After the previous presidential elections in 2008, Serzh Sargsyan visited Moscow and thanked the Russian president for support.
Four years have passed, another national election was held. After the victory, Serzh Sargsyan again visited Moscow to attend the CIS and CSTO meetings but this time he didn’t thank Putin for support in the election.
Either Serzh Sargsyan understood from the previous experience that it is at least strange that the president of a sovereign country thanks the leader of the partner country and not the local voters, or Putin has not showed any support to the parliamentary elections this time.
Putin may have supported a different force. Interestingly, Serzh Sargsyan did not meet with President Putin in Moscow, but with Prime Minister Medvedev.
In this meeting, Medvedev made an interesting statement. Congratulating Serzh Sargsyan on the victory and holding out hope that this success will boost the development of Armenia, Medvedev reiterated Russia’s support to this process. “Armenia and Russia, according to the Russian PM, remain good friends and allies,” the official message runs.
The interesting thing is the phrase “remain good friends and allies”.
Russia sounds somehow offended. It states that it “remains” a friend and ally of Armenia, as if underlining that it remains such despite its dissatisfaction with the process or the outcome of the elections or perhaps even the post-election situation.
Russia seems to be conveying that though Armenia offended it with the new parliament but it is generous and will remain our friend and ally.
What the friendship and alliance of Russia means can be seen in the pages of the Armenian history. It is a chain of betrayals and deals behind Armenia’s back, the modern phase of which is Russia’s relations with Azerbaijan when it sells weapons of strategic importance to a country which threatens to launch a war on its friend and ally and kill its citizens.
In such cases, it would not be bad if Armenia started “offending” Russia to make it understand that Moscow should give up the historic tradition of fulfilling its interest and launching ties on account of Armenia.
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