Zhuravlev: The CIS is a fortress on the destructive path of the West in the South Caucasus

Alexey Zhuravlev, first deputy chairman of the Defense Committee of the Russian State Duma, noted that Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan could have refused to have a tripartite meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev.

According to the deputy, Pashinyan is a dependent leader who only “works on the Western agenda.” In his opinion, Pashinyan cannot agree to joint negotiations “without consulting the curators.”

The deputy said Armenia does not want Russia’s role in the normalization of relations between Baku and Yerevan to become too noticeable because “it does not correspond to the tasks that the West put before Pashinyan,” Zhuravlev noted.

He also said that Western countries are trying to create controlled chaos in the South Caucasus to facilitate their interests in the region. In his opinion, the CIS interferes with these plans.

“Therefore, the CIS must be preserved as a fortress standing on the destructive path of the West. Russia needs to keep its friends and allies around it, and that task is carried out by the CIS, no matter how much they criticize the organization and talk about its worthlessness,” the deputy noted.