Armenian Border Guards Replace Russian Ones on Armenia’s Border with Turkey

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Mar. 1 – More than 34 years after gaining independence when the Soviet Union disintegrated, Armenia now has its own officers guarding all of that country’s borders, now that Russians who had been guarding Armenia’s border crossing with Turkey have turned over the operation of that site to the Armenians.

            This completes a process that began when Moscow handed over control of Armenian border crossings with Azerbaijan in 2024 and then transferred such control over Armenian border crossings with Iran and over border control points at the Yerevan International airport. (vpoanalytics.com/sobytiya-i-kommentarii/diversifikatsiya-po-armyanski-rossiyskie-pogranichniki-pokinuli-zastavu-akhurik-na-granitse-s-turtsi/).

            This represents a major expansion of one Armenia’s sovereignty and represents a significant decline in Russia’s influence there, although Moscow does maintain a 4,000-man military base at Gyumri in Armenia that Yerevan has announced that it does not plan to seek the closure of anytime soon.

            But it is even more important as an indication of just how long it has taken to dismantle Soviet-era arrangements in some cases – Tajikistan also retained Russian border guards until 2005, for example – and of how changes in that direction have accelerated since the start of Vladimir Putin’s expanded war in Ukraine.