The parliamentary elections in Armenia ended in the incumbent prime minister Nikol Pashinyan and his party Civil Contract’s victory. Winning nearly 50% of the vote on an increased turnout, the ruling party will hold 64 seats in the 105-member National Assembly.
This is enough to form a government, but it fell short of the seats needed to reshape the country’s constitution. This is important because Azerbaijan has repeatedly said that changing the constitution was a key condition for finalizing a comprehensive peace agreement with Armenia, in particular, the reference made to the conquered enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh. It also sends a clear message to the Kremlin, which sought to influence the result and failed. The government’s efforts at re-election had also received clear backing from the US.
Out of a total of 16 political parties and two electoral alliances that participated in the election, the race was dominated by three principal groups: Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s Civil Contract party, the Strong Armenia bloc headed by Russian-Armenian businessman Samvel Karapetyan, and former president Robert Kocharyan’s Armenia Alliance.
To be sure, Pashinyan is not a highly popular figure, but his success is reasonably easily explained. First, the opposition lacked a unifying national figure capable of appealing to a broad cross-section of society. The opposition figures were cast as representatives of old, corrupt, and largely pro-Russian parties. They also were accused of wanting to drag Armenia into a new confrontation with Azerbaijan — a scenario that would further weaken Yerevan, given the glaring difference in military capabilities between the two sides.
The elections attracted widespread interest beyond the country’s borders. Russia’s leaders pressured Armenia to make a clear decision on whether the country will choose the EU or remain within the Russian-run Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU). It also barred some Armenian exports and threatened to block Armenians from working in Russia.
There were other efforts to sway the vote. A May open-source investigation documented one alleged plan. Beyond such covert work, prominent advocates gave the opposition a Western face. In 2025, Robert Amsterdam, the lawyer representing jailed Samvel Karapetyan, and previously retained by Vadym Novynskyi, the sanctioned oligarch who is regarded as a financier of the Moscow-aligned Ukrainian Orthodox Church, took Karapetyan’s case onto Tucker Carlson’s show, casting Pashinyan as an enemy of Christianity.
The “divorce” initially went smoothly, with Moscow rarely protesting openly or in strict terms. But as the elections neared, the prospects of a radical break emerged with Russian officials stating that Armenia is no longer considered a trusted ally and warning Moscow would take drastic measures to rein in its (official but wayward) South Caucasus ally.
In contrast, Western capitals signaled clear support for Pashinyan. In May, Yerevan hosted two major gatherings involving European leaders, and just before the elections, the US Secretary of State Marco Rubio paid a short visit to the Armenian capital to sign several agreements, including a strengthening of Washington’s engagement in the TRIPP road route from Azerbaijan to its exclave in Nakhchivan that runs through Armenia.
Thus, it was clear from the very beginning that the vote would function as a de facto referendum on Armenia’s geopolitical orientation: whether the country would continue deepening ties with the European Union and the United States, or it would be drawn back into Russia’s strategic orbit.
The electoral success gives Pashinyan sufficient political space to continue the strategic course he has pursued since 2023, and that Moscow fears will take Armenia further away from Russia. This is particularly true in foreign policy.
Since the loss of Nagorno-Karabakh in September 2023, Armenia has sought to diversify its external partnerships and reduce its near-total reliance on Russia. Over the past two years, Yerevan has expanded ties with a range of European and Asian states, seeking to build a network of strategic relationships that can partially compensate for Russia’s intermittent arms supplies and Armenia’s excessive economic dependence on Moscow.
Thus, Armenia’s drift from Russia is real, and for the West, Pashinyan’s victory is an opening to forge closer links, and perhaps even further widen the wedge between Yerevan and Moscow. For the latter, Pashinyan’s re-election is a geopolitical challenge because it forces the Kremlin to reassess its approach not only toward Armenia but toward the South Caucasus as a whole.
Though Russia still remains powerful, its ability to project influence in the region has notably declined since the Ukraine war began. As a result, Moscow now enjoys stable relations with none of the three South Caucasus countries.
This also coincides with the growing influence of other regional powers. Turkey has been pushing for a normalization of ties with Yerevan. The US is engaging each of the regional countries, while China and the wealthy Gulf Arab states are investing in transport and data links in Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia.
Yerevan, nevertheless, is unlikely to seek a complete break with Moscow. Russia retains considerable economic and security influence. Whether Russia will accept this is another matter — its dream of holding sway in what it likes to term the near-abroad is undiminished.
Emil Avdaliani is a research fellow at the Turan Research Center and a professor of international relations at the European University in Tbilisi, Georgia. His research focuses on the history of the Silk Roads and the interests of great powers in the Middle East and the Caucasus.
Europe’s Edge is CEPA’s online journal covering critical topics on the foreign policy docket across Europe and North America. All opinions expressed on Europe’s Edge are those of the author alone and may not represent those of the institutions they represent or the Center for European Policy Analysis. CEPA maintains a strict intellectual independence policy across all its projects and publications.
