Will Putin turn a blind eye to a revolution in his backyard?
It’s rare to find the strongman of a post-Soviet state stepping down peacefully, said Anthony Bellanger in France Inter (Paris). So let us raise a cheer for Serzh Sargsyan. President of Armenia since 2008, in 2015 he pushed through a referendum on a constitutional amendment transferring presidential powers to the prime minister’s office – a move seen as a ploy to sidestep a two-term limit. But when, on 17 April, his Republican Party appointed him PM, tens of thousands of protesters – stirred to action by opposition MP Nikol Pashinyan – braved police beatings, stun grenades and arrests to march through the capital, Yerevan. Faced with such resistance, Sargsyan, to his great credit, has thrown in the towel. “I was wrong,” he said.
All this has sent shivers through Moscow, said Grigor Atanesian in The Moscow Times. Pashinyan is a critic of Armenia’s close ties with Russia. In 2013, when Armenia, like Ukraine, seemed poised to sign an association agreement with the EU, he was furious that at the last minute Sargsyan announced it would join the Russian-led Eurasian Economic Union instead. And unlike other post-soviet republics, Armenia has a surprisingly robust civil society, said Paul Stronski in The Atlantic (Washington DC). Social media is open; activists remain free to criticise the abuses of the ruling elite. So Vladimir Putin can hardly blame this uprising on “the West’s hidden hand”. The protests weren’t about European alignment: Armenians are just sick of the broken promises, corruption and inequality.
Still, Moscow’s reaction to revolutions in its backyard, as we saw in Ukraine, can be extremely violent, said Anthony Bellanger. For now, it has ruled out interference, saying it will support the Armenian people. But for how long? Although Pashinyan has softened the anti-russia rhetoric, the Kremlin would still far prefer to see power stay in the hands of the ruling elite. What we can be sure of, said Julian Hans in Tages-anzeiger (Zurich), is that owing to the Armenian diaspora, any government will try to preserve a balance between Russia and the West. There are only three million Armenians in Armenia. Eight million (the descendants of those who fled the Ottoman genocide a century ago) live abroad, mainly in the US or Russia. So no government can afford to antagonise either side. But the crucial point, said Grigor Atanesian is that Armenia depends entirely on Russia for its energy, trade and defence. As a Christian country in a Muslim region its people also tend to see Russia as “a great Orthodox brother”, said Anthony Bellanger. So Putin can afford to be relaxed. Armenia can be as democratic as it likes: it hasn’t the smallest chance of escaping Russia’s orbit.