European leaders converge on Armenia as Russia looks on

Azerbaijan's parliament voted to suspend ties with the European Parliament last week over a resolution by MEPs to call for the right of return for Nagorno-Karabakh Armenians who fled in 2023 as well as the release of Armenian prisoners held by Baku.

Meanwhile, Moscow has watched Armenia's increasingly warm relations with the EU with undisguised irritation.

During their meeting at the Kremlin, Putin smirked when Pashinyan boasted about freedoms in his country.

"Social media sites are 100% free in Armenia, with no limitations," he told the Russian leader. In Russia, all major Western platforms are blocked.

But Putin reminded Pashinyan that his EU membership ambitions were incompatible with Eurasian Economic Union membership.

"It is not possible to be simultaneously in a customs union with both the European Union and the Eurasian Economic Union," he said.

"It is simply impossible by definition."

Just days before Monday's EPC summit, Russia banned the import of Armenian mineral water.

"This is the hallmark of how hybrid threat works," said Artur Papyan of CyberHUB-AM, which monitors Armenia's information space.

He noted that pro-EU statements made by senior officials or visits to Brussels had often been followed by decisions to stop Armenian trucks at the Georgian-Russian border, and threats from hackers to take down government websites.

Last month, the EU approved a new civilian mission for Armenia for the next two years - designed to counter Russian disinformation, cyberattacks and illicit financial flows, particularly ahead of Armenia's parliamentary elections in June.

It is modelled on a similar EU deployment to Moldova before the 2025 elections, in which pro-EU forces held on to power.

"I have studied those cases, especially the Moldova and Romania cases, also Ukrainian ones," said Papyan. "I can see there are common tactics, procedures."

In January, his team documented a mass attack on WhatsApp that compromised an estimated several hundred thousand accounts - a platform which he said was widely used by government ministers and officials.

In a separate operation, hackers created a fake Signal account impersonating the EU Ambassador in Armenia Vassilis Maragos, and invited NGO leaders to a fake conference on Armenia-EU relations.

The registration link appeared genuine. Even trained civil society workers were fooled. When the attack was traced, IP addresses pointed to a Russian city called Zelenograd to the north-west of Moscow.

Ahead of the summits in Yerevan, Papayan said that in one morning alone he had counted six or seven spikes in Telegram posts pushing a single narrative: that the events represent Armenia's point of no return, and that Russia will punish the country for hosting them.

"Armenia's democratic institutions are functioning and have made real progress, but they are under pressure," said Council of Europe secretary general Alain Berset, who is attending the summits.

His main concerns ahead of Armenia's June elections were foreign interference, disinformation and political polarisation online.

Armenia has some legal tools to counter these threats, he said, but like many countries "they are not yet fully adapted to the scale and sophistication of the threat".

While European leaders are heading to Yerevan with promises of civilian missions and visa liberalisation in the next two years, there is no timeline for EU membership, defence commitments nor any plan to replace Russian gas.

Without such firm commitments, Armenia's "balancing act" between Russia and the West is far from over.