Armenia has long relied on Russian arms in a fierce debate with neighboring Azerbaijan.
Top Russian diplomats have condemned the war in Ukraine for affecting the supply of arms to Armenia, and have expressed concern that longtime Moscow allies will instead look to the West for military support.
Speaking in Yerevan on the second day of his two-day visit to Armenia, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that part of the Russian weapons contract with the former Soviet republic was delayed or reassigned due to pressures created by the war in Ukraine.
Armenia has long relied on Russian arms in a fierce debate with nearby Azerbaijan, which has been fighting a series of conflicts since the late 1980s.
“We are now in a situation where we are forced to fight everything in Europe, as has happened throughout history,” Lavrov said in a reference to barbed wire to European support for Ukraine in response to the Russian invasion.
“Our Armenian friends understand that under such conditions, all obligations cannot be met on time.”
As Russia fails to deliver arms contracts paid by Armenia, Yerevan has become increasingly reliant on countries such as France and India to military supplies.
Lavrov said Russia would not oppose these growing relations, but they raised concerns about the strategic intentions of its traditional allies.
“It raises doubt when an alliance leads an adversary camp and looks at a country like France, where its president and ministers speak openly with hatred towards Russia,” he said.
Armenia strengthened its relations with the West amid the recent ongoing tensions with Azerbaijan, the final major eruption of the conflict and the fallout from Russia’s role within it.
In September 2023, Azerbaijan launched a military operation to seize Nagorno Karabakh, a separatist enclave of Azerbaijan, which had been separated from Baku with Armenian support amid the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Armenia accused Russian peacekeepers of failing to protect more than 100,000 ethnic Armenians who fled the region, supported by decades of mistrust, war, mutual hatred and violence after the Azerbaijan lightning bolt.
Yerevan also said last year that he had halted his involvement in the collective security treaty body, a security umbrella from former Soviet countries that was led by Russia, and would not join or fund the alliance.
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