“Russian-Armenian relations are being tested for strength. On the Russian side, the approach has not changed, and Moscow continues to view relations with Yerevan as allied,” said Russian Ambassador to Yerevan Sergei Kopyrkin in an interview with Sputnik-Armenia.

According to him, Western countries “are trying to exploit the problems of the region and are betting on weakening the role of the Russian Federation here,” and US officials “directly place relations with Armenia in the context of the fight against the Russian Federation and Iran.”

Recently, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan called the South Caucasus part of the European Union. “Very important changes have taken place in our region, namely Georgia has received the status of an official candidate for accession to the European Union. Two of our neighbors have this status (including Turkey). And if we used to say: “where is the EU and where is our region,” now the EU is in fact and essentially our region,” the official said during government hour in parliament.

A little earlier, Pashinyan said that Armenia can no longer be Russia’s military partner: “We need to understand with whom we should develop military and military-technical cooperation. In the past there was no such question, just as there were no difficulties with the concept. In the past, Armenia's defense relations were 97% related to Russia. Now this cannot happen due to objective and subjective reasons.”