CHOLPON-ATA – “If anyone has leverage to exert pressure on Armenia, that leverage is not in Brussels, nor is it in the West, South, or East,” Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said on August 7 during a conversation with Russian journalists. He stressed that the European Union has no leverage to influence Armenia or its decisions. Speaking about trade and economic relations with Russia, Pashinyan criticized the recent restrictions imposed by Russia on Armenian goods, emphasizing that such measures only generate negative perceptions of the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) in Armenia. Addressing Armenia’s efforts to diversify its foreign policy and economy, Pashinyan noted that this has been a long-standing policy. According to Pashinyan, Yerevan took that message not negatively, but positively, and began working to prove the opposite.