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Armenia's coalition turns on Moscow over Karabakh
Summary
A retrospective on 14 December 2022, when Armenian governing-coalition MPs accused Russia of seeking to push Yerevan into a new war, as the war in Ukraine ground on.
What did it mean when members of Armenia's governing coalition publicly accused Russia of trying to drag their country into a new war? On 14 December 2022, MPs from the coalition did exactly that, directing their anger at Moscow and at the conduct of Russian peacekeepers.
The accusation came amid a renewed crisis in the region following the Lachin blockade and worsening relations between Armenia and Russia. The MPs said Russia wanted to see Armenia drawn into fresh conflict with neighbouring Azerbaijan. They also criticised how the Russian peacekeepers had behaved.
A war that shaped the week
The criticism arrived while Russia's invasion of Ukraine dominated the region's news. In the days before 14 December, the reports from Ukraine described a pattern of pressure on civilians and infrastructure. On 10 December, Russian drone strikes on two power facilities left more than 1.5 million people without electricity in Odesa Oblast. On 8 December, Russian shelling of the front line in the Donetsk region killed one civilian and damaged buildings in Toretsk.
On 9 December, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accused Russia of destroying the front-line city of Bakhmut after weeks of relentless shelling. The same day, Ukraine's Energoatom said Russian soldiers had abducted two senior staff members from the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant. It said the two had been beaten before being driven off in an unknown direction.
Pressure at home in Russia
Also on 9 December, a Moscow court sentenced the opposition figure Ilya Yashin to eight and a half years in prison on charges related to his criticism of the war.
What the Armenian statements showed
The Armenian accusations belong to a separate theatre from the fighting in Ukraine, but they appeared against the same backdrop. Politicians in a governing coalition do not usually voice such charges against a partner state lightly. Their willingness to do so on 14 December 2022 marked how far relations between Yerevan and Moscow had worsened, and it put the performance of the Russian peacekeepers at the centre of the dispute.
The Lachin blockade was the trigger for the renewed crisis, and the coalition's criticism tied Armenian security concerns directly to Russia's role. That Moscow was both accused of seeking a new war and judged on its peacekeeping conduct showed how much trust had eroded.
