News - Maria Zakharova: Armenia has started reducing political dialogue with Russia, this could end badly

Armenia has begun to reduce its political dialogue and interdepartmental cooperation with Russia. Maria Zakharova, the spokesperson of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA), stated this at Friday’s press briefing. "It seems that certain political forces in Armenia are intentionally disseminating disinformation that the CSTO did not protect Armenia, etc. All this does not correspond to reality because we [i.e. Russia] have repeatedly talked in detail about the CSTO and Russia's efforts, we have shared our assessments regarding the decisions taken by Armenia’s authorities. We believe that the claims made regularly from Yerevan are absurd and do not correspond to the facts," said Zakharova. She noted that under these pretexts, Armenia has started to reduce its political dialogue and interdepartmental cooperation with Russia. "They [i.e. Armenia] are constantly talking about freezing participation in the CSTO, and, in contrast, they have begun to approach the West at an accelerated pace. There is a certain manipulativeness in this. Economic indicators speak of one thing: there is an interest of people, companies, and businesses in tightening and strengthening of [Armenia-Russia] ties, but the political elite [of Armenia], for some reason, is doing the opposite; this could end badly," said the Russian MFA spox. Also, she noted that history knows many examples of how such manipulations were used in order to cover up one's own miscalculations.