Hobson's Choice for the Armenian people

With all this talk about "great powers" and "middle powers", spare a thought for some of the "small powers".

Take little Armenia, for example: population about 3 million, area about half the size of Nova Scotia or a bit bigger than Wales, GDP in the same range as Burkina Faso and Mongolia? Armenia is about to hold a general election on June 7th, and the run-up to it has brought home just what a balancing act a small land-locked country like that has to maintain.

Armenia has been a life-line for Iran, on its southern flank, providing thousands of truckloads of agricultural produce, cargo and fuel. But it must be painfully aware that Iran can turn on its allies in a heartbeat.

It maintains a fragile peace with next-door neighbour, historic rival and perennial bugbear Azerbaijan, particularly in the aftermath of yet another skirmish over Nagorno-Karabakh, in which many thousands of ethnic Armenians were expelled, and some Armenian POWs remain in custody.

Its relationship with Turkey (sorry, Türkiye) on its western border is in constant state of fracture, especially under the iron rule of Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Notwithstanding the ongoing debate over the 1915 Armenian Genocide by the Turkish Ottoman Empire - well, only debated in Turkey and Azerbaijan, really; accepted fact everywhere else - there are many other points of contention with Turkey, some going back centuries. For example, Mount Ararat, with all its historical and cultural significance, sits firmly within the legal borders of Turkey, but Armenians still see it as the mythical birthplace of the Armenian people, and the recent removal of its image from Armenia's passport entry/exit stamps was highly controversial.

And, overshadowing everything, is the looming presence of Russia, Armenia's one-time overlord back in the Soviet Union days. There is still a Russian air base near the Armenian capital Yerevan, and Russian FSB officer can still seen patrolling Armenia's southern border. Vladimir Putin still considers Armenia to be within Russia's sphere of influence despite its many years of independence, and he has warned Armenia in no uncertain terms against pursuing closer links with the European Union. Russia has exerted pressure in many ways, some subtle, some not so much, from a ban on seafood, mineral water, fresh fruit and vegetables and flowers(!), to the withdrawal of its ambassador, to veiled threats over the functioning of Armenia's (poorly) Russian-run railway system.

Into this volatile mix, then, come the candidates standing for the position of President: former president Robert Kocharyan, staunchly pro-Russia and running on a nationalist platform but also aiming to distance Armenia from the pro-Europe stance of the current President Nicol Pashinyan; the almost equally pro-Russia billionaire Samvel Karapetyan, Moscow's preferred candidate, technically still under house arrest for plotting to overthrow the government, who is promising a "strategic re-alignment" with Russia; and the sole pro-European candidate, the unpopular incumbent Pashinyan (unpopular mainly because of making concessions in favour of peace with Azerbaijan).

If the two pro-Russian candidates were to work together they would handily beat Pashinyan. But, as things stand, Pashinyan may just squeak out a victory, Russian pressure notwithstanding.