Nikol Pashinyan looks successful, but increasingly exposed
Nikol Pashinyan is in a difficult position. On the one hand, he seems to believe he is at the peak of his success. On the other, he has lost legitimacy in the eyes of many Armenians. And after handing over access to minerals and control over logistics routes, he may no longer be as useful to the West as he imagines.
Yerevan now looks like a gambling table where the stakes have been raised to the limit.
The Armenian prime minister, once presented as the “voice of revolution”, is now balancing on the edge of political and personal collapse. The most interesting question is not whether his chair is being sawn through. It is who is doing the sawing.
Western media offer a simple picture: once again, Moscow is trying to destroy democracy.
According to this version, the Kremlin is organising “imported voters”, spending $50 million to bring Armenians from Russia, creating fake websites such as Yerevan1, and using the Storm-1516 bot network to smear Pashinyan. The final dramatic detail is a mysterious video showing masked gunmen threatening to kill the prime minister.
It looks frightening. And, at a basic level, it has some logic. If Russia is losing its monopoly over Armenia, then removing Pashinyan may indeed suit Moscow, but there is one problem with this story. The West does not want to notice it.
Pashinyan is signing away what is not his
While Reuters and CTV News speak loudly about “Russian plots”, Pashinyan behaves like a man who has already been betrayed before signing the final document. He is giving away, left and right, things that do not belong to him: mineral resources, control over logistics corridors, and the memory of Artsakh.
And when Armenian refugees or opposition figures such as Artur Osipyan ask uncomfortable questions, he explodes. He shouts, calls them “traitors”, and sends them to jail under the convenient charge of hooliganism. His approval rating is reportedly only around 26–27%. That does not look like leadership. It looks more like panic.
Pashinyan understands that his actions, which many Armenians see as bordering on national betrayal, have cost him legitimacy. Not even emergency resuscitation in the form of two major pro-Western summits in Yerevan helped much. That explains his increasingly unstable behaviour.
At the same time, the West, which only recently showered him with honours from Emmanuel Macron’s visit to the EU summit in Yerevan, suddenly turns into a silent statue. It does not seem troubled that the “friend of Washington” is turning into a hysterical authoritarian.
Why? Because Marco Rubio has already flown to Yerevan and, in just one hour, signed three key agreements: on the Trump Route, rare earth metals, and strategic partnership. The documents are in the pocket. The task is done.
Reporting to President Donald Trump after the trip, Rubio did not hide his enthusiasm: “We are witnessing the birth of great new relations with Armenia, which had been frozen for a long time. TRIPP is the key cornerstone of the peace agreement that you, Mr President, managed to achieve between Armenia and Azerbaijan.”
Trump himself wrote on Truth Social:
And this is the key point. It suggests that Russia may no longer be the side most interested in Pashinyan. He may now be more dangerous to the West than to Moscow.
The Yanukovych parallel
The Ukrainian case is still fresh in memory. Viktor Yanukovych, once a loyal partner of the West who carried out a “European turn”, was first pushed towards collapse and then nearly eliminated physically. He survived only because he managed to escape to Russia.
He, too, signed agreements with the West. He, too, was welcomed in European capitals, much like Pashinyan today. Under Yanukovych, the European Parliament for the first time recognised in a resolution that “Ukraine is a European state” which, under the agreement, could raise the question of EU membership. He also signed key documents: the Ukraine–EU Action Plan and a roadmap for rapprochement.
Yanukovych handed Ukrainian mineral resources to the United States. Under the slogan of reducing energy dependence on Russia, giants such as Shell and Chevron were brought in to develop shale gas in Ukraine. He also led the country towards NATO. In 2011, he said he was considering the deployment of American military bases in the Luhansk region.
Then came the Maidan, an assassination attempt, and his flight with his family to Russia. Today, Pashinyan appears to be walking the same road. He seems sincerely convinced that Washington and Brussels will not deceive him. He hands minerals and control over logistics routes to the United States. He transfers Karabakh to Azerbaijan, ignoring the fate of people and the opinion of a nation that sees this as defeat and betrayal.
He threatens anyone who asks difficult questions or expresses personal grief. For now, the West ignores all of this. He is their player. Let him behave as he wants, as long as he signs the right documents.
The threat narrative begins
At the same time, Western-aligned media have already begun to stir hysteria about a possible threat to Pashinyan’s life. The story is presented as Moscow’s revenge for Armenia leaving Russia’s orbit.
As usual, there is no real proof. But there is a long history of something else: Western puppets who have served their purpose being removed, with varying degrees of success.
Yanukovych, thank God, survived. Others were less fortunate. Everyone remembers the horrifying footage of Muammar Gaddafi’s killing and Hillary Clinton laughing and almost dancing with joy as she watched the outcome.
One can also recall the attempted overthrow of the pro-European Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in Turkey. That operation also failed, reportedly because Moscow warned Ankara in time about the planned attack. There are many similar examples.
A useful “lame duck”
Power is now slipping from Pashinyan’s hands. Opinion polls show it. His own erratic behaviour makes it worse, alienating even the voters he still has.
His handlers see this. So Rubio rushes from Washington to Yerevan and signs three major agreements in one hour. The logic is simple: get what can still be taken while there is still time.
But Armenian minerals and control over a new Silk Road are not small gains. They are major geopolitical prizes for the United States. So is the strategic partnership agreement, which makes it possible to fill Armenia with weapons and, when the time comes, use them against Russia.
Nobody is thinking about the Armenian people. And, in truth, nobody is thinking about Pashinyan either. This lame duck has done his job. By signing the agreements with the United States, he closed Washington’s Caucasus file. There is nothing more to squeeze out of him. But he knows too much.
Given that American intelligence personnel have long been embedded in the Armenian prime minister’s security structures, his physical removal would not be difficult. Washington has learned from the failures with Yanukovych and Erdoğan. Does Yerevan understand this? Does Chișinău?
