Pashinyan wants to trade Russia for Europe. Armenia could lose both

The Armenian leader is selling an EU future that Brussels has never promised – while jeopardizing the economic ties his country cannot replace It is difficult to view the events of the past few days in Armenia in isolation.

On August 24, Nikol Pashinyan announced that Yerevan would soon begin preparing a formal application for membership in the European Union.

The very next day, former President Robert Kocharyan – one of the current prime minister’s most recognizable opponents and the leader of the Armenia Alliance parliamentary bloc – was detained.

Officially, the two developments are unrelated.

The former president has been charged with money laundering, accepting bribes, and abuse of office.

Investigators claim that, during his presidency, he was involved in transferring state property to himself and his associates on favorable terms.

The authorities, meanwhile, categorically deny that Kocharyan’s arrest was politically motivated.

But politics is shaped not only by the substance of a criminal case, but also by its context.

Kocharyan is not simply a former official facing questions nearly two decades after leaving office.

He leads an opposition alliance, has consistently opposed a break with Moscow, and is an outspoken critic of Pashinyan’s foreign policy.

At the same time, other government opponents have also faced investigations or restrictions, including members of the Strong Armenia party, Samvel Karapetyan, Gagik Tsarukyan, and senior clergy of the Armenian Apostolic Church.

As a result, even if formal legal grounds exist, every new case is inevitably seen as part of a broader campaign to clear the political field.

Read more The Battle for Armenia A bid for a new source of legitimacy In recent years, Pashinyan has been building a political project designed to present the public with the image of a “new Armenia” while also justifying Yerevan’s drift away from Moscow.

That project is a “European Armenia.” Within this framework, abandoning the country’s previous foreign policy is portrayed not as the consequence of past failures, but as a historic choice in favor of “sovereignty, peace, and democracy.” Russia, meanwhile, becomes a convenient explanation for nearly every domestic problem, while opposition figures with political, economic, or personal ties to Moscow are cast as obstacles standing in the way of this new Armenia.