EU advances east, aid for Armenia’s anti-Russian armed forces

Brussels -Europe is pushing for EU-Armenia military cooperation and forcing its hand on the international chessboard by putting a foot in the area of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), the military alliance that includes Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Armenia. The EU Council cut a check for 10 million euros to support the Armenian Armed Forces through the European Peace Facility. The objective of this measure, the first ever in favor of the authorities in Yerevan, is to “accelerate interoperability of its Armed Forces in case of possible future participation of the country in international military missions and operations, including those deployed by the EU.”

In practice, all this translates into providing a real deployable tented camp for a battalion-sized unit (land military unit, generally consisting of between 500 and 1,000 men, ed.). A move, however, that is geopolitical, risking a further escalation of tensions with the Russian Federation and its President, Vladimir Putin, who, even since before the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, has been opposed to Europe’s advance to the east and the expansion of what Moscow sees as a policy of encirclement.

With its stated willingness to include Armenia in European military missions, the EU is taking a new step eastward in a bid to bring in a country within an area of economic and strategic interest to Russia and one that would bring Europe into West Asia’s Caucasus region.

“We have a mutual interest to further scale up our dialogue on foreign and security policy, also looking into Armenia’s future participation in EU-led missions and operations,” said  EU High Representative for Foreign and Security Policy, Josep Borrell.

Officially, the decision is in the context of the bilateral partnership. But there is also a need to run for cover after the clashes between Armenia and Azerbaijan for control of the disputed Nagorno-Karaback territory, which is internationally recognized as Azerbaijani but controlled by Armenia since the dissolution of the Soviet Union. The harsh clashes have seen the European Parliament accuse Baku of ethnic cleansing, reviving the need to strengthen the security and response capacity of the Azerbaijani armed forces. With Georgia taking steps backward on the path that should lead to a membership, which is now called into question, putting another foot in the Caucasus becomes even more of a priority for a European Union eager to expand eastward and again challenge Vladimir Putin.