Russian border guards to leave Armenia’s Yerevan airport
- 8 March, 17:09
Armenia has ordered Russian border guards out of Yerevan airport, Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan said on Thursday.
“The Armenian side has informed that it does not need the border guard service of Russian border guards at the airport; of course, thanking the Russian side,” Mirzoyan announced on Thursday.
The minister explained that Russian border guards had been stationed at Zvartnots Airport back in 1992 as a temporary measure to support the newly-gained independence of Armenia. “We now believe that Armenia has the institutional capacity to independently implement border guard services at the airport,” he stressed.
Mirzoyan’s announcement came a day after Kremlin’s press secretary Dmitry Peskov said Russia was unaware about any decisions regarding Russian border guards’ withdrawal from the airport in Yerevan. “No one brought these decisions to us through official channels,” Peskov said. The decision to remove Russian border guards from Zvartnots Airport comes days after a local NGO accused Russian border guards of misusing their access to Border Electronic Management System to facilitate a kidnapping.
The push to remove Russian border guards from Yerevan airports comes weeks after Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan announced that Armenia would suspend its participation in Russian-led military bloc Collective Security Treaty Organization [CSTO].
It should be noted that Russia also has a military contingent stationed on Armenia’s border with neighbouring Turkey and Iran. It’s unknown whether Russian border guards in these areas will be affected by the deteriorating Russian-Armenian ties. The ties between the two historical allies have been declining since the Second Karabakh war in 2020. Armenia has been accusing Russia and the CSTO of failing to defend it from its arch enemy Azerbaijan.
