Armenia launches military drills with US amid souring ties with Russia

YEREVAN, Armenia — Armenia on Monday launched joint army drills with the USA, a transfer that displays its chief’s efforts to forge nearer ties with the U.S. and different Western allies because the nation’s relations with outdated ally Russia bitter.

The “Eagle Associate” battle video games are geared toward rising the interoperability of models collaborating in worldwide peacekeeping missions, in keeping with Armenia’s Protection Minister Suren Papikyan.

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They contain Armenian peacekeeping forces, servicemen of the U.S. Military Europe and Africa, and the Kansas Nationwide Guard. It wasn’t instantly clear what number of troops had been participating.

The workouts had been scheduled to final via July 24.

Russia has been Armenia’s major financial companion and ally because the 1991 Soviet collapse. Landlocked Armenia, which was once a part of the Soviet Union, hosts a Russian army base and is a part of the Moscow-led safety alliance, the Collective Safety Treaty Group.

Armenia’s ties with Russia, nonetheless, have grown more and more strained since Azerbaijan waged a lightning army marketing campaign final 12 months to take the Karabakh area, ending three a long time of ethnic Armenian separatist rule there.

Armenian authorities accused Russian peacekeepers who had been deployed to Nagorno-Karabakh after a earlier spherical of hostilities in 2020 of failing to cease Azerbaijan’s onslaught. Moscow rejected the accusations, arguing that its troops didn’t have a mandate to intervene.

Russia has engaged in a fragile balancing act, attempting to protect shut relations with Armenia whereas additionally sustaining heat ties with Azerbaijan and its major ally Turkey, a key financial companion for Moscow amid Western sanctions.

The Kremlin has been angered by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s efforts to deepen Armenia’s ties with the West and distance his nation from Moscow-dominated alliances. Russia was notably vexed by Armenia’s choice to affix the Worldwide Felony Court docket, which final 12 months indicted Russian President Vladimir Putin for alleged battle crimes linked to Russia’s battle in Ukraine.

Because the rift with Russia stored widening, Armenia froze its participation within the Russian-dominated safety alliance, canceled its involvement in joint army drills and snubbed the bloc’s summits.

In September 2023, Armenia additionally held the “Eagle Associate” drills, eliciting dismay in Moscow, the place officers known as the transfer “unfriendly.”