Armenia Set to Seek EU Membership as Pashinyan Signals Break from Moscow's Orbit

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan announced on Monday that his government will begin readying a formal application to join the European Union, marking a dramatic realignment for a nation long anchored in Russia's sphere of influence and sending ripples across the South Caucasus.

Addressing parliament in Yerevan, Pashinyan laid out a carefully sequenced plan: Armenia will submit its candidacy, await a response from Brussels, negotiate the terms of an accession roadmap, and only afterward allow voters to deliver the final verdict in a national referendum. He indicated the application would come "in the near future."

The announcement marks a sharp turn from just months earlier, when fellow members of the Russia-led Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO) pressed Yerevan to choose between staying in the alliance or pursuing EU entry through a public vote. At the time, the prime minister dismissed such a choice as premature, as the Kremlin punished Armenia's westward drift with economic pressure and President Vladimir Putin openly warned of a "Ukrainian scenario" for the ex-Soviet state.

On Monday, however, Pashinyan appeared to embrace the confrontation, saying he would welcome it if the CSTO expelled Armenia outright, since that "would free us from the dilemma of whether or not to leave." Even so, he stopped short of announcing an immediate withdrawal, saying Armenia would remain in the bloc until the fork in the road "becomes unavoidable."

The prime minister argued that the assumptions underpinning two centuries of ties with Moscow had collapsed. Russia had long been regarded as the guarantor of Armenia's security, he said, but the events of 2021 through 2023 — spanning Armenia's defeats in its conflicts with Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh — exposed serious limits in Moscow's capacity, and willingness, to fulfill that role amid its own security burdens.

Those defeats ultimately gave way to diplomacy: Armenia and Azerbaijan signed a peace framework in August 2025 and have since pursued economic cooperation, backed by significant engagement from the EU and the United States. Pashinyan paired his EU pivot with another challenge to Moscow on Monday, urging Russia to relinquish its concession over Armenia's railways, which runs until 2038, so the network can be linked into international corridors with potential investment from Kazakhstan or the UAE.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov reacted quickly, warning that aligning Armenia with European standards could produce what he called "deep trade contradictions that will primarily harm Armenia." On the question of the CSTO, he said Yerevan was free to walk away if it no longer saw the alliance as serving its national interests — language suggesting a turbulent chapter ahead between Moscow and its former ally.