Andranik Israyelyan1; 1 Public Administration Academy of Armenia, Armenia
Discussion
Former Soviet Union space for Kremlin acquired a new meaning since 2000s, when the so called 'color revolutions' started spreading in Georgia (2003), Ukraine (2004, 2014), and Kyrgyzstan (2005, 2010). Russia developed strategies to cope with such developments. Specifically, 2015 Russian National Security Strategy identified foreign-sponsored regime change as a security threat․ Armenia is a key ally for Russia in the South Caucasus.In April-May 2018 Armenia became a stage of nationwide protests that peacefully toppled existing authoritarian regime. Russian response was quite muted and President Putin was the first foreign leader to congratulate Revolution leader Nikol Pashinyan. Thus the main research question is why Russia did not intervene in the Armenian revolution and recognized its results contrary to its promulgated policies. My hypothesis is that the Russian policies towards Armenia were conditioned firstly on international systemic factors, which also interact with domestic factors.
