The upcoming parliamentary elections in Armenia on 7 June go far beyond domestic politics; rather, they represent a geopolitical dualism of the first order: between the European Union (a subsidiary of Talassocratic Unipolarity) and the Eurasian Economic Union (an integral part of Tellurocratic Multipolarity). Although 2,483,520 voters are set to take part in these elections — according to Armenia’s Central Electoral Commission — and a total of 19 political forces (17 political parties and 2 electoral coalitions) are standing, the real protagonists are Civil Contract, led by the current Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, and two opposition coalitions: Armenian Alliance, led by former President Robert Kocharyan, and the Strong Armenian Alliance, led by Narek Karapetyan.

It is clear that these elections are taking place against the backdrop of the fateful events of recent years under Nikol Pashinyan’s presidency, specifically since the war against Azerbaijan in 2020; the loss of the Republic of Artsakh on 20 September 2023 following the Azerbaijani invasion and the capitulationist stance in negotiations with Azerbaijan and Turkey — following a doctrine of appeasement. We list some of the breaking points caused by his appalling political management, taken from our previous article ‘Armenia faces existential challenges and popular discontent with the government is growing’:

• Failure to take active steps in the search for missing Armenian soldiers.
• Passivity in the face of the exodus of 100,000 Armenians caused by the Azerbaijani invasion of Artsakh.
• Opting for an extremely submissive approach to Azerbaijan’s demands.
• High treason against national interests by accepting, without hesitation or opposition, the official dissolution of the Republic of Artsakh on 1 January 2024.
• The cession to Azerbaijani sovereignty of four border villages in the Armenian province of Tavush: Baghanis, Voskepar, Kirants and Berkaber.
• Corruption as a structural problem within the Armenian government.
• Persecution, intimidation and police reprisals against political opponents.

1. Armenia as part of Brzezinski’s Eurasian Balkans

Indeed, former Armenian President Robert Kocharyan is standing for re-election under the opposition coalition Armenian Alliance (formed by the Armenian Revolutionary Federation and the Forward Party), emphasising these aspects of domestic and foreign policy, in view of the defeatist relations with Aliyev’s Azerbaijan and also with regard to Armenia’s geopolitical shift towards unipolarity, which places it in a strategic position both for the European Union (with regard to the encirclement of Russia) and for the United States (with regard to the conflict with Iran).

For both actors—both formal parts of that ‘actually existing liberal West’—their orientation is mutually compatible, as it connects with their potential transformation into a disruptive state for the Russian border rear in the Caucasus, capable of playing a role in fulfilling Zbigniew Brzezinski’s plan for this Eurasian space. To conclude, Mr Zbigniew was National Security Adviser to President Jimmy Carter between 1977 and 1981; godfather of the Afghan mujahideen and of the Green Belt strategy, aimed at encouraging and supporting the establishment of fundamentalist Islamic governments in the south-east of the USSR to block Soviet access to the warm waters of the Persian Gulf and the oil fields of West Asia.

In his book *The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives* (1997), Brzezinski outlines a strategy by which the US can continue to maintain its hegemony across Eurasia; the so-called ‘Eurasian Balkans’. This was based on the geopolitical theories of the Americans Spykman and Cohen (referring to the ‘Rimland’ or ‘Coastal Zone of the Heartland’) and those of the Polish statesman Pilsudski (referring to the ‘Shatter-Belt’ or ‘Fracture Belt’). Its application in the Central Asian and Caucasus region — home to major powers such as Turkey, Russia, China, India and Iran — sought to exploit the weaknesses of the countries in the region (ethnic, civil, linguistic, religious, etc.) to turn the region into a destabilising and chaotic environment that would harm Russia’s Eurasian periphery and, in turn, allow that chaos to penetrate the very heart of that state-civilisation. Armenia, in this case, could be the pawn where the West would have a critical lever between two target states of its geostrategy against the emerging multipolar world (Russia and Iran) and, at the same time, a severe blow to Russia’s strategic projection in the former Transcaucasia.

