Putin Claims There Was No Foreign Aggression Against Armenia

ASTANA — Armenia has not been subjected to foreign aggression, Russian President Vladimir Putin insisted on Thursday, dismissing Yerevan’s strong criticism of the Russian-led Collective Security Organization (CSTO).

Putin spoke to journalists right after a CSTO summit in Kazakhstan’s capital Astana boycotted by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan.

“I think that the current situation with the CSTO is most likely dictated by internal political processes in Armenia itself, and, of course, all this is connected with the consequences of the crisis in Karabakh,” he said, commenting on the boycott. “I want to stress that the CSTO has nothing to do with that.”

“What happened has nothing to do with the CSTO because there was no external aggression against Armenia itself,” he said. “The CSTO is supposed to defend its member states against external aggression.”

“The events in Karabakh have their own specificities: Armenia did not recognize Karabakh as an independent state and certainly did not include Karabakh in its perimeter. This means that everything that happened in Karabakh has no legal relation to Armenia. So it’s kind of strange to expect the CSTO to fight on the territory of this enclave,” added Putin.

He did not mention Azerbaijan’s attacks on Armenian border areas carried out after the 2020 war in Karabakh. Armenia appealed to Russia and other CSTO allies for military aid after the most recent Azerbaijani offensive launched in September 2022. Pashinyan accused them of ignoring that appeal before announcing early this year the effective suspension of Armenia’s membership in the military alliance.

Putin suggested on Thursday that there is still a “possibility that Armenia will return to full-scale work within the framework of this organization.” “We’ll see,” he said.

“Armenia has not announced its withdrawal from the CSTO, at least not yet. It has stated that it is taking a break, but at the same time it supports all the documents that are being adopted during our meeting today,” Putin said.