Russia blames Ukraine conflict, Europe for delaying arms provide to ally Armenia
Armenia has lengthy relied on Russian weapons in its bitter dispute with neighbouring Azerbaijan.
Russia’s prime diplomat has blamed the conflict in Ukraine for affecting the provision of arms to Armenia, and has expressed concern that Moscow’s longstanding ally would now look to the West for navy help as an alternative.
Talking in Yerevan on the second day of a two-day go to to Armenia, Overseas Minister Sergey Lavrov stated that a few of Russia’s weapons contracts with the previous Soviet republic had been delayed or reassigned as a result of pressures created by the conflict in Ukraine.
Armenia has lengthy relied on Russian weapons in its bitter dispute with neighbouring Azerbaijan, in opposition to whom it has fought a sequence of conflicts for the reason that late Eighties.
“We’re at the moment in a scenario the place, as has occurred all through historical past, we’re pressured to battle all of Europe,” Lavrov stated, in a barbed reference to European help for Ukraine in response to the Russian invasion.
“Our Armenian associates perceive that in such situations, we can’t fulfil all our obligations on time.”
As Russia has didn’t ship on weapons contracts paid for by Armenia, Yerevan has more and more turned to international locations like France and India for navy provides.
Lavrov stated that Russia wouldn’t oppose these rising ties, however stated that they raised considerations about its conventional ally’s strategic intentions.
“When an ally turns to a rustic like France, which leads the hostile camp and whose president and ministers communicate overtly with hatred towards Russia, it does elevate questions,” he stated.
Armenia has strengthened its ties with the West amid latest ongoing tensions with Azerbaijan, fallout from the final main eruption of battle and Russia’s function in that.
In September 2023, Azerbaijan launched a navy operation to retake Nagorno-Karabakh, a separatist enclave in Azerbaijan with a principally ethnic Armenian inhabitants that had damaged away from Baku with Armenian help amid the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Armenia accused Russian peacekeepers of failing to guard the greater than 100,000 ethnic Armenians who fled the area, fuelled by a long time of mistrust, wars, mutual hatred and violence, after Azerbaijan’s lightning takeover.
Yerevan additionally suspended its involvement within the Collective Safety Treaty Organisation, a Russian-led safety umbrella of ex-Soviet international locations, final yr, saying it could not take part or fund the alliance.
