While Russia is committing genocide in Ukraine, Moscow marked the 18th anniversary of its invasion of Georgia this weekend by boasting about how successful it was. Russia also used that invasion to threaten another sovereign country trying to move away from its orbit.
For more than a year, Russia has thrown every tactic in its playbook at Armenia, using disinformation, political pressure, economic coercion, and its proxies to undermine Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, interfere in the recent election, and derail Armenia’s push to join the EU. Luckily, that failed, and now Russia has moved on to openly threatening Armenians.
On Saturday, former Russian president and current Security Council deputy chairman Dmitry Medvedev, whom the West once sold as Russia’s great liberal “reformer,” warned that Armenia could face a “profound internal crisis” if it severs its economic ties with Russia, and added, “perhaps even worse.”
The context of Medvedev’s comments makes the threat even more grotesque. In an interview with the Russian state media outlet RIA Novosti to mark the anniversary, Medvedev, who was president at the time, flaunted Russia’s invasion as a success. He called it a “trial balloon,” portrayed the aggression against a neighboring state as a test of Russia’s willingness to defy the West, and declared that Moscow passed that test and ended the fighting “on Russia’s terms.”
Then, when asked what Armenia should learn from Georgia, Medvedev accused the West of using Georgia as a geopolitical weapon against Russia before abandoning it, and warned that “exactly the same consequences await Armenia if it continues its course toward a mythical reunification with the West.”
The imperial mindset and sheer brazenness are hard to overstate. Russia invaded Georgia, seized and continues to occupy parts of its territory, and 18 years later is openly using that invasion as a warning to Armenia, all while carrying out a genocide in Ukraine and illegally occupying parts of Ukrainian territory.
The failure to hold Russia accountable in 2008 set the stage for all of this. Once the outrage, condemnation, and deep concerns faded, the Kremlin learned the dangerous lesson that it could invade a sovereign country, change borders by force, occupy its territory, and get away with it.
I have long argued that had the U.S. and Europe held Russia accountable for invading Georgia, we would be living in a very different world today. The invasion came near the end of Bush’s presidency, and he did nothing. Then Obama came into office months later and pursued an absurd “reset” with Moscow, while European governments continued deepening economic ties with Russia even as Russian forces occupied Georgian territory.
All of this emboldened the Kremlin, and in 2014, Russia invaded Ukraine, illegally annexed Crimea, and occupied parts of Donbas. Sure, Russia faced sanctions and international condemnation, but once again, the consequences were nowhere near sufficient to deter further aggression. As a result, Russia launched its 2022 full-scale invasion with the publicly stated goal of erasing Ukraine as an independent nation and destroying Ukrainian identity.
Now back to Medvedev’s threat to Armenia. For now, Russia is not preparing to invade Armenia, but his threat reiterates Russia’s sick imperial thinking. More than three decades later, the Kremlin still cannot get over the collapse of the Soviet Union and continues to believe its neighbors belong within its sphere of influence. And when these countries choose their future, the Kremlin sees it as an act of defiance that deserves punishment.
This is why the international community needs to hold Russia accountable, because history has repeatedly shown that failing to do so only emboldens the Kremlin to go further. Ukrainians are now paying the bloody price for decades of letting Russia get away with its aggression.
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