YEREVAN, ARMENIA—Driving through the dark streets of Yerevan, Aram, a local taxi driver, vented his frustration: “We will hang [Prime Minister] Nikol Pashinyan,” he declared while skillfully navigating pothole-covered roads, passing by the grim Soviet-era buildings and soulless modern constructions that dot the cityscape. “We can’t rely on anyone but ourselves—not the Russians, not anyone else,” he added.
YEREVAN, ARMENIA—Driving through the dark streets of Yerevan, Aram, a local taxi driver, vented his frustration: “We will hang [Prime Minister] Nikol Pashinyan,” he declared while skillfully navigating pothole-covered roads, passing by the grim Soviet-era buildings and soulless modern constructions that dot the cityscape. “We can’t rely on anyone but ourselves—not the Russians, not anyone else,” he added.
Just a week prior, in September 2023, Azerbaijan had successfully retaken the last portions of the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region, which was previously under the control of ethnic Armenians, prompting a mass exodus of Armenians.
Baku seized the opportunity amid Western hesitancy, Turkish support, and Russian preoccupation in Ukraine, bringing a blazing end to what had long been a frozen conflict. After its victory at the end of the first war over the region in 1994, when it had tacit support from Moscow, Armenia is now coping with the strategic miscalculations of the past three decades. Abandoned by its principal ally, Russia, and watching the ferocious rhetoric from Baku, Yerevan fears another war is coming.
In 2020, Azerbaijan took control of a significant portion of the region in a decisive 44-day war that claimed thousands of lives. Many Armenians remained in the administrative center, Stepanakert, and its surroundings. Moscow brokered a cease-fire that left 2,000 Russian peacekeepers on the ground, but last year’s confrontation underscored their ineffectiveness—or their unwillingness to act.
Armenians are furious at the loss of a territory that had become a key part of national identity—but there is little solace in the face of unsettling circumstances. Defeat in the 24-hour war in September 2023 triggered demonstrations against the Armenian government, but they were small and had limited impact.
Following Azerbaijan’s takeover, tens of thousands of people left behind their lives in Nagorno-Karabakh, forming a procession of vehicles snaking along mountain paths.
Armenians fleeing the Nagorno-Karabakh region sit in a long line of vehicles along the Lachin corridor on Sept. 28, 2023.Siranush Adamyan/AFP via Getty Images
“The reality hasn’t fully sunk in,” said Johnny Melikyan, a research fellow at the Yerevan-based Orbeli Center, in an interview with Foreign Policy. “People hoped that Russian peacekeepers would take action. There are rising anti-Russian sentiments, but people are also disappointed by the inaction of the international community,” he added.
The collapse of the Soviet Union caused a bloody war between Armenia and Azerbaijan, leaving trail of atrocities on both sides, tens of thousands of casualties, and hundreds of thousands of displaced Azerbaijanis.
Armenian authorities report that between 95 percent and 99 percent of the approximately 120,000 Armenians who remained in Karabakh have fled, raising concerns of what Yerevan sees as ethnic cleansing.
“We’ve lived on this land all my life,” said Marut Vanyan, a local activist who had to leave Karabakh. “I witnessed the first war, the 2020 conflict, and now this … life has been a journey through hell,” he shared over the phone. “It’s difficult to envision the future. I can’t comprehend what lies ahead,” he said. When asked if he would ever consider living under Azerbaijani control, he replied, “I can’t answer that right now. Right now, even living in Yerevan is a challenge.”
Azerbaijanis are settling back in the recaptured land. Shabnam Ugurlu said that she was 6 when she left Karabakh in 1992. Now she has returned to her house in Lachin, where she teaches at the local school. “We left on the back of a truck, stuck together, fearing that Armenian soldiers would attack us,” she recalled bitterly. Could she envision having Armenian neighbors? “Right now, it would be difficult,” she said, “but as time passes, and if Armenians choose to stay, it could happen.”
A soldier looks at the damage done to a church in Shoushi, Nagorno-Karabakh, seen on Oct. 12, 2020. Alex McBride/Getty Images
In the aftermath of the 2020 war, Yerevan itself seemed strangely untouched by the turmoil. . “All conflicts must end at some point,” a high level Armenian official confided when I visited the country in mid-2023. This, however, was not the ending that Yerevan had hoped for.
