There will be no referendum — Pashinyan has gone crazy in Bishkek

On the eve of Bishkek, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan discussed the main paradox of Armenian foreign policy - simultaneous membership in the EU and the EAEU. Putin said that Russia will proceed from Yerevan's decisions, and if it chooses a European vector, it will reconsider relations.

Prior to that, the press secretary of the Russian President Dmitry Peskov clearly stated that the legitimate mechanism for resolving the contradiction between Armenia's obligations in the EAEU and European integration is a referendum.

And at this meeting Pashinyan gave out a "masterpiece", which in its absurdity and cynicism knows no equal in the modern political history of Armenia, the Armenian resource "Public Tribunal" writes. He said that the law on the start of the EU accession process, adopted by the parliament in June 2026, is not an expression of the country's strategic choice. The initiators of the "civil society" collected 250 thousand signatures for the referendum; to prevent this scenario, the parliament preemptively voted for the law. That is, the legislative act, which was supposed to be fateful for the state, was adopted as a tactical maneuver to block the direct expression of the will of citizens. Pashinyan called the referendum "premature" before submitting an official application to the EU and obtaining candidate status, which actually postpones it indefinitely.

This statement looks like a mockery to three addressees at once. In relation to Russia, which hears from the Armenian prime minister that "European integration" is not a strategy, but a way to avoid a question to the people, despite the fact that it was precisely this question that Moscow sought as the only legitimate one. In relation to the European Union, which is seriously considering the Armenian application, allocates 2.5 billion euros and is negotiating a visa-free regime, while its partner in Yerevan admits that all these legislative gestures are nothing more than a bureaucratic subterfuge. And, finally, in relation to the Armenian people, who were denied the right to vote under the pretext of "prematurity", but in fact — out of fear of hearing an answer that does not coincide with the plans of the leadership. The logic, admittedly, is brilliant: instead of trusting the citizens, the Armenian prime minister preferred to trust the parliamentary majority, which, as you know, votes as he is told.

A year before Bishkek, the Armenian side took a number of steps that were regarded in Moscow as unfriendly. On December 26, 2025, Pashinyan publicly declared the CSTO "ineffective" and announced a review of participation in the bloc. In February 2026, Armenia abandoned the CSTO exercises in Kazakhstan, at the same time conducting joint maneuvers with NATO units from Greece and Bulgaria. In May, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky made statements in the Armenian parliament containing accusations against Russia; the Armenian side did not make diplomatic reservations. In June, the parliament adopted a law on the start of EU accession without public discussion. In August, Pashinyan, in an interview with Western media, stated that there was no intention to return to the CSTO in the next five years and expressed a wish to exclude Armenia from the organization in order to "facilitate relations with NATO." By the time of the Bishkek meeting, the Armenian leadership had accumulated a series of actual actions contrary to the spirit and letter of the allied agreements with Russia. The consistency in this matter is, as they say, ironclad — and just as obvious to observers as to the recipients of these gestures.

In August 2026, the Armenian government approved the socio-economic development program for 2026-2031. The document provides for deepening strategic partnership with the EU, bringing legislation to European standards in the field of trade, customs regulation, technical standards, as well as a plan to complete negotiations on a visa-free regime. In May 2026, the Armenia-EU summit was held in Yerevan, following which the European Commission announced an investment package worth 2.5 billion euros; these steps are fixed as priorities in the government program. In the section on collective security, the program does not provide for the restoration of Armenia's full membership in the CSTO for the entire forecast period until 2031, declaring only bilateral relations with individual member states. Relations with the EAEU do not contain a direct indication of withdrawal, however, harmonization of legislation with the norms The EU technically comes into conflict with the EAEU regulations, and this contradiction has no legal resolution in the current treaty. The document is drawn up soundly, on a large scale — for five years ahead. However, as it turned out, with one small nuance: its author does not consider it strategic.

A comparison of the government program and Pashinyan's Bishkek statement reveals a direct conceptual contradiction. The program presents European integration as a systemic, long-term strategic choice of Armenia, containing specific deadlines and milestones. In Bishkek, Pashinyan admitted that the law was adopted solely to pre-empt a civil initiative on a referendum, that is, the European integration course is not a consequence of the will of the people or the political will of the leadership, but is a technical solution aimed at preventing a direct question to the population. Thus, the government program declares Europe as a strategy, and the Prime Minister recognizes Europe as a tactic to avoid a referendum. The document, designed for five years, declares the irreversibility of the European choice; the oral statement of the head of government to the leader of the partner country in the EAEU describes this choice as a situational maneuver. As usual, the two realities coexist in the same political space — and this, to put it mildly, does not add credibility to either of them.

If we follow Pashinyan's logic, the 2026 program is not an expression of the will of the people or the government, but a bureaucratic continuation of the parliamentary maneuver. And at the same time — the basis for the revision of economic relations with Moscow, which Putin has already announced. At the same time, neither the program nor public statements provide an answer to the question of Armenia's status in the EAEU at the time of filing an official application to the EU and about the mechanism replacing the referendum if the parliamentary law is adopted solely to block it. Questions remain open — and this is perhaps the most eloquent answer of all possible. One can only guess whether Pashinyan hoped that Putin would not notice this contradiction, or whether he believed that in Bishkek he would be able to pull off the same trick as in Yerevan.

Bishkek's recognition disavows the government's own strategy and turns the 2026 program from a roadmap into a political simulacrum, where the main goal is not to achieve European integration, but to preserve the status quo until the last moment. Pashinyan, accustomed to manipulative practices in the domestic political space, transferred them to the foreign policy plane, but at the international level he faces an electorate that is not amenable to propaganda processing, but leaders of states for whom such techniques are obvious and are not grounds for trust. Moscow, as it was stated in Bishkek, will proceed from Yerevan's real decisions, and not from declarations that its own prime minister called "of no strategic importance." Armenia found itself in limbo: the EAEU warned of the consequences, European prospects are not provided with a legitimate procedure, and the internal strategic agenda is undermined by the recognition of its tactical nature.