Exercises would prepare units for international peacekeeping missions, Yerevan says, as its relations with Moscow appear increasingly strained.
Armenia will host a joint military exercise with the United States next week, a development that Russia says raises concerns.
Armenia’s Defense Ministry said on Wednesday that the purpose of the Eagle Partner 2023 exercises from September 11 to 20 was to prepare its armed forces to participate in international peacekeeping operations.
“As part of peacekeeping preparation, units preparing for international peacekeeping operations often participate in similar joint exercises and training in partner countries,” the ministry said in a statement.
A U.S. military spokesman said 85 American soldiers and 175 Armenians would take part. He said the Americans – including members of the Kansas National Guard, which has had a training partnership with Armenia for 20 years – would be armed with rifles and not use heavy weapons.
Earlier this year, Armenia refused to host military exercises by the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), a Russian-led alliance of post-Soviet countries, reflecting Yerevan’s growing tensions with Moscow.
Despite the small scale of this week’s exercise, the Kremlin said it would monitor closely.
“Such news is of course cause for concern, especially in the current situation. Therefore, we will analyze this news in detail and monitor the situation,” said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov.
Russia has a military base in Armenia and sees itself as the leading power in the South Caucasus, which was part of the Soviet Union until 1991.
It maintains a peacekeeping force in the region to uphold an agreement that ended a war between Armenia and Azerbaijan in 2020, the second since the collapse of the Soviet Union.
But Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said in an interview with an Italian newspaper over the weekend that Russia had failed to protect Armenia from oil-rich Azerbaijan’s ongoing aggression.
He pointed out that Russia’s war in Ukraine meant it was unable to meet Armenia’s security needs.
Peskov told reporters on Tuesday that he disagreed with Pashinyan’s comments.
“Russia is an absolutely integral part of this region,” he said. “Russia is playing a consistent, very important role in stabilizing the situation in this region… and we will continue to play that role.”
Tensions between Moscow and Yerevan have their roots in Armenia’s conflicts with Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh, a region that lies within Azerbaijan but has been under the control of ethnic Armenian forces backed by Yerevan since the end of a separatist war in 1994 become.
Pashinyan has been increasingly critical of Russian peacekeepers in recent months, accusing them of failing to ensure free transit along a corridor between Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh.