Every day Ukraine keeps fighting, Russian influence grows weaker in the countries of the ex-USSR that Moscow refers to as the “near abroad.” Nowhere is this clearer than in Armenia, where decades of Russian dominance are now being challenged by the United States and others.
In February, JD Vance became the first US vice president to visit Yerevan, arriving with a civil nuclear agreement and an $11 million drone package. In May, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio signed a strategic partnership charter, a critical minerals memorandum, and a framework agreement for a US-developed transit corridor across southern Armenia.
Russia has been unable to stop any of this American outreach. It cannot. The capacity Moscow once used to police its periphery is being consumed in Ukraine. While the front lines of Russia’s invasion move slowly back and forth, the imperial infrastructure underpinning Kremlin influence throughout the former Soviet Union is visibly eroding.
Russia’s method of control in the so-called near abroad has been consistent since the time of the tsars: Lay a political mine in a neighbor’s territory, then present itself as the only power able to defuse it. This strategy evolved further under the Bolsheviks. Abkhazia and South Ossetia became autonomous units inside Georgia, a Moldavian republic was drawn on the left bank of the Dniester inside Ukraine, and Crimea was transferred to Ukraine. Every charge eventually went off, with Russian troops arriving to guarantee the outcome. This process first unfolded in Transnistria, Abkhazia, and South Ossetia during the early 1990s, with the seizure of Crimea coming two decades later.
Karabakh served the same purpose in the South Caucasus. Moscow armed both combatants but principally backed Armenia, which is how Yerevan became a Russian client rather than an ally. Azerbaijan had to account for Russia too, but by cultivating Turkey and Israel, Baku was able to preserve crucial room to maneuver. The long-running conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan officially ended in Washington in August 2025, when the two countries initialed a peace deal with the United States as mediator, recognizing Soviet administrative boundaries as international borders.
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The architecture of Russian influence that Armenia is now dismantling was extremely comprehensive. Russia supplied no less than 94 percent of Armenian arms imports between 2011 and 2020. Gazprom owns the country’s gas distribution network outright. Russian Railways operates the entire Armenian rail system under a concession running to 2038. A Russian military base at Gyumri hosting roughly 3,000 troops is chartered to 2044 and cannot be closed without Russian consent. Until recently, Russian security officers monitored Armenia’s frontiers with Turkey and Iran, along with the passport desks at Yerevan’s airport.
Moscow’s leverage is now in decline. India replaced Russia as Armenia’s largest defense supplier in 2025, with contracts exceeding $1.5 billion. Armenian border guards took over the airport in 2024 and the Iranian crossing in January 2025.
Meanwhile, the Armenian parliament adopted a law in 2025 opening a path toward European Union accession. Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan is moving to end the Russian rail concession, warning that Armenia’s railway transport network is “losing strategic positions and competitive advantages” under Moscow’s management.
Russia’s response has been confined to what it can still afford. Sergei Kiriyenko, the Kremlin official who oversees Russian-occupied regions of Ukraine, was handed the Armenia file in spring 2025. A Kremlin-linked influence network then ran coordinated information campaigns against Armenia, drawing over 100 million views in a year.
Russian media amplified the Armenian Apostolic Church’s confrontation with the government. Moscow banned Armenian agricultural exports, threatened gas prices, and warned that leaving the Eurasian Economic Union would cost Armenia 14 percent of its economy. Samvel Karapetyan, a Putin-linked Russian-Armenian billionaire, allegedly ran the opposition at the behest of Moscow, according to leaked documents. Despite these efforts, Pashinyan’s party won 64 of 105 parliamentary seats in the country’s summer 2026 elections.
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Russia’s frustration is becoming increasingly audible. In April, Putin pressed Pashinyan over restrictions barring Russian passport holders from standing in Armenia’s forthcoming elections. Pashinyan answered that Armenia was a democracy, jibing that “some say Armenia has too much democracy.” At the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in Bishkek in early September, Putin acknowledged that EU membership was Armenia’s “natural and legitimate right,” but warned that this would lead to a breakdown in trade with Russia.
The Russian ruler has good reason to worry about trade links. The US-led peace deal between Armenia and Azerbaijan includes the establishment of the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity (TRIPP), with Washington holding a 74 percent stake. This would link Azerbaijan to Turkey across Armenian territory and graft Armenia onto the 6,500-kilometer Middle Corridor, a China-to-Europe route whose main purpose is to bypass Russia.
One clause stands in the way. Azerbaijan conditions its signature on removing language from Armenia’s 1990 independence declaration invoking Karabakh unification, the issue at the heart of the conflict between the two countries. A draft text was finished in March; Pashinyan said in August that keeping the reference would mean continuing the Karabakh movement. Essentially, the change would solidify Armenia’s political reorientation and help prevent potential pro-Russian successors from reigniting the war with Azerbaijan.
Pashinyan has framed the change as a key step toward regional integration. Finding a solution should ensure the success of the TRIPP initiative and open the border with Turkey. Armenia would also potentially benefit from Azerbaijani energy supplies, access to Central Asian trade routes, and a commercial line to Europe. These are practical replacements for virtually everything Russia is able to offer. A landlocked country that has spent decades of independence being dependent on a single patron would acquire multiple alternatives at once.
Russia is not resigned to accepting its receding influence in Armenia and elsewhere, but Putin can currently do little in practice as he is preoccupied with the invasion of Ukraine. The United States, Europe, and other interested parties should make the most of Moscow’s predicament in order to cement the historic changes taking place in the South Caucasus.
Joseph Epstein is director of the Turan Research Center.
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The views expressed in UkraineAlert are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Atlantic Council, its staff, or its supporters.
The Eurasia Center’s mission is to enhance transatlantic cooperation in promoting stability, democratic values, and prosperity in Eurasia, from Eastern Europe and Turkey in the West to the Caucasus, Russia, and Central Asia in the East.
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Image: Russian President Vladimir Putin and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan attend a meeting at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia. April 1, 2026. (Pavel Bednyakov/Pool via REUTERS)