Olesya Vartanyan

1 month ago | evnreport.com | Olesya Vartanyan |Hranoush Dermoyan

For over 80 days, a familiar scene has played out in Tbilisi: every evening, hundreds of protesters gather outside the parliament building on Rustaveli Avenue. What began as a movement contesting the legitimacy of last October’s parliamentary elections swelled into a mass demonstration in late November, after Georgia’s ruling party abruptly suspended its dialogue with Brussels on EU integration.

2 months ago | carnegieendowment.org | Olesya Vartanyan

The deployment of EU observers in 2022 to patrol Armenian regions bordering Azerbaijan, with which it has been in conflict for over three decades, marked a turning point for Armenia and possibly the entire South Caucasus. The Ukraine war, combined with Armenia’s readiness to reassess its foreign policy, has spurred changes to long-standing approaches. Despite Armenia’s ongoing ties to key Russian-led alliances, the West has become open to cooperating on sensitive issues like security and defense.

Nov 29, 2024 | carnegieendowment.org | Olesya Vartanyan

For the third time in recent years, street protests have toppled the leadership of Abkhazia, a pro-Russian self-proclaimed statelet still viewed by most of the world as part of Georgia. Four days of protests in the center of the regional capital Sukhumi and the storming of the presidential administration building ended with de facto president Aslan Bzhania’s resignation and the announcement of a snap election.

Nov 26, 2024 | evnreport.com | Olesya Vartanyan

For nearly three weeks, Donald Trump has been fielding congratulatory calls from leaders around the globe—a ritual that has played out largely in the public eye, thanks to world leaders on the other side of the line rather than Trump himself. Armenia’s Prime Minister, Nikol Pashinyan, was no exception. Ten days after Trump’s electoral victory was declared, Pashinyan’s office issued a brief statement about a phone call with the U.S. president-elect.

Dec 14, 2023 | foreignaffairs.com | Olesya Vartanyan |Shannon K. O'Neil |Joshua Kurlantzick

In late September, one of the most shocking human upheavals since the century began took place in the former Armenian enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh, a small, hilly patch of territory nestled within Azerbaijan. After three decades of tensions and conflict, it took just one day in September for Azerbaijan to seize the disputed enclave.