On the Baghramyan camp, a vast stony terrain located in the foothills of the Aragats massif, a few kilometers from Yerevan, capital of Armenia, seventeen French soldiers stand at attention. Friday February 23, in front of the French Minister of the Armed Forces, Sébastien Lecornu – whose visit to Armenian soil is a first – and his counterpart, Souren Papikian, they explain the training they have started to provide to around thirty soldiers Armenians, lined up alongside them. Every word is considered.
Mainly from the 27e mountain infantry brigade, this French detachment is the first operational incarnation of a still embryonic defense cooperation, which takes place in a tense regional context. Russia is usually Yerevan’s main military sponsor. The infantry and mountain combat training of the Armenians therefore began with the greatest discretion, at the beginning of February. It should only last a month. It may possibly be renewed subsequently.
Mr. Papikian was keen to emphasize, Friday, during a press conference, that the presence of Mr. Lecornu was not directed “against a third state”. “We must not invoke major geopolitics”for his part tried to clear the air of the Frenchman questioned about this unprecedented incursion by Paris into the Russian sphere of influence.
Reduce dependence on Russia
Beyond historical links, the rapprochement of France and Armenia corresponds above all to Yerevan’s desire to “diversify its defense partnerships”, explains Taline Papazian, doctor in political science and teacher at Sciences Po Aix. A desire born from the shock of the war which opposed it, in the fall of 2020, to its powerful neighbor, Azerbaijan, in Nagorno-Karabakh.
Armenia lost the war, at the cost of many losses, and felt betrayed by Russia. A feeling aggravated with the total recapture of the separatist enclave, in November 2023, by Azerbaijan, during a lightning offensive which emptied this territory of 100,000 Armenians, without Moscow reacting. Since then, Armenia has sought to reduce its dependence on this traditional ally.
This diversification of Yerevan’s military partnerships did not start with France. Armenia first cautiously started with India in 2019, a large part of whose equipment is of Soviet origin and which is developing its own defense industry.
By engaging concretely with Paris, just a few months after the formalization of this rapprochement, in October 2023, Yerevan has however taken a further step. A step which resulted in the announcement, made on Friday by the Armenian Prime Minister, Nikol Pashinian, of the freezing of his participation in the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), a regional diplomatic-military alliance born in 2002 and dominated by Moscow, which includes Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.
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