The 2020 war served as a moment of clarity for many. The government in Yerevan began to ponder if relying on Moscow for security guarantees was a mistake. Armenia took measured steps to signal its readiness to get closer to the West, but it has paid its dues to Moscow nevertheless and refrained from dramatic moves, fearing a half-hearted Western welcome and understanding its own heavy dependence on Moscow.
For 30 years, the country received diplomatic and military support from Russia, adamantly refusing to compromise with Baku, which allowed Armenia to maintain its grip on Nagorno-Karabakh. Pashinyan is the first leader of the country to have no direct link with Nagorno-Karabakh. The previous governments and opposition, however, were closely connected to the Karabakh authorities, and they maintained direct links with Moscow. Yerevan never officially recognized Artsakh (the official Armenian name for Nagorno-Karabakh) as an independent entity, nor as part of its own state, maintaining its strange quasi-state status while providing its budget and security.
But in 2018, as the relationship with Moscow started to sour and tired of a corrupt elite that mismanaged the country, the public took to the streets. Pashinyan, a young civil society activist, came to power after a peaceful revolution. Pashinyan initially paid his respects to Moscow. But soon, the relationship soured.
“Pashinyan’s rise to power was a challenge to [Russian President Vladimir] Putin, much like what happened in Georgia and Ukraine,” said Richard Giragosian, the director of Yerevan-based Regional Policy Center. Both countries were invaded by Russia after they tried to move out of Moscow’s orbit.
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“Georgia and Ukraine changed their foreign policy after the [Rose and Maidan] revolutions, and they faced repercussions. We didn’t make any changes, but we were still punished,” said Armen Grigoryan, the head of Armenia’s National Security Council, during a trip I made to the country back in March 2023.
As the second war between Baku and Yerevan erupted in 2020, Moscow chose to look the other way. Armenian authorities viewed Russian reluctance as tacit approval for Baku’s actions. Russian inaction, as Grigoryan insinuated, was partly intended to punish Pashinyan.
“I can assure you that without Russia, Azerbaijan would never have undertaken such significant moves against Nagorno-Karabakh,” Grigoryan said, using blunter language than when he speaks to Russian media.. “Following the 2020 war, we had to reevaluate our security situation,” he added.
“The tail doesn’t wag the dog anymore,” Giragosian said.
Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and disastrous performance there dashed any remaining hopes that Karabakh Armenians may have harbored for Russian support.
Russian President Vladimir Putin (left) meets with Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan at the Kremlin in Moscow in this image provided by the Russian state agency Sputnik, seen on May 25, 2023. Ilya Pitalev/AFP via Getty Images
Ahead of the September war and in the weeks after it, Pashinyan’s government desperately began seeking alternative alliances and moving away from Russia.
The government recalled its representative from the Russia-dominated Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), ratified the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (which issued an arrest warrant for Putin), conducted small-scale military exercises with the United States, and openly expressed doubts about Moscow’s ability to ensure its security, with Pashinyan referring to the two nations’ relationship as a “strategic mistake.”
But Armenia’s dependence on Moscow runs deep. Russia maintains a military base in Gyumri, controls two of Armenia’s four borders, supplies most of its energy, and remains its top trading partner. Armenia is part of the Moscow-run Eurasian Economic Union.
“Armenia has mortgaged its independence in exchange for security guarantees,” Giragosian told me. Yerevan kept its head down throughout the Ukraine war, remaining silent on the matter. “We are hiding in the bathrooms of the U.N. and New York traffic,” he said.
But Yerevan’s quest for new partners may merely be an attempt to make Moscow jealous. Although the government decided to miss the last gathering of the Russia-led Commonwealth of Independent States, the prime minister attended the Eurasian Economic Union summit in December in Saint Petersburg.
“What has really changed? Did we leave the Eurasian Economic Union or CSTO? No. The Eurasian Economic Union isn’t a union, and it’s not economic. Both are forms of loyalty to Russia,” said Alexander Iskandaryan, a Yerevan-based political scientist.
None of this worked. Diplomatic rhetoric and appeals from the United States and Europe did nothing to deter Azerbaijan. Baku, tired of years spent in meeting rooms at peacebuilding conferences, swapped diplomacy for drones. And Moscow, claiming that its security agreement didn’t cover the disputed territory, refused to act.
