Asked whether the withdrawal of Russian border guards, officially part of the country’s FSB security service, was discussed at the meeting, Kremlin press secretary Dmitry Peskov replied “yes ”, according to the official TASS press service.
On Sunday, long convoys of Russian military vehicles were seen leaving Armenia’s border regions towards the capital, Yerevan.
Relations between Moscow and the former Soviet republic have reached an all-time low in recent years. The Russia-led CSTO military alliance, of which Armenia is a member, refused Yerevan’s demands for intervention when Azerbaijan launched an offensive against the country in September 2022.
Pashinyan also accused Russian peacekeepers, deployed to the separatist region of Nagorno-Karabakh after a war in 2020, of abandoning their posts when Azerbaijani troops launched an offensive to conquer the territory, triggering a mass exodus of its 100,000 ethnic Armenian residents.
Armenia’s Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday that the country would no longer contribute financially to the CSTO, after effectively freezing its membership. Besides Russia, the military bloc includes Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.
Instead, Yerevan has held joint exercises with US forces, sent humanitarian aid to Ukraine and even hinted that it might one day apply for EU membership.
Pashinyan also sought to sign a demarcation and border demarcation agreement with Azerbaijan, proposing to cede four villages in the Tavush region that are part of internationally recognized Azerbaijani territory, but occupied by Armenia since the fall of Soviet Union.
“The model that we have problems with our neighbors and we have to invite others to protect us — no matter who those others are — is a very vulnerable model,” Pashinyan told POLITICO last year.
Politico
