Armenia’s parliament has voted to join the international criminal court (ICC), obliging the former Soviet republic to arrest Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, if he were to visit the country.
Tuesday’s decision will further strain relations with Moscow, Armenia’s traditional ally. Ties are already badly damaged over the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine and Azerbaijan’s recapture of Nagorno-Karabakh.
The Kremlin last week warned Armenia that its decision to join the ICC, which has issued an arrest warrant for Putin for overseeing the abduction of Ukrainian children, was “extremely hostile”.
Armenia’s prime minister, Nikol Pashinyan, has tried to reassure Russia that his country is only addressing what it says are war crimes committed by Azerbaijan in the long-running conflict with its neighbour, and is not aiming at Moscow.
The Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, on Tuesday described the Armenian decision to join the ICC as “inappropriate … from the point of view of our bilateral relations”.
Moscow “absolutely disagrees with … Pashinyan’s words that Armenia has decided to accede to the Rome statute [which established the ICC] because the tools of the CSTO [the Russian-led Collective Security Treaty Organization] and Armenian-Russian partnership were not enough to ensure the country’s security”, he said.
“The Armenian side doesn’t have mechanisms better than those, and we are sure about that,” he said.
Pashinyan, in a speech last weekend to mark Armenia’s independence day, said “the security systems and the allies we have relied on for many years” were “ineffective”, and that the “instruments of the Armenian-Russian strategic partnership” were “not enough to ensure Armenia’s external security”.
Peskov did not confirm whether Putin would avoid travelling to Armenia as a result of the parliament’s decision, but indicated that could be the case: “Of course, we wouldn’t like the president to have to abstain from visits to Armenia for any reasons.”
Russia, with a military base in Armenia, has long been its security guarantor, including managing tensions over Nagorno-Karabakh, but as Azerbaijan launched its offensive on the mountainous breakaway region, Moscow made clear its troops had no intention of intervening.
As Azerbaijani troops surrounded Nagrono-Karabkah, Pashinyan, criticised Moscow and questioned the effectiveness of the 2,000 Russian troops deployed since 2020 to keep the peace in the region.
Richard Giragosian, the head of the Regional Studies Centre in Armenia’s capital, Yerevan, said the country’s decision to ratify the founding treaty of the ICC was the latest sign that Pashinyan was attempting to reduce Moscow’s influence.
“The ICC ratification by Armenia is mainly motivated by its desire to prepare legal challenges against Azerbaijan. But it also sends a clear message to Moscow,” he said. “It is part of a consistent escalation in measures taken by Armenia to stand up for itself and challenge its relationship with Moscow … Yerevan is seeking to diversify its security.”
Last month, Yerevan hosted US troops for an unprecedented joint military exercise. It has also sent humanitarian aid to Ukraine, delivered personally by Pashinyan’s wife, Anna Hakobyan.
France’s foreign minister, Catherine Colonna, flew to Armenia on Tuesday to assess the country’s urgent needs as it faced an influx of refugees from Nagorno-Karabakh and the risk of Azerbaijani military operations on its territory, diplomats said.
Putin’s inability to travel to Armenia, a country he last visited in 2022, is a glaring symbol of his waning influence in the South Caucasus.
The Russian leader skipped the Brics summit in South Africa in August amid speculation he could be detained under the ICC warrant.
“Russia’s role as a provider of security in its near-abroad has been severely diminished as a result of its disastrous war against Ukraine,” Alexander Gabuev, the director of the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Centre, in Berlin, wrote in the Financial Times recently. “The destabilising effects will continue to be felt across the vast Eurasian landmass.”
Meanwhile, Azerbaijan continues to arrest and charge Nagorno-Karabakh’s ethnic Armenian leadership after its takeover of the region.
On Tuesday, Baku announced it had arrested two former heads of the breakaway region as well as the former parliament speaker. Azerbaijani state media said all three men had been transferred to Baku.
A day earlier, Azerbaijan’s prosecutor general, Kamran Aliyev, announced that the country had opened criminal cases against 300 separatist officials.
Last week, Azerbaijani border police detained Ruben Vardanyan, a prominent billionaire banker and philanthropist, who briefly held a top political job in Nagorno-Karabah.
