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Armenian News – NEWS.am presents the abridged version of the article by The Washington Post Editorial Board:

“They are still there. Mostly young and leaderless, the demonstrators haven’t articulated a political agenda, and Western governments have kept their distance. The U.S. embassy in Yerevan limited itself to a tweet urging “peaceful restrained behavior.”

Mr. Putin’s propaganda apparatus, however, has been quick to draw conclusions. Russian media said the U.S. embassy had orchestrated the protests to replicate last year’s popular revolution in Ukraine. What’s most remarkable about this deluded reaction is that it is not mere bombast. Consumed by cynicism and paranoia, Mr. Putin and the circle around him appear to regard any manifestation of unrest within Russia or the neighboring states it aspires to dominate as the product of secret plots.  The possibility that Armenians, an impoverished people whose leaders have sold most of their economy to Russia, might be genuinely aggrieved at a 17 percent electricity price increase imposed by an opaque, Moscow-based cartel is dismissed within the Kremlin as naive.

Armenian President Serge Sarkisian, though a Russian client, is not quite so out of touch. While publicly rejecting the idea that the protests were anti-Russian, Mr. Sarkisian did his best to defuse them after the police attack failed. 

He said that the state would cover the cost of the price increase while the electricity monopoly was subjected to an audit, and hinted that the company might be nationalized or resold. He also extracted $200 million in fresh military aid from Moscow, as well as a promise that a Russian soldier accused of murdering an Armenian family would be turned over to the local justice system.

Armenia last year became just the third country, after Belarus and Kazakhstan, to join the Eurasian Economic Union, Mr. Putin’s attempt to create a Moscow-dominated bloc. 

During a visit to Washington in May, Mr. Sarkisian told us the decision was pragmatic: Armenians working in Russia provide a fifth of the country’s gross domestic product, and Russia is its sole energy supplier. “Armenian cognac can’t really be sold in Paris,” he added.

Now, however, Armenia and other clients are suffering from Russia’s economic crash.” 

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