Armenia Russia Breakup- Putin Loses Key Caucasus Ally

Putin is des­per­ate­ly try­ing to pre­vent a Russian/Armenia breakup through influ­ence oper­a­tions and polit­i­cal manip­u­la­tion. On June 9, 2025, The Moscow Times report­ed that Arme­nia is rapid­ly aban­don­ing its decades-long alliance with Rus­sia after Moscow’s fail­ure to pro­tect against Azer­bai­jani attacks, with Prime Min­is­ter Pashinyan sus­pend­ing CSTO par­tic­i­pa­tion while Putin deputy Sergei Kiriyenko leads efforts to regain influ­ence through pro­pa­gan­da and Krem­lin-approved oppo­si­tion fig­ures. The arti­cle begins:

For decades, Arme­nia was one of Rus­si­a’s most reli­able post-Sovi­et allies — a small but loy­al part­ner nes­tled in the volatile South Cau­ca­sus. But that mar­riage of con­ve­nience is now rapid­ly unrav­el­ing. Today, Yere­van is no longer whis­per­ing dis­con­tent. It is shout­ing it from the rooftops. And Moscow? It is scram­bling to sal­vage the remains of its dimin­ish­ing influ­ence with soft pow­er schemes and des­per­ate polit­i­cal maneuvers.

Read more: https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2025/06/09/armenia-is-breaking-up-with-russia-and-putin-cant-stop-it-a89393

Key Points

• Armen­ian trust in Rus­sia plum­met­ed from 93% in 2019 to just 31% in 2024 after Moscow failed to inter­vene dur­ing Azer­bai­jani attacks and Nagorno-Karabakh’s capture.
• Putin appoint­ed Sergei Kiriyenko to lead “infor­ma­tion­al work” and groom Krem­lin-approved oppo­si­tion fig­ures ahead of Arme­ni­a’s 2026 par­lia­men­tary elections.
• Arme­nia sus­pend­ed CSTO par­tic­i­pa­tion, wel­comed EU civil­ian bor­der mis­sions, and launched strate­gic dia­logue with the US focused on demo­c­ra­t­ic reforms and secu­ri­ty cooperation.
• Russ­ian sources admit there is “no one to speak for Rus­sia” in Arme­nia except aging ex-pres­i­dents taint­ed by cor­rup­tion, while pro-Russ­ian voic­es lose credibility.

Disclaimer

The Glob­al Influ­ence Oper­a­tions Report (GIOR) employs AI through­out the post­ing process, includ­ing gen­er­at­ing sum­maries of news items, the intro­duc­tion, key points, and often the “con­text” sec­tion. We rec­om­mend ver­i­fy­ing all infor­ma­tion before use. Addi­tion­al­ly, images are AI-gen­er­at­ed and intend­ed sole­ly for illus­tra­tive pur­pos­es. While they rep­re­sent the events or indi­vid­u­als dis­cussed, they should not be inter­pret­ed as real-world photography.