Armenia’s third President Serzh Sargsyan said that after his 2018 resignation, he received three phone calls from Russian President Vladimir Putin, though he refrained from disclosing their content.
“On April 17, Putin called to congratulate me on being elected prime minister. I didn’t have phone conversations with any prominent figure before my resignation,” Sargsyan said during the Imnemnimi podcast.
As for the post-resignation calls from Putin, Sargsyan stated, “I’ll hold back on revealing the content for now, but the time will come to speak about it.”
Podcast hosts also shared footage from Sargsyan’s 2023 talk at the “School of Civic Education,” where he addressed Russia’s stance during Armenia’s 2018 political upheaval, in response to a question by Azerbaijani-affairs expert Angela Elibegova.
“I believe Russia chose not to defend us. Why? There could be many reasons, look at what happened in Ukraine. They tried to intervene during the Maidan, and it didn’t work,” Sargsyan explained.
“I’ve never shied away from saying, and will keep saying, I came to power through Karabakh, and I’ll leave through Karabakh. Power is not more important than national interests,” he added.
Regarding Russia’s behavior in 2018, Sargsyan said Moscow showed a degree of indifference at the time.
“Because of this, many Russian-influenced groups appeared in the square. When we asked what they were doing there, they replied that their goal was to prevent the movement from becoming anti-Russian. But Western actors perceived this as a Russian-organized operation, which spurred their own activity, and they ended up gaining influence in that struggle,” he said.
According to Sargsyan, Moscow assumed that power would transfer to Karen Karapetyan, not the opposition.
“You might ask why Russia stayed neutral. It’s because they thought that even if I stepped down amid public protest, power would go to a pro-Russian figure—Karen Karapetyan—and that wouldn’t be a tragedy. The real danger, they believed, would be a rise in anti-Russian sentiment in Armenia,” Sargsyan said.
