Formally, Yerevan keeps its seat in the Moscow-dominated military pact known as the CSTO. In reality it has just been silenced: at their summit in Moscow, the other leaders took away its vote and blocked it from filling top jobs in the alliance with its own people.
The official grounds are financial. Yerevan stopped sending money to the common budget more than two years ago, and the bloc’s rulebook, in its Article 25, spells out precisely this punishment for that kind of arrears. Only when the debt is cleared in full can the rights be restored. Word of the decision came early from Dmitry Peskov, Vladimir Putin’s spokesman, who said Yerevan had been ignoring its commitments “for several years now.”
What the summit did not do is expel the country. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov had ruled that out a day earlier, and Secretary General Taalatbek Masadykov said expulsion was not under discussion. Yerevan, for its part, has never filed the formal withdrawal notice that Article 19 requires, six months before any exit.
In practice the decision changes little. Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan froze Armenia’s participation back in 2024, after Azerbaijan retook Nagorno-Karabakh and its ethnic Armenian population fled, arguing that allies had failed to stand by his country. Last week he said Armenia’s interest in the bloc had “run its course.” No official response from the government had appeared by Wednesday evening.
The quarrel is one symptom of a broader drift. Armenia is courting the European Union, while relations with Moscow have soured; Russian regulators have recently restricted imports of Armenian wine, brandy and flowers.
Besides Russia, the alliance now effectively consists of Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. Because the organization works by consensus, a member that boycotts meetings and drills while keeping its seat remains an awkward problem for it.