Yerevan, heavily reliant on Russian arms, had lost its military edge to Azerbaijan, which garnered support from Turkey and procured weapons from Israel. It will take decades to rebuild a military that can face Azerbaijan—and Yerevan may not have that much time.
A woman speaks with Armenian police officers during a demonstration in front of the Government House in Yerevan, Armenia, on Sept. 21, 2023. Alain Jocard/AFP via Getty Images
The Armenian population, like the government, feels betrayed by the Russian leadership. In a survey conducted in 2018 by International Republican Institute (IRI), 84 percent of Armenians considered Russia a political partner, with only 6 percent seeing it as a threat. As of March 2023, those numbers stood at 50 percent and 24 percent, respectively.
Approaching two young women in their mid-20s on the street to ask for directions, I initially addressed them in Russian, only to be met with anger and silence. When I switched to English, their mood visibly lightened. It reminded me of Kyiv and Tbilisi, where speaking Russian is no longer welcome—as a reflection of changing geopolitical situations.
Many members of the newer generation of Armenians, like in Georgia and Ukraine, is Western-educated and fluent in English, whether they are part of civil society, the government, or even pro-Russian political parties. The country finds itself caught between geopolitical realities and the quest for a better life.
“There is a disparity between mental and physical geography,” Iskandaryan observed. “If you ask people on the street who they are, they will say they are Europeans. They all dream of going to the West, for holidays or education. … But when you look at the map, it is what it is.”
The exodus of Armenians from Karabakh has created a burgeoning humanitarian crisis in Armenia. The country of 2.8 million remains one of the poorest nations in the region. Poverty and desperation are pervasive. Yerevan must provide for more than 100,000 people who fled Nagorno-Karabakh when the government was already coping with an influx of around 100,000 Russians escaping Russia’s war in Ukraine.
“There are seismic shifts happening in the region and an unsettling amount of uncertainty. Many are watching to see how the status quo will evolve in the context of the Ukraine war,” said Melikyan, the researcher from the Orbeli Center.
The status quo may not hold long enough for Pashinyan, either. He won the last parliamentary elections, held in 2021, comfortably, despite military defeat in the 2020 war. But things may turn out differently this time around.
“For us, the page of Armenian Nagorno-Karabakh isn’t turned,” said Hayk Mamijanyan, a member of the opposition Republican Party. “Pashinyan brought blood and suffering to our country. … Armenia was left completely isolated because of him,” he emphasized.
But Pashinyan’s predecessors have a lot of work to do to regain public confidence. “Ultimately, people do not solely blame Pashinyan. They understand that it was 30 years of corruption and a flawed system that led to our military defeat,” said Edmond Manukyan, Armenia’s ambassador-at-large.
Armenia has still not given up its claims. “[The government] does not want to create casus belli, but of course, they know things can change. Azerbaijan waited for 30 years,” Melikyan said, when I asked if Armenian authorities are resigned to the current reality.
Kids play on a street next to buildings destroyed by war more than 20 years earlier in the Nagorno-Karabakh region, seen on April 18, 2015. Brendan Hoffman/Getty Images
As the Russia-Ukraine war drags on without a clear end in sight, and with Russia and the West preoccupied with it, Armenian officials are facing a hard choice—whether or not to abandon the Russia that betrayed them without any sign of strong commitment from the Western allies.
Down the road lies another challenge—Turkey. Armenian officials are talking to Turkish colleagues to normalize relations. Ankara, however, wants Yerevan to reach an agreement with Baku before it agrees to push rapprochement ahead.
“For Armenia, much of the desire to normalize relations with Turkey isn’t about Turkey; it’s about a Western shift,” Giragosian said, maintaining that Yerevan acknowledges that closer ties with the West hinge on the restoration of diplomatic relations with Ankara.
But is the West prepared to embrace this shift?
U.S. engagement in the South Caucasus significantly weakened over the years leading up to the war in Ukraine because of shifting international priorities and the general decline of U.S. engagement abroad under the administrations of former Presidents Barack Obama and Donald Trump, a trend that has continued through the administration of President Joe Biden. The inability to deter Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 has left populations in the region wary of Western promises and afraid for their security. Armenians may not trust Russia—but they don’t place much more faith in the West.
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