A scene once unthinkable for Armenia: European leaders, the prime minister of Canada, NATO secretary general and Ukraine’s president in a country long regarded as Russia’s closest ally in the South Caucasus.
ADVERTISING
ADVERTISING
For Yerevan, hosting the European Political Community summit and the EU-Armenia meeting is a turning point.
“Let’s be honest, eight years ago, nobody would come here,” French President Emmanuel Macron said on Monday.
“Eight years ago, this country was seen by a lot of countries around the table as a sort of de facto satellite of Russia.”
The French president further praised Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan for “organizing the Velvet Revolution” and “de-risking this country from Russia.”
“And it was and it is still attacked on a daily basis because of that,” Macron said.
Putin’s ultimatum over closer ties with EU
Armenia’s relations with Russia have grown increasingly strained after Azerbaijan fully reclaimed the Karabakh region in 2023.
Decades of bloody conflict ended as the two former bitter rivals embarked on a historic peace process, launching an economic revival in the region amid new stability in the South Caucasus.
In 2024, Armenia suspended its membership in the Russia-led Yerevan Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) after Moscow failed to support Yerevan during the 2022 Karabakh escalation.
Then in 2025 Pashinyan even declared an intention to join the European Union in the future.
Moscow stated categorically that it will not tolerate Armenia’s closer ties with the EU, with Russian President Vladimir Putin issuing a warning to Pashinyan during a rare and tense meeting at the Kremlin in April, in a not-so-veiled threat over Russian gas supplies.
“We see that there is a discussion in Armenia about developing relations with the European Union,” Putin said at the meeting with Pashinyan, adding that Moscow treats it “absolutely calmly”.
“But it should be obvious and honestly stated upfront that membership in a customs union with both the EU and the Eurasian Economic Union is impossible,” Putin told Pashinyan on camera.
One month after the heated exchange at the Kremlin, Pashinyan made his choice clear.
Zelenskyy’s first visit to Armenia
There is one leader whose presence in Yerevan makes Moscow even more angry than the visits by the EU leaders or NATO secretary general – it is Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
For Zelenskyy, this represented his first visit to Armenia since he took office in 2019.
But the record is even more striking in a bigger picture – it is the first visit of the Ukrainian head of state to Armenia in 24 years.
At the meeting with Pashinyan, Zelenskyy said it was important that the two countries “are restoring active dialogue”.
Ukraine’s president also stated that the leaders discussed the “development of our economic partnership.”
“I proposed resuming the work of the Joint Intergovernmental Commission on Economic Cooperation and holding its next meeting this year in Kyiv.”
But most importantly Zelenskyy and Pashinyan discussed the security aspect of the cooperation.
“We discussed the situation in the region, as well as security challenges and threats. I briefed the Prime Minister on the diplomatic efforts aimed at achieving a real peace,” Zelenskyy said.
Ten days ago in a statement next to Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev in Gabala, close to the border with Russia, Zelenskyy said he is ready to meet Vladimir Putin in Azerbaijan after the US-led diplomatic talks had stalled over the past weeks.
By raising the issue of the diplomatic peace process with Pashinyan, Zelenskyy appears to broaden the range of potential venues for a meeting with Putin — one that the Kremlin has repeatedly declined to entertain overall.
And while Russian officials have been quiet and refrained from any comments on his visit to Armenia, the Kremlin-controlled outlets have been very vocal, calling it “humiliation” and even lashing out at the Kremlin officials.
Russian military bloggers criticized the defense ministry for not “capturing” Zelenskyy or not shooting down his plane.
“I don’t know how much lower Russia can fall on the foreign policy arena,” one of the most popular Telegram bloggers wrote, saying, “This is the most shameful page in history.”
Plenty of criticism was also lobbed at Armenia, with Russian journalists calling Zelenskyy’s visit “a gut punch from Russia’s strategic partner.”
Margarita Simonyan, the head of Russia’s biggest propaganda media network RT, said Zelenskyy’s visit to Yerevan is “such an ungrateful move on the part of Armenia — a country we have rescued so many times — that I am lost for words.”
Simonyan, who often voices the official Kremlin narrative, even suggested Moscow might respond with military intervention.
“It is high time we considered how to protect the Russian population and our interests in that country,” she said.
The wording has been used by Russia to justify its invasions and occupations of Moldova, Georgia and Ukraine.
Under its existing defense pact with Armenia, Russia maintains a base in the Armenian city of Gyumri with approximately 3,000 troops.