2. The Armenian strategic dilemma: with Eurasia or with the European Union

Returning to the present, Kocharyan is a representative and symbolic figure, as he was born in 1954 in the Nagorno-Karabakh region — then under the rule of the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic — and went on to hold various posts in the Communist Party from the early 1980s until the collapse of the USSR in 1991, becoming a deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic. He was among those who, from the very outset of the First Nagorno-Karabakh War in 1988 between Armenia and Azerbaijan over that territory, supported the annexation of the region by Armenia—a region severely affected by the persecution and expulsion of Armenians by the Azeris. Since then, one of his main political priorities has been the defence of Nagorno-Karabakh as a formal part of Armenian territory, leading him to become a member of the Karabakh Committee — which was transformed in 1989 into the Pan-Armenian National Movement (HHSh); President of the Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh from 1994 to 1997; Prime Minister of the Republic of Armenia in March 1997; and President of the Republic of Armenia from 1998 to 2008.

During his presidency, he took a hard line in foreign policy regarding negotiations with Azerbaijan, seeking terms of negotiation that would best serve national interests and lead to a definitive end to the conflict, but not at any price. However, his focus was not limited to this historic conflict with unfriendly neighbours; he also understood that Armenia’s security depended fundamentally on good relations with Boris Yeltsin’s newly formed Russian Federation — which could act as a counterweight to its regional problems with both Turkey and Azerbaijan. A policy of friendship was pursued and deepened with President Vladimir Putin from his first term in 2000.

With this move, Kocharyan sought to secure optimal alliance conditions—with deterrent capabilities—that would match the alliance Turkey had with Azerbaijan—both of which are seen as part of the Turkic and Muslim (Shia and Sunni) identity—given that Armenia is a predominantly Christian state, with little territory and no access to the sea; caught up in a historic regional conflict, with its borders with Turkey and Azerbaijan blocked; heavily dependent on routes through Georgia and Iran; and with a military budget smaller than that of Azerbaijan. And Russia was the only actor with sufficient capabilities to provide the Armenian government with a strategic capacity that could balance its situation vis-à-vis its two hostile neighbours—positioned on either flank—thereby gaining ground as a Eurasian actor with development capabilities. Sitting on both the Western and Russian sides was not an option, but a move fraught with great risks—as recent history has shown.

By pursuing this path of cooperation with Russia, the Armenian government consolidated an alliance that saw the signing of bilateral agreements covering security, the economy, investment, energy, culture and international cooperation. To cite a significant example, it was in 1995 that Armenia and Russia signed military cooperation agreements stipulating the legalisation and continued presence of Russian military forces already deployed on Armenian territory and, above all, at the Russian military base in Gyumri, which dated back to the Soviet era. The integration of the Armenian political nation into the Eurasian geopolitical framework was underpinned by its accession to the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO) in 2002 and to the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) in 2015; these moves resulted in a strengthening of both the defence framework and the economic sphere.

The approach of the other coalition, the Strong Armenia Alliance — also opposed to the current Civil Contract Party government — follows a similar line of reasoning regarding the historic and strategic alliance with Russia, as both share the view of Armenia as an active participant in Eurasian international politics and, at the same time, a political nation that will not renounce its territorial claims, let alone the demands and conditions of the Ankara-Baku duo. And to secure a position of strength, it needs a regional power such as Vladimir Putin’s Russia.

In light of this process of Armenia’s international realignment, at the Eurasian Economic Union summit held on 29 May in the Kazakh capital of Astana, the leaders of Belarus, Russia, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan adopted a joint position officially recognising the economic risks posed by the start of Armenia’s EU accession process for the EAEU member states. The economic organisation does not consider it compatible for Armenia to move towards becoming a member state of the European Union whilst simultaneously retaining the benefits of Eurasian economic integration represented by the EAEU. This is due to the incompatibility of trade policy and single integration, as it is not possible to belong to two distinct customs unions with different and, indeed, conflicting trade policies.

