Who Really Needs the Gyumri Base

Here Arthur Khachatryan takes on one of the most debated questions in Armenian security policy: the future of Russia’s 102nd Military Base in Gyumri. The base contract runs to 2044, yet the topic surfaced again after an exchange in Bishkek where Putin said Russia could walk away from it, and Pashinyan replied Armenia would not object. Khachatryan uses the moment to expose what he sees as the emptiness of the argument that Armenia can simply do without it.

He recounts telling a large group of journalists from Germany, Austria, and Switzerland to imagine the base is gone and Armenia is under attack from Turkey or Azerbaijan. Will the Bundeswehr intervene? Will anyone react? If they have no answer, he says, they have no standing to ask him about the base. He notes that Russia now has options, its relations with Georgia are warming even as ties with Azerbaijan sour, so Moscow could anchor its southern presence through Georgia instead. Armenia, by contrast, has no alternative.

Khachatryan then widens the frame. When Armenia raises security with European partners, they respond that the EU is not a security organization and point to NATO, yet no one expects NATO to admit Armenia or to place bases there to defend it against NATO members like Turkey. He lists Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan forming a bloc, Sweden and Finland joining NATO, and the US, UK, and Australia forming an alliance, arguing that states everywhere are grouping together for safety while Pashinyan insists Armenia will rely on no bloc at all. For Khachatryan that is not naivety but a deliberate effort to mislead the public. The clip distills the core dilemma of Armenia in the South Caucasus: a country stripped of alliances being told to trust partners who offer no guarantee.