Armenian Prime Minister, Nikol Pashinyan, told the parliament that his government will decide later when to withdraw from the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), which includes Russia, Belarus and the former Soviet Central Asian states of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.

Amid the widening rift with Russia, Armenia has already frozen its membership in the alliance, canceled participation in joint military gymnasiums and abstained from CSTO summits.

On Wednesday, Pashinyan said for the first time that Armenia would leave the CSTO altogether during a question-and-answer session in parliament, stating the government would decide later when to make the final move. There was no immediate comment from Russian authorities.

Armenia’s ties with Russia, its long-time sponsor and ally, have become increasingly strained since Azerbaijan’s lightning-quick military campaign in September to seize the Karabakh region, ending three decades of separatist rule by ethnic Armenians there.

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The Armenian authorities accused Russian peacekeepers deployed to Nagorno-Karabakh after a previous round of hostilities in 2020 of failing to stop the Azerbaijani offensive. Moscow, which has a military base in Armenia, has rejected the accusations, saying its troops were not ordered to intervene.

The Kremlin, in turn, has been angered by Pashinyan’s efforts to deepen Armenia’s ties with the West and distance his country from Moscow-dominated alliances.

Russia was particularly disturbed by Armenia’s decision to join the International Criminal Court, which last year indicted Putin for alleged war crimes linked to Russian actions in Ukraine.

Moscow, preoccupied with the Ukrainian conflict now in its third year, has publicly expressed concern about Armenia’s westward turn, but has tried to downplay the differences.

According to Euronews, the Pashinyan’s move comes as he faces a wave of large-scale protests demanding his resignation over his government’s decision to hand over four border villages to Azerbaijan as part of an effort to negotiate a peace deal with his long-time rival.

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