Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan said in an interview aired on 31 August that Russia remains "more than a strategic partner" because existing treaties make the two countries allies, adding that the change in the government program's wording should not be interpreted as an end to that relationship.

Mirzoyan was responding to Armenia's new 2026–2031 government program, which replaces the "strategic ally" and "strategic partnership" language used in the previous five-year plan with a commitment to "transform and deepen" relations with Russia. The previous program referred to an "Armenian-Russian strategic alliance" and pledged to strengthen "allied relations and strategic partnership" with Moscow.

Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan explained on 27 August that keeping the strategic-partnership language would raise questions about why Russia and the Russia-led Collective Security Treaty Organization had failed to fulfill their security obligations to Armenia in 2022.

Armenia has removed the language of alliance from its government program without ending the treaties, CSTO membership, or energy ties that still bind it to Moscow.

Azerbaijan attacked Armenian territory near Jermuk in September 2022, striking positions inside sovereign Armenia rather than the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region. Yerevan invoked Article 4 of the Collective Security Treaty, the clause treating an attack on one member as an attack on all, and requested assistance. The alliance sent a fact-finding mission but no troops. requested military assistance. Armenia froze its participation in the CSTO at all levels in 2024, stopped financing it, and has boycotted its summits and military exercises.

Why the alliance frayed

Armenian trust in Moscow had deteriorated further by September 2023, when Azerbaijan retook Nagorno-Karabakh after a brief offensive and Russian peacekeepers deployed to the region did not intervene. Armenian officials accused them of failing to protect the enclave's population.

Yerevan has since moved closer to the European Union. In March 2025, Armenia's parliament passed a law to launch the accession process, though Pashinyan has said any actual membership would require a referendum, and Armenia has not applied to join.

What still ties Armenia to Russia

Even so, Armenia remains heavily dependent on Russia for energy. Russia supplied the bulk of Armenia's natural gas in 2021, and Armenia imports all of its nuclear fuel from Russia, leaving it effectively reliant on imported fuel for nearly 70% of its electricity, according to the International Energy Agency. The country remains a member of the Russian-led Eurasian Economic Union.

Mirzoyan acknowledged that strains had emerged in recent years, citing statements by Russian officials, coverage in Russian media, and Moscow's restrictions on imports of Armenian goods. He called for relations to be made "healthier" and returned to a course of "mutual respect," and said Yerevan did not want a "war of words" with Moscow. Pashinyan said on 1 September that he expected to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin later that day in Bishkek.