Was the withdrawal of Russians from the Armenian-Azerbaijani border Baku’s demand? The MP’s claim is not evidence-based

On March 22, at the “Public Debate” broadcast on Public TV, Anna Grigoryan, an MP from the “Armenia” faction of the National Assembly of the Republic of Armenia, stated that the Russian border guard troops left the Armenian-Azerbaijani border at the request of Baku within the scope of Peace Treaty negotiations.

The MP made a reference to one of the clauses of the Peace Treaty between Armenia and Azerbaijan, according to which the parties should not deploy third party’s forces on each other’s border, and claimed that it was due to the negotiations on that clause that the Russian border guard troops left the Armenian-Azerbaijani border.

“Because of that clause, the Russian representatives, who were literally on the border from Nerkin Hand to Voskepar, were withdrawn,” Grigoryan noted.

Despite the host’s retort that the Russian border guards were withdrawn before that clause in agreement, Grigoryan continued to insist that the Russians withdrew at the request of Azerbaijan.

“I am very sorry that you do not see the simple realities that at the request of Nikol Pashinyan, after the 2020 war, Russian border guards were deployed from Nerkin Hand to Voskepar, and during the negotiations, when Azerbaijan was proposing and/or demanding that representatives of a third party should not be on the Armenian border, the Russian border guards withdrew,” Grigoryan said.

Fact Investigation Platform has studied Grigoryan’s claims and summarized a number of key events regarding the deployment and withdrawal of Russian border guard troops.

Russian border guards on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border after the 44–day war

Russian border guard troops were deployed to the Armenian-Azerbaijani border in the aftermath of the Second Artsakh War in 2020. In November-December, units of the Russian border guard troops were deployed at Armenia’s request to support border security.

In January 2021, the National Security Service, in response to a “Hetq” inquiry about the legal basis for deploying Russian border guard troops to the Armenian-Azerbaijani contact line, stated that this was done “within the framework of the implementation of the tripartite statement signed on November 9, 2020, taking into account the urgency of the issue and the need to deploy border posts.”

In 2024, the Russian Ambassador to Armenia Sergey Kopyrkin noted in an interview that the Russian border guards’ lookouts on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border “were installed at the personal request of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan.”

These deployments, however, raised questions regarding their legal basis and compliance, which the government has never clarified: according to the 1992 Treaty signed between Armenia and Russia, the main function of the Russian border guard troops is limited to the borders with Turkey and Iran, which implies that their presence on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border is beyond the scope of that Treaty.

EU observers, border demarcation and withdrawal of Russian border guard troops

In 2024, when the European civilian mission was monitoring the Armenian-Azerbaijani border, EU and Armenian officials reported that Russian border guards stationed near the Nerkin Hand community in Syunik province had obstructed, in fact, blocked the activities of the observers in the mentioned section.

Later, in April, it became known that the governments of Armenia and Azerbaijan had decided to start the demarcation process from the north, in four sections of Tavush region.

After this information was circulated, in response to questions from Radio Liberty, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan confirmed that after the demarcation and delimitation of the border with Azerbaijan, Russian border guard troops would withdraw from Tavush region.

In May 2024, Russia officially confirmed that the Armenian side had decided that Russian border guard troops should leave the Armenian-Azerbaijani border, after which the Russians withdrew, including from Nerkin Hand and Tavush posts.

FIP.am’s monitoring showed that during the aforementioned period, no Azerbaijani official ever publicly demanded or raised the issue of the withdrawal of Russian border guards from the Armenian-Azerbaijani border; even Baku’s propaganda resources did not circulate theses on this matter.

Neither Armenian nor Russian officials made public statements about such a demand coming from Baku.

In fact, Grigoryan’s claim that Azerbaijan demanded that Russian border guards leave the Armenian-Azerbaijani border is not evidence-based.

Clause on exclusion of a third party’s forces from the border 

On March 13, 2025, Azerbaijan declared that the Armenian side had accepted the demands of the exclusion of third parties from the Armenian-Azerbaijani border and dropping the charges in international courts. Later, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Armenia confirmed that “Azerbaijan’s proposals on the two articles in disagreement have been accepted.”

MP Grigoryan, claiming on the Public TV that the Russians withdrew precisely because of this clause of the “Peace Treaty,” disturbs the chronological order of events, and therefore distorts the causality of events.

Thus, Russian border guard troops withdrew from the Armenian-Azerbaijani border almost a year ago, in the spring-summer period of 2024. The clause of concern in the Peace Treaty, according to which the parties shall exclude the presence of third parties on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border, was agreed upon quite recently, specifically in March.

Thus, Grigoryan’s claim that the Russian border guard troops were withdrawn from the Armenian-Azerbaijani border at the request of Baku is not confirmed by open and official sources. At the same time, the claim that the Russians withdrew due to the mentioned clause of the Treaty is chronologically inaccurate: the Russians left in 2024, about a year before the agreement was reached on the clause on the exclusion of third parties from the border.

Nane Manasyan