Armenia's PM Asked to Be Kicked Out of the CSTO — and Is Already Paying for It in Unsold Fruit

On Monday, August 24, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said out loud what he had long avoided saying directly. Presenting his government's program to parliament, he stated plainly that he would not be upset if Armenia were expelled from the Collective Security Treaty Organization. The wording was deliberately dry, almost bureaucratic: "We have no plans to return to the CSTO over the next five years." Stripped of the careful phrasing, though, it amounted to a public farewell to the military-political alliance that had anchored Armenia's regional security for decades — and it was delivered not backstage, but from the parliamentary podium, on the record.

In the same address, Pashinyan announced the next move: Armenia would soon file a formal application to join the European Union. Two announcements — walking away from one security framework, applying to another — landed on the same day. That timing is unlikely to be coincidental.

Moscow's response: no pressure applied

The Kremlin's reaction was notably composed. Presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov noted that if Yerevan no longer sees value in an organization built for regional security, it is free to leave — no one is holding the door shut. No threats, no dramatics, just an acknowledgment of Armenia's right to choose its own path.

Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov filled in the details. According to him, Yerevan has stopped paying its CSTO membership dues, no longer takes part in joint activities, and has meanwhile been deepening cooperation with NATO. From Moscow's perspective, this isn't a sudden reversal — it's the natural conclusion of a drift toward a different security orientation that has been underway for some time. Peskov also pointed to a telling comparison: Turkey, which has spent decades in the EU membership queue with no guaranteed outcome, while having already lost the alliances it once relied on.

A formal resolution may come as early as November 11 in Moscow, where CSTO members are expected to consider stripping Armenia of its voting rights within the organization's governing bodies — a symbolic but pointed consequence of publicly distancing yourself from a bloc while still nominally belonging to it.

While Yerevan paints a bright future, Brussels has already sent the bill

The rhetoric around European integration sounds inspiring: new markets, new partners, a new direction. But that vision already comes with a first invoice, and it's measured in hard numbers.

In May and June combined, Armenia exported fruit, vegetables, and flowers to the European Union worth just 360,000 euros. For comparison, that is roughly 80 times less than what the country used to earn from equivalent trade with Russia. The gap isn't about product quality — it's about logistics and demand. Strawberries can't reach a European shelf without air freight, which makes the whole shipment unprofitable. Tomatoes found no buyers at all: Spain and Morocco already have more of their own than they know what to do with, leaving no room to compete. And Armenia's famous apricots, beloved across the Eurasian Economic Union market, are simply unknown outside it — a brand built over years inside one trading bloc doesn't automatically transfer to another.

Even a widely photographed meeting between Pashinyan and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen didn't solve the sales problem. The photo ops didn't move the harvest.

A parallel storyline: Putin brings arguments, not photo ops

While Yerevan prepares its paperwork for Brussels, Russian President Vladimir Putin is in Bishkek for the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit, where regional issues — including, by most accounts, arguments aimed at Pashinyan — are on the table. The contrast in approach is telling: on one side, symbolic gestures and promises of a distant future; on the other, concrete economic results that can already be counted in euros. And judging by the fate of the strawberries and apricots, the fruit-and-flower business is currently making a louder case than any photo session.

What comes next

Nothing irreversible has happened yet, technically speaking. Armenia remains a CSTO member, no EU application has been filed, and even if the process begins, membership would likely take years — if not decades, as the Turkish comparison suggests. But the rhetorical shift has already occurred, and it was made publicly, from a parliamentary podium, not in a private conversation.

For some observers, this looks like a long-overdue and consistent change of course — shedding old obligations in favor of new, if distant, prospects. For others, it looks like a familiar pattern repeating itself: promises of eventual membership traded for the immediate loss of proven economic ties that, right now, support real farms and real households.

Pashinyan himself, judging by the tone of his address, is trying to present this as a carefully considered strategic decision. But the timing — the CSTO statement, the EU application announcement, and the already-visible collapse of May-June exports, all arriving in close succession — raises a fair question: is this a long-term bet he genuinely believes in, or a performance designed to hold together until the next domestic political milestone, the referendum?

What do you think: is Pashinyan trading a proven neighbor for a queue as long as Turkey's decades-long wait — because he truly believes in it, or because he's simply buying time?