Zvartnots international airport, Yerevan, Armenia © Artem Avetisyan/Shutterstock
After thirty-two years, on July 31, Armenians and Russians signed a protocol to end the presence of Russian border guards at Yerevan's Zvartnots International Airport. This does not signify Moscow’s withdrawal from Armenia, but nevertheless has symbolic value
In a ceremony held on 31 July, Roman Golubitsky, Head of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) Directorate in Armenia, and Edgar Hunanyan, Commander of Armenian National Security Service (NSS) Border Guard Troops, signed a protocol ending 32 years of Russian FSB Border Guard presence at Yerevan's Zvartnots international airport. Armenian Border Guard Troops, with whom their Russian counterparts had worked alongside, would replace them starting 1 August.
The decision to do so had been taken at a meeting between Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Russian President Vladimir Putin in May. Pashinyan also requested that Russian FSB Border Guards be removed from the Azerbaijani border. Yerevan had asked that they be deployed there following Armenia’s defeat in the 44-day war with Azerbaijan in 2020. Pashinyan insisted that removing them from both locations was in no way geopolitically motivated.
However, speaking at a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing a day before the protocol ceremony, James O’Brien, US Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs, appeared to contradict that by saying the decision represented “brave steps” in breaking away from Russia. “Several thousand […] FSB troops have been requested to leave and this is significant for a number of reasons”, O’Brien said. “In part, because they man the border at the international airport and that’s where some of the sanctions smuggling evasion takes place”.
That was a clear reference to the re-export of sanctioned goods to Russia, though it is unclear what data O’Brien was referring to in terms of the number expected to leave. When local media contacted the Armenian NSS to ask how many FSB personnel had been stationed at the airport, it instead declined to answer, saying it was a “state secret”. Media reported that there had only been “two dozen” FSB personnel present for the ceremony at the airport. Moreover, the NSS refused to clarify whether those leaving Zvartnots would leave Armenia.
It instead referred to the 1992 interstate agreement on Russian FSB Border Guards remaining on Armenia’s border with Iran and Turkiye. This had already been confirmed in May by Russian Presidential Spokesperson Dmitry Peskov when he told media that Pashinyan had not requested that they too should leave. The difference was that the decision to deploy Russian FSB Border Guards at Zvartnots had been a verbal agreement whereas the Iranian and Turkish borders had been formal.
Nonetheless, the move was symbolic enough, although for now not as far reaching as O’Brien had claimed. In addition to the FSB remaining on two of the country’s four borders, Moscow maintains a military base in the country’s second largest city of Gyumri and that is still officially slated to remain until 2044.
The withdrawal of the Russian FSB from the airport has been welcomed by many, although the opposition claims that it came as the result of demands from EU and US officials to ensure that the arrival and departure of their respective intelligence services would now be undetectable by Russia. That has not been the case in the past. It would also allow Yerevan to better enforce western sanctions on Russia, something that Brussels and Washington D.C. increasingly expect.
Pashinyan allies celebrated the move, but add the caveat that as long as the Russian FSB remains on the Armenia-Iran border, Moscow will have access, wholly or partially, to the country’s database on the arrival and departure of individuals. It remains unclear for how long this already recognised security hole might remain. Civil society has long called for it be plugged since at least 2015.
But when a similar Russian withdrawal can occur on the Iranian and Turkish land borders remains unclear given the different nature of the agreements. Though
Pashinyan has said he intends to leave the Moscow-led Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO), for example, many note that declarations on ‘freezing' participation in the security bloc remain only declarative while Pashinyan refuses to be drawn on when that might occur.
