Armenia and Russia signed a Property for Debt agreement in 2002 and ever since, Russia has claimed the fifth power bloc of the Hrazdan power plant, the Mars factory, numerous other enterprises and in 2014, as a subsidy for 300 million dollars of Armenia’s debt, Russia took over the last remaining 20% of Armenian shares to ArmRosGasprom. The once Russian-Armenian joint natural gas pipeline project was established in 1997 to supply natural gas to Armenia’s domestic market and for power generation. At the time, the Russian Gazprom owned 45 % of the stock, the Armenian Energy Ministry another 45% and the ITERA company owned the remaining 10%.
Political analyst Ruben Mehrabyan explains, “Since the very beginning of his 3rd term, Putin declared the integration of post Soviet countries his primary goal”. The expert explains this as an attempt to reestablish a Russian Empire. According to Mehrabyan, Russia will subsequently do whatever it can to keep Armenia in its debt, to take over as many assets as possible and ensure its stable influence over Armenia.
Recently, President Putin wrote off the 172 million USD owed to Russia by Mongolia. In general, over the past two decades, Russia has forgiven 140 billion dollars of foreign debt: 32 billion to Cuba, 12 billion to Afghanistan, 11,9 to Iraq, 11 billion to North Korea etc.
According to Mehrabyan, the strategy here is different, Russia is aiming to make new connections through forgiving the hopeless debts of some third world countries.
Political scientist Aleksandr Iskandaryan believes that by handing over certain companies instead of returning a debt Armenia can not afford, the Armenian government hopes Russia would invest more in Armenia, especially in areas they were not able to make profitable.
However, Russian investments in Armenia in 2014 amounted to 639 million USD which makes only 36,5 % of the estimated total.
