Deputy Foreign Minister Grushko called Armenia’s entry into NATO a fantasy

Deputy Foreign Minister of the Russian Federation Alexander Grushko called the statements about the need for Armenia to join NATO big fantasies, informed TASS.

“These are big fantasies. Armenia is a member of the CSTO, and we proceed from reality,” Glushko commented on the statements of the Chairman of the NATO European Development Committee Günter Fehlinger that Armenia should join the North Atlantic Alliance.

According to the Deputy Foreign Minister, Russia and Armenia are allies and rely on each other in the field of security, the countries will also continue to strengthen cooperation in the military and political spheres.

September 4 Fehlinger addressed to Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan with a proposal to join NATO on his X (formerly Twitter) account.

September 6 Armenian Defense Ministry reportedthat joint Armenian-American exercises of peacekeeping units will be held on the territory of the republic from September 11 to 20. This statement caused alertness in the Kremlin. In 2023, exercises of the peacekeeping forces of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) were to take place in Armenia, but in January Pashinyan announced that the country will not accept them. This was preceded by Azerbaijan blocking the Stepanakert-Goris highway in the Lachin corridor, the only route between the unrecognized Nagorno-Karabakh Republic (NKR) and Armenia.

On September 3, Pashinyan, in an interview with the Italian newspaper La Repubblica, said that Russia was moving away from the South Caucasus, and Russian peacekeepers did not control the Lachin corridor. In the Kremlin refuted this is a statement.