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Kremlin Dismisses Armenian PM's Suggestion that Russia is Quitting South Caucasus

Armenia's Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan attends a meeting with Russia's President Vladimir Putin and Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliyev on the sidelines of the Eurasian Economic Union summit in Moscow, Russia May 25, 2023. Sputnik/Mikhail Metzel/Pool via REUTERS/File Photo
Armenia's Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan attends a meeting with Russia's President Vladimir Putin and Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliyev on the sidelines of the Eurasian Economic Union summit in Moscow, Russia May 25, 2023. Sputnik/Mikhail Metzel/Pool via REUTERS/File Photo
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Kremlin Dismisses Armenian PM's Suggestion that Russia is Quitting South Caucasus

Armenia's Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan attends a meeting with Russia's President Vladimir Putin and Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliyev on the sidelines of the Eurasian Economic Union summit in Moscow, Russia May 25, 2023. Sputnik/Mikhail Metzel/Pool via REUTERS/File Photo
Armenia's Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan attends a meeting with Russia's President Vladimir Putin and Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliyev on the sidelines of the Eurasian Economic Union summit in Moscow, Russia May 25, 2023. Sputnik/Mikhail Metzel/Pool via REUTERS/File Photo

The Kremlin on Tuesday rejected a suggestion by Armenia's prime minister that Russia had failed to protect Armenia amid its standoff with neighboring Azerbaijan, and was winding down its role in the wider region.
In an interview with the Italian newspaper La Repubblica published on Sunday, Nikol Pashinyan accused Russia of failing to ensure Armenia's security in the face of what he said was aggression from Azerbaijan over the breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh region.
Pashinyan also said Armenia felt Russia was pulling back from the wider South Caucasus region, which includes his country, Reuters reported.
"...we see that Russia, thanks to a number of steps it is taking or failing to take, is itself leaving the region. We could just wake up one day and see that Russia is not here," he said.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Tuesday that Russia, which has a military base in Armenia and has sent peacekeepers to uphold a ceasefire deal, planned to continue playing an important role in stabilizing the South Caucasus and had no plans to wind down its activities there.
Pashinyan had also suggested that Moscow did not regard his country as sufficiently pro-Russian and was unable to meet all of Armenia's security needs, even if it wanted to, because of its own requirements for the war in Ukraine.
"We cannot agree with these theses," Peskov said. "Russia is an absolutely integral part of this region .. Russia plays a consistent, very important role in stabilizing the situation in this region .. and we will continue to play this role."
Nagorno-Karabakh, a source of tension between Yerevan and Baku for decades, is internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan, but its 120,000 inhabitants are predominantly ethnic Armenians.
It broke away from Baku's control in a war in the early 1990s, although Azerbaijan recovered control of some areas in heavy fighting in 2020, when Russia brokered a ceasefire.
Peskov said it was important for all sides to adhere to the terms of that deal, even if there had been strains and changes in the situation since.
"Russia continues to play the role of guarantor of security," he said. "Russia is not going anywhere and is not planning to leave."

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Russia Condemns ‘Irresponsible’ Talk of Nuclear Weapons for Ukraine

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov attends a press conference of Russian President Vladimir Putin speaks at the BRICS summit in Kazan, Russia October 24, 2024. (Reuters)
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov attends a press conference of Russian President Vladimir Putin speaks at the BRICS summit in Kazan, Russia October 24, 2024. (Reuters)
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Russia Condemns ‘Irresponsible’ Talk of Nuclear Weapons for Ukraine

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov attends a press conference of Russian President Vladimir Putin speaks at the BRICS summit in Kazan, Russia October 24, 2024. (Reuters)
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov attends a press conference of Russian President Vladimir Putin speaks at the BRICS summit in Kazan, Russia October 24, 2024. (Reuters)

Discussion in the West about arming Ukraine with nuclear weapons is "absolutely irresponsible", Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Tuesday, in response to a report in the New York Times citing unidentified officials who suggested such a possibility.

The New York Times reported last week that some unidentified Western officials had suggested US President Joe Biden could give Ukraine nuclear weapons before he leaves office.

"Several officials even suggested that Mr. Biden could return nuclear weapons to Ukraine that were taken from it after the fall of the Soviet Union. That would be an instant and enormous deterrent. But such a step would be complicated and have serious implications," the newspaper wrote.

Asked about the report, Peskov told reporters: "These are absolutely irresponsible arguments of people who have a poor understanding of reality and who do not feel a shred of responsibility when making such statements. We also note that all of these statements are anonymous."

Earlier, senior Russian security official Dmitry Medvedev said that if the West supplied nuclear weapons to Ukraine then Moscow could consider such a transfer to be tantamount to an attack on Russia, providing grounds for a nuclear response.

Ukraine inherited nuclear weapons from the Soviet Union after its 1991 collapse, but gave them up under a 1994 agreement, the Budapest Memorandum, in return for security assurances from Russia, the United States and Britain.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said last month that as Ukraine had handed over the nuclear weapons, joining NATO was the only way it could deter Russia.

The 33-month Russia-Ukraine war saw escalations on both sides last week, after Ukraine fired US and British missiles into Russia for the first time, with permission from the West, and Moscow responded by launching a new hypersonic intermediate-range missile into Ukraine.

Asked about the risk of a nuclear escalation, Peskov said the West should "listen carefully" to Putin and read Russia's newly updated nuclear doctrine, which lowered the threshold for using nuclear weapons.

Separately, Russian foreign intelligence chief Sergei Naryshkin said Moscow opposes simply freezing the conflict in Ukraine because it needs a "solid and long-term peace" that resolves the core reasons for the crisis.