Why Dependence on Russia Beats the West
Armenia is nothing to the United States. To Russia, it's a bigger fish.
Asbed makes a deliberately contrarian case about nuclear dependency. Whichever large country Armenia partners with for a nuclear plant, the United States, the UK, France, China, or Russia, it will be dependent for decades. The question is not whether to be dependent but whom you can actually influence. His answer: Armenia carries more weight with Russia than with Washington or Paris. Armenia is almost nothing to France and nothing to the United States, he argues, while the web of ties to Moscow, from the CSTO to the Eurasian Economic Union, gives Yerevan real points of leverage.
The argument gets its edge from a concrete contrast. The railway concession Pashinyan floated appears to have brought Russia back to the table with a new offer bundling a nuclear plant and the concessions behind closed doors, evidence, Asbed says, that there is something to negotiate. Compare that with the TRIPP signing in Washington, which in his telling produced no leverage at all: a photo op with Trump and Aliyev and then goodbye, with Trump barely remembering Pashinyan’s name afterward.
For an audience tracking the geopolitics of the South Caucasus, this is the kind of take that provokes argument. Hovik flags that anti-Russian listeners will not like it, and frames the real alternatives bluntly: when the choice is between Turkey, Azerbaijan, or Russia as a nuclear technology partner, Armenia should pick the least-bad option and manage the dependency strategically. The clip connects Armenia’s energy future to its wider bargaining with Moscow over the 102nd base, border guards, and EAEU membership, making the nuclear decision a proxy for Armenia’s whole strategic orientation. It is a compact, debatable thesis that invites viewers to take a side.
Transcript
Asbed Bedrossian: Looking at it politically as well. And I thought, so we're going to be dependent on one large country, whether that is the United States or the UK or France or China or Russia. And I thought dependency on Russia is probably the best option for Armenia, to be honest. It's not going to sound good to be dependent at all. But if you are talking about having to be dependent, Armenia has a lot more influence on Russia than, for example, on either France or the United States. Armenia is nothing to the United States. Armenia is almost nothing to France.
Hovik Manucharyan: Yeah.
Asbed Bedrossian: They're just, we're just a convenience for them. But with Russia, there are a lot more interactions. For example, like I mentioned a little bit earlier, we're still members of the CSTO. still members of the Eurasian Economic Union. Those are important interrelations between Russia and Armenia, and therefore Armenia can affect some of the relationship. I mean, look, this Russian concession issue that Pashinyan put on the table has probably brought Russia back to the table with a different offer that involves nuclear power plant and the Russian concessions, probably, behind closed doors. I don't know all of the details. But that means there is something to it. Meanwhile, when Pashinyan went and signed the TRIPP agreement in Washington,