Armenia - a member of the CSTO and the EEU - has chosen Russia as the most important foreign political priority, but it has never been guided by the principle "either Moscow or Brussels", Russian analyst Sergey Markedonov has told ArmInfo. "Yerevan has been developing economic relations with the EU, maintaining the balance in the relations with Iran and the US, and participating in the NATO programs. The country has been doing that to prevent Azerbaijan from monopolizing the Nagorno-Karabakh topic in the West," he says.
Markedonov stressed that Armenia with its two closed borders has naturally been seeking to diversify its trade and economic relations, taking a natural interest in relations with Europe and the United States. The analyst thinks that Yerevan's multi-vector policy has intensified even more after the 08.08.08 war, which resulted in large-scale changes in the Caucasus, as well as following the outbreak of the Ukrainian crisis.
"The dynamics of the Ukrainian developments is not just an important factor to determine the priorities of Moscow and Yerevan. It is Ukraine that contributed to formation of the current content of the Moscow- Yerevan relations, which has repeatedly changed under the influence of external factors, even amid the continued maintenance of the strategic alliance vector," he says.