U.S. Military Exercises in Russia’s Backyard Cause Alarm at the Kremlin
As Washington seeks to exploit cracks in Russia’s traditional sphere of influence, U.S. forces began joint military exercises with troops from Armenia, the small South Caucasus country that has been a close Russian ally for nearly 200 years. In a possible sign of the geopolitical realignment driven by Russia’s invasion in Ukraine, U.S.
forces commenced on Monday 10 days of joint exercises with Armenian soldiers. About 175 Armenian soldiers will train with about 85 soldiers from U.S. Army Europe and Africa Command outside the capital of Yerevan.
Since the breakup of the Soviet Union, Armenia has been an important security partner for Russia and houses one of a small handful of military bases the Kremlin maintains on foreign soil. The country has also remained a member of the Collective Security Treaty Organization, a security alliance of former Soviet countries, which Moscow has developed as an answer to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. But Armenia has increasingly worked to shrug off Russian influence, particularly in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Earlier this year, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan directly denied a Russian announcement that the CSTO would host exercises this year in Armenia. He also refused to send troops for those exercises, which were ultimately held in Belarus earlier this month. A senior State Department official acknowledged that the U.S.
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