Putin Warns Armenia for Wanting to Join Two Customs Unions

(MENAFN) Russian President Vladimir Putin has delivered a pointed economic reality check to Armenia, declaring Wednesday that Yerevan cannot simultaneously hold membership in both the European Union and the Eurasian Economic Union — a direct response to Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan's stated ambition of steering his country toward full EU membership.

Putin made the remarks face-to-face during a meeting with Pashinyan, taking care to frame the issue not as a political objection but as an unavoidable structural constraint. Russia, he noted, harbors no hostility toward Armenia's pursuit of closer ties with Brussels.

A news agency reported that Putin stressed belonging to two customs unions simultaneously is "impossible by definition," adding that the issue is not political, but a "purely economic" matter.

The Eurasian Economic Union, established in 2015, currently unites Russia, Kazakhstan, Belarus, Kyrgyzstan, and Armenia under a single customs framework — a membership arrangement that legal and trade experts note is fundamentally incompatible with the separate customs architecture governing the EU.

The exchange comes after Pashinyan publicly declared earlier this year that Armenia aspires to become a full member of the EU — a geopolitical pivot that has placed Yerevan on an increasingly tense trajectory with Moscow, its longstanding security and economic partner.

Putin's remarks stop short of an ultimatum but leave little room for ambiguity: for Armenia, the road to Brussels runs through an exit from the Eurasian Economic Union.

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