armenian Prime Minister since the beginning of the tensions.

In September 2023, Azerbaijan launched a new blitzkrieg and imposed its control over the entire Karabakh without Russian forces intervening, ending three decades of conflict over control of the enclave.

At that time, Armenia strongly denounced the inaction of its Russian ally, considered for a long time the traditional arbiter in the Caucasus, and since then it has approached the West.