There is no general information concerning the Russian gas price yet. In fact after January, when Russia announced about its intention to sell gas for $110, Armenia had to make a choice: either to act as an independent state, review Armenian-Russian economical cooperation, or to show ourselves as a poor country, which is the closest “ally” of Russia coming from centuries and at the end give them some companies. On the basis of what we have now we can assume that Armenia has chosen the second one. They have made a decision already and it is not so important what they will give to Russia later (only the fifth bloc of the Hrazdan electric station and the gas pipe line from Iran or something else too).
Everyone knows that during these years Russia has changed its foreign policy. They are not going to “flirt” with the West any more. Before Russia was trying to keep its positions in the international arena with the help of its military power and nuclear weapons, but now they are trying to do that with the help of economical leverages by using their resources. They are going to change their military expansion with the economical one, and now they are trying to neo-colonize the former communistic states with the help of economical mechanisms. Yes, the Soviet Union collapsed, but the next step to blow up Russia from inside was failed, and now Russia is trying to counterattack. Currently most of the Armenian energetic resources belong to Russia, and definitely very soon they will also buy the gas pipeline and communication fields too.
In other words the problem is the following: Is the political field of Armenia going to fight against this neo-colonization or not? It seems that the authorities are not acting against it (in this case it is not important whether they don’t want or just can’t do that). For instance according to Aram Karapetyan the aim of their party is to get closer to Russia as much as we can and become their closest partner. The other oppositional powers don’t speak openly like that, but anyway they make hints and if needed make announcements to the Russian president in Russian. Of course there are politicians that advocate “cold and pragmatic” relationship with Russia, but these powers are not active now. It is pity but we can’t call the politicians that are advocating color revolutions as people struggling against neo-colonization, because to change the authorities through color revolutions means to stop being the “outpost” of Russia and become the “outpost” of the West. In other words, currently the problem is the real independence of Armenia. But we should confess that there are no politicians in our political field fighting for this idea really.
Some may ask why we need real independence for. What difference does it make whom the strategic businesses and units belong to, whom the airport and railways belong to and who protects the Armenian border with Turkey? The most important thing for us is to be secure.
But in fact it does make a difference. The problem is that Armenia has a lot of problems of social character and for those solutions we have to be independent. For instance, the Karabakh conflict and Armenian-Turkish relations. There is no need to explain how easy Russia can make us do what they want in case of protecting our borders and owing the communication, transport and energy fields. But in this case it turns out that Armenia doesn’t have any army. Of course there are military bases and troops which can even be the strongest one in the region, but this is not the Armenian army yet. The problem is that actually the army belongs to the one that has a right to give orders and instructions. And it turns out that in this case Russia can give orders to the Armenian authorities. As well as it can give orders about how to use our military forces. And here we can’t counteract, because military forces can’t do anything without having energy, communication and transportation…
In other words if we trust our economy to Russia, thus we will also trust Russia in resolving the Karabakh conflict as well. Meanwhile there is no need to remind that once Karabakh was given to Azerbaijan by the Russian “Kingdom”, once by the Communistic Russia, and once during Gorbachev’s term (reconstruction period)… This is not the problem. The problem is that if someone is giving a right to others to solve their problems of social character, they don’t have a right to complain about the decisions made and solutions any more.