When Russia wants to remind a neighbour of its dependence, it reaches for the fruit bowl. Recently, the Russian consumer safety regulator, known as Rospotrebnadzor, decided to stop Armenian flowers, fruits, vegetables, mineral water, and cognac from entering Russia because of certain quality-related and phytosanitary violations, which, by sheer coincidence, happened to appear shortly before Armenia's legislative elections on June 7th. It sounds familiar because Rospotrebnadzor has been using similar bans every time Georgia has moved closer to joining the EU.

The proximate cause of Moscow's irritation is Nikol Pashinyan, Armenia's prime minister since the 2018 "Velvet Revolution." In the last eight years, he has moved his country towards closer engagement with the West, developing relations with the European Union and the US, while letting those with the Russian-led CSTO and EaEU deteriorate. In a recent comment to the Armenians, Secretary of Russia's Security Council Sergei Shoigu noted that their country's economic growth rate over 2022-2025 had reached 40%, largely due to business deals with Russia, while up to 98% of all Armenian agricultural goods go to Russia.

Moscow is exerting every lever short of the military ones it deployed in Georgia and Ukraine, an acknowledgment, perhaps, that those options carry costs it is no longer eager to bear.

Kremlin's billionaire on a string

Economic pressure is just one side of the Russian strategy. According to documents published by the Dossier Centre, which is operated by Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the former head of Russian oil company Yukos and now a........

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