News - de Waal strongly doubts EU, NATO will invest in Armenia army

Thomas de Waal, a specialist in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and a senior analyst at the Carnegie Foundation, strongly doubts that the EU or NATO will invest in the armed forces of Armenia. de Waal noted this in an interview with the RFE/RL Armenian Service. To the question whether the EU or individual EU member countries were ready to invest major money and provide military equipment to strengthen the Armenian Armed Forces, the analyst responded that he believes there is political interest, diplomatic interest, and a bit of economic interest as well. As for security, however, he strongly doubts that the EU or NATO will invest in the armed forces of Armenia, as the latter is still a CSTO member. Maybe France will do something on a bilateral level, but here we are talking about a long-term process. In the long-term perspective, he thinks, Armenia can have very good prospects, de Waal added. It is a democratic country, and he believes it will remain so, and continues to have a well-educated population. The prospects for Armenia may be good. But it's in the longer term. In the short term, however, if we consider the year 2024, a lot may not be the case in Syunik Province when Russia may be trying to destabilize Armenian PM Nikol Pashinyan's rule. And what the West can offer is unfortunately more long-term, not so short-term. So, de Waal believes every month is crucial. And when asked whether Russia was still very interested in destabilizing and effectively overthrowing Pashinyan's government and bringing to power some members of the former authorities who are loyal to Moscow, Thomas de Waal responded that he believes Russia would really like to do that. But he assumes that perhaps Pashinyan is helped by the fact that although he is unpopular, Russia is even more unpopular. So, this is probably the only thing that saves Pashinyan's power at the moment.