Former Russian Defense Minister, and now Secretary of the Security Council, Sergei Shoigu stated that the recent actions of the Armenian authorities do not correspond to allied relations with Russia and are unfriendly in nature. He expressed a number of complaints to the Armenian side.
According to Sergei Shoigu, in 2025-2026, Armenia began to focus on cooperation with countries that Russia considers unfriendly. He also criticized the presence of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the European Political Community summit in Yerevan, which, he claimed, was disrespect for the memory of Armenians who fought against Nazism.
Shoigu emphasized that Russia supplies Armenia with a number of important goods — gas, grain, flour, fertilizers, and gasoline — at significantly lower prices, approximately three times below market rates. At the same time, he questioned how profitable it would be for Armenia to supply its products, such as apricots, trout, and mineral water, to European Union countries.
He also noted that cooperation with Russia is the foundation of Armenia's economy, and added that in the 1990s, thanks to Russia, the country was able to preserve its sovereignty.
These statements by Shoigu are not accidental, as in parallel, Rosselkhoznadzor announced that it would impose restrictions on the import of flowers from Armenia starting May 22.
“The decision was made to protect Russia’s phytosanitary well-being and export potential. Despite the guarantees provided by the Food Safety Inspection Body of Armenia, the detection of quarantine objects for the EAEU continues,” the agency reported.
Rosselkhoznadzor claims that during the import of 96.2 million units of flower products, 135 cases of infestation were detected. This, they say, accounts for 77% of the total detections for the entire year 2025.
Formally, this looks like restrictions due to purely technical reasons, but it has long been known that sanitary restrictions on imports from countries whose leadership or people have displeased the Kremlin are a standard practice of the Russian authorities. Rosselkhoznadzor's discovery of something harmful in products almost always miraculously coincides with a general deterioration of interstate relations.
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