The Russian Foreign Ministry has summoned Armenia’s ambassador to Russia, Vagharshak Harutiunyan, to lodge a formal protest over what it termed “Yerevan’s hostile actions”, a statement issued on Friday said.
The move was made following a series of steps taken by Armenia that Moscow views as “unfriendly”, the statement said, listing Yerevan’s ratification of the Rome Statute, the treaty that established the International Criminal Court, a trip made by Armenian first lady Anna Hakobyan to Kyiv, the announcement of humanitarian aid deliveries to Ukraine, and Armenia’s decision to host joint military exercises with the US military next week.
The ministry also expressed concern over the detention of two pro-Kremlin Armenian journalists earlier this week, but also expressed hope that Moscow and Yerevan would remain allies “for the betterment of both nations”.
Anna Hakobyan arrived in Kyiv on 6 September along with a shipment of humanitarian aid, the first time Armenia has donated aid to Ukraine since Russia’s full-scale invasion began.
The decision to summon the Armenian ambassador comes at the end of a bad week for relations between the two traditional allies, which included a war of words between Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova and Armenian parliamentary speaker Alen Simonyan.