Consequently, at that summit, the EAEU Supreme Council urged Armenia to hold a referendum on whether to remain in this Eurasian organisation or, ultimately, to join the EU as a new member. Pahinyan’s response to this joint statement is that Armenia will remain within the EAEU until it has an official application to join the EU — thus opting for a strategic postponement that places it in a transitional interregnum — and “until it becomes inevitable to choose between the European Union and the Russia-led bloc”, according to The Armenian Report on 2 June.

As recent history is also a reliable indicator of the consequences that may arise from certain government decisions regarding the international framework—which is dialectical in nature and where harmony has no place, beyond the false liberal perception of international relations—the Ukrainian scenario remains a benchmark of moral imperative. This is a point Kocharyan takes into account regarding the dilemma currently facing the Armenian government: whether to remain within the Eurasian integration framework or to position itself as a new subordinate of the corrupt regime in Brussels. Linked to this, during the campaign for these parliamentary elections, on 31 May a rally organised by the Armenian Alliance took place in the Armenian capital, Yerevan, in the iconic Freedom Square, which later turned into a march through the city centre.

At this event, covered by the media outlet Amenian Today, candidate Kocharyan criticised the aforementioned dilemma facing the current government, pointing out the serious consequences that leaving the EAEU would have for the national economy, as well as its seemingly ambiguous position, when what Armenia needs is an “alliance with Russia and very good relations with both Europe and the United States. We need both, not a choice between them”. Something, incidentally, that led to President Viktor Yanukovych having a colour revolution organised against him by EU-NATO-US forces, which resulted in a civil war and a coup d’état in Ukraine.

3. Internal contradictions and Azerbaijani interference

Unlike the Armenian Alliance and the Strong Armenian Alliance, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan is opting for a path contrary to national and popular interests; that is to say, should the Civil Contract retain a parliamentary majority, Armenia would follow the course set so far by the Prime Minister, reorienting the country towards the EU-US sphere and moving away from Eurasian cooperation frameworks where Russia is the key player. Furthermore — as a non-negotiable condition of the Azerbaijani government for signing a peace treaty — to carry out a reform that removes from the Armenian Constitution any reference that could be interpreted as a territorial claim over the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh. The crux of the matter is that Prime Minister Pashinyan intends to pass off this reform as a necessity arising from domestic politics and not, as is in fact the case, an Azerbaijani demand made from a position of strength against an Armenian actor who has shown weakness and diplomatic lethargy.

There have been several warnings from Azerbaijan regarding the results of these elections—amounting to a full-blown declaration of interference, made publicly and without any pretence of discretion— as Azerbaijani President Aliyev himself threatened the Armenian people that — should political forces considered hostile to his designs prevail in these elections — they would “suffer the consequences”, as reaffirmed by Diario Armenia on 26 May 2026 in an article dedicated to these elections. Consequently, the signing of the peace treaty with Azerbaijan is a sine qua non condition for the normalisation of relations with Turkey and the reopening of its border with Armenia, which has been closed since 1993 in support of its Azerbaijani ally.

4. Conclusions

Armenia’s continued membership of the CSTO and the EAEU, or its accession to the EU-NATO axis; the maintenance of historical territorial claims and sovereignty, or subordination and fragmentation—this is, in reality, what is at stake in the parliamentary elections on 7 June in Armenia. And as such, it reflects a much larger confrontation that transcends regional boundaries, but is directly embedded in the geopolitical plans and agendas of the great powers’ rivalry across all arenas where there are points of rupture which, if exploited effectively, serve to strengthen their position in regional spheres and, through them, shape the global landscape. And this is where the dialectic between the Unipolar World and the Multipolar World lies: the world that was established in the Liberal West in 1945 and globalised from 1991 onwards, or, conversely, that world which in reality marked the anti-hegemonic turning point in February 2022.