Armenia heads to polls amid Russian pressure and threat of ‘Ukrainian scenario’

Mount Ararat rises over Yerevan, the capital of Armenia, which holds its elections on Sunday. Photograph: Karen Minasyan/AFP/Getty Images View image in fullscreen Mount Ararat rises over Yerevan, the capital of Armenia, which holds its elections on Sunday. Photograph: Karen Minasyan/AFP/Getty Images Armenia heads to polls amid Russian pressure and threat of ‘Ukrainian scenario’ Relationship between Vladimir Putin and traditional ally has slowly unravelled under current PM Nikol Pashinyan The bottling line at the Abovyan cognac factory in Armenia is running at full tilt. Women in white coats and hairnets work the conveyor with practised speed – labelling, stacking, loading pallets – racing to fill a truck. The spirit’s destination is Russia . But it probably won’t make it there. Last month, Moscow announced a ban on imports from Abovyan, alongside two other leading producers of Armenian cognac – the name under which Armenian brandy is sold in Russia. The official reason for the move was sanitary concerns, but it was widely viewed as political pressure aimed at discouraging the country’s westward tilt ahead of parliamentary elections on Sunday. It was the latest in a long line of recent trade restrictions – affecting everything from flowers and fish to fruit and its famed brandy – that the Kremlin has imposed on a nation of 3 million people that sends roughly 40% of its exports to nearby Russia. Armenian cognac factory. Video: Pjotr Sauer “We just hope this all blows over,” said Samvel Goroyan, Abovyan’s director, in his office on the outskirts of the capital, Yerevan. “All our cognac is sold in Russia, 7m bottles a year,” he shrugged. “We have nowhere else to go.” For most of its post-Soviet existence since 1991, Armenia was Moscow’s closest ally in the South Caucasus, which bridges eastern Europe and west Asia. It hosted Russian troops, bought Russian weapons and integrated with Kremlin-led political and economic structures. But the relationship has slowly unravelled under the current prime minister, Nikol Pashinyan, whose Civil Contract party came to power on the back of a popular revolution in 2018. His push to reorient Armenia towards Europe represents its most significant foreign policy shift since independence, and Sunday’s vote will be a test of that policy, which Pashinyan is pursuing despite the reality of his country’s deep economic dependence on Russia. “Moscow feels it is losing Armenia, that the country has got a bit too big for its boots,” said Thomas de Waal, a senior fellow with global analysts Carnegie Europe. “So Moscow is trying to force Pashinyan to make a choice – for Russia.” View image in fullscreen Armenia’s prime minister, Nikol Pashinyan, meets Vladimir Putin at the Kremlin in April. Photograph: Sofya Sandurskaya/Reuters Last month, the Russian president, Vladimir Putin , warned that Armenia could face a “Ukrainian scenario” if it continued its European integration aims. Dmitry Medvedev, the hawkish deputy chair of Russia