The CIS, CSTO and EAEU were originally created not to achieve the objectives set out in their charters, but to ensure the dependence of post-Soviet countries on Russia. This is the view of political scientist Robert Ghevondyan, who argues that this logic also helps explain the CSTO’s behavior toward Armenia and, ultimately, Yerevan’s decision to freeze its participation in the organization.
“There was only one reason for the formation of the CSTO, EAEU and CIS. That reason was to tie the countries of the post-Soviet region as closely as possible to the Russian Federation economically, militarily and politically, so that these countries would not move too far away from Russia,” the political scientist said.
Within this logic, EAEU membership limits the economic room for maneuver available to member states.
According to Ghevondyan, if a country is an EAEU member, it is difficult for it to simultaneously pursue broad economic integration not coordinated with Russia or conclude new free trade agreements.
The same, in his assessment, applies to the security sphere. CSTO membership limits opportunities for deep integration with NATO or Western security structures.
Through these organizations, Moscow therefore sought to preserve its influence over post-Soviet countries and prevent them from completely leaving Russia’s political, economic and security systems.
Ghevondyan also links this policy to Russia’s broader geopolitical vision, in which the post-Soviet space was viewed as a Russian sphere of influence.
According to him, Moscow long operated on the assumption that countries that had not moved too far away from Russia could eventually be reunited around the Russian Federation.
The political scientist argues that in 2022 the Russian leadership essentially miscalculated, believing that the next stage of this process had arrived.
According to him, the war against Ukraine was the clearest manifestation of this logic.
However, Russia’s calculations did not materialize. One of the consequences was a sharp decline in the effectiveness of its previous mechanisms of influence over Armenia.
The Calculation Did Not Work in Armenia’s Case
According to Ghevondyan, Russia’s own policies contributed to Armenia beginning to reconsider its participation in the CSTO.
The political scientist considers it particularly important that Armenia expected security guarantees from the CSTO that, in his assessment, the organization was not actually prepared to provide.
This contradiction became particularly evident in September 2022, when Azerbaijan carried out military operations against Armenia’s sovereign territory.
According to Ghevondyan’s interpretation, Moscow could not officially disclose the real and more politically sensitive reason why Russia failed to fulfill its treaty obligations.
The political scientist claims that approximately one month before the September 2022 aggression, Armenia refused to provide territory in Syunik to the Russian side for the construction of a wall and the creation of conditions for the so-called extraterritorial “Zangezur Corridor.”
According to Ghevondyan, this was the “direct reason” for Russia’s non-intervention.
At the same time, he notes that Moscow could not officially state that Armenia had refused to support the project. For this reason, Russia’s non-intervention during the 2022 Azerbaijani aggression was explained by the argument that the borders had not been delimited.
However, according to Ghevondyan, the main reason for the non-intervention was the very nature of the CSTO.
In this context, he referred to a statement by former CSTO Secretary General Nikolai Bordyuzha, according to which no CSTO state should expect the organization to necessarily intervene if it encounters a problem with another former Soviet country.
Ghevondyan believes this statement provides a fairly accurate description of the CSTO’s actual political logic.
Why CSTO Membership Did Not Mean Armenia Was Protected Against Azerbaijan
In his assessment, if Armenia faced a threat involving Turkey or Iran, the CSTO could theoretically perform certain functions because such a situation would concern the former Soviet Union’s external borders.
However, in conflicts involving Georgia or Azerbaijan, he believes that expecting CSTO intervention was fundamentally a miscalculation.
According to Ghevondyan, the reason was that Russia’s long-term vision envisaged the possible expansion of the CSTO and Russian integration systems more broadly to include Azerbaijan and Georgia as well.
In other words, under Moscow’s vision of the “reintegration” of the post-Soviet space, those countries were also expected to remain within Russia’s sphere of influence.
Under these circumstances, border disputes between Armenia and Azerbaijan were viewed not as a long-term geopolitical conflict between two permanently separate states, but as an internal problem that, according to this vision, would one day lose its significance.