Wider Europe

Armenia Gets Time In The Spotlight As European Leaders Gather In Yerevan

May 04, 2026

By Rikard Jozwiak

French President Emmanuel Macron (right) speaks with Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan during a walk on a Yerevan street on May 3.

The Armenian capital, Yerevan, will get a rare opportunity to be the center of global attention when dozens of world leaders -- and the NATO chief -- gather in the south Caucasus nation for two European-led summits beginning this week.

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Antonio Costa, president of the European Council, will serve as hosts for more than 40 leaders and officials, mainly from EU countries, for the European Political Community (EPC) summit on May 4.

The following day, EU chiefs will conduct a summit between the bloc and Armenia, a landlocked nation of just under 3 million people that is still recovering from a decades-long conflict with neighboring Azerbaijan.

Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan shakes hands with EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas in Brussels on April 14.

Wider Europe Briefing: The EU's First-Ever Armenia Summit

The EPC is a loose grouping of all European states excluding Belarus, Russia, and the Vatican. It has been meeting at the leaders’ level twice a year since French President Emmanuel Macron conceived the format in 2022, shortly after Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Macron arrived in Yerevan on May 3.

With NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte, plus the presidents of all major EU institutions expected, the Armenian capital will be hosting more political VIPs than the small South Caucasus republic has ever seen before.

British PM Seeks To Support Ukraine Loan

Major announcements are rare at EPC summits, but British Prime Minister Keir Starmer is now expected to inform that London wants to ⁠work with the EU to ‌support Ukraine in getting funding for vital military equipment.

The British government on May 3 said the country ‌is set to enter talks to cooperate with the EU in its $106 billion loan to Kyiv, as London looks to deepen ties to the bloc -- which it left in 2020 -- amid uncertainties about US commitment to the cause.

Otherwise, much of the focus of the summit will fall on host Armenia, giving Pashinyan a run in the spotlight just a month ahead of parliamentary elections -- which he is favored to win.

The EPC gathering and the subsequent EU-Armenia summit will likely allow Pashinyan a chance to further burnish his credentials as an international statesman.

European Council President Antonio Costa (left), Ukrainian President Zelenskyy (center), and EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. (file photo)

Zelenskyy Says Ukraine's War Position 'Most Stable' In Months As EU Approves Funds

As one senior EU official gushed ahead of the meeting: “It's the first time the EPC meets in the south Caucasus. And the fact that Europe is coming together in Armenia is a powerful illustration of the country's geopolitical path.”

Brussels is still far from offering a path to EU membership for Armenia, but the decision to travel to the country for the summit is a least a symbolic gesture highly appreciated by the government in Yerevan.

Yet everything is not rosy. Much to the annoyance of the EU side, it looks as if there won’t be any questions from the media after the EPC and the EU-Armenia summits -- only press statements.

EU officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, told RFE/RL that this was at the insistence of the host nation and is likely an attempt by Yerevan to guarantee the events are as tightly choreograph as possible.

Ukraine's Zelenskyy Arrives

Amid heightened security, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy arrived in the Armenian capital late on May 3 for the EPC summit.

Writing on Telegram, Zelenskyy said his goals would be to move closer to a “dignified” end to the war with Russia, to push forward the $106 billion support package for Ukraine, and “strengthening Ukrainian air defense and energy support for Ukraine and cooperation with partners in the field of energy.”

Zelenskyy's appearance is not likely to go over well in Moscow. Armenia was long an ally to Russia as Yerevan considered it as a protector against hostile neighbors, and Russia still has a military base in the country. But Pashinyan, since becoming Armenian leader in May 2018, has looked to carefully edge his country closer to the West.

It was not immediately clear if Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev would attend. Both countries have historical and current political differences with the host, although the sides have in recent years attempted to improve relations.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is welcomed by Armenian parliament speaker Alen Simonyan on May 3.

Officials say the most likely scenario is that Aliyev will address the other leaders via video link, while Ankara could send Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, a stepdown from the presidential level that Yerevan has opposed.

But one new face is a certainty -- that of the Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, marking the first time a non-European leader will attend an EPC meeting, having been invited as a guest by Pashinyan and Costa.

But it might just be that Canada will become a permanent EPC fixture, with one European diplomat likening it to Australia’s yearly participation in the Europe-wide Eurovision song contest after initially having been invited as a one-off in 2015.

Another senior EU official stated that “Canada is very much like-minded with Europe in the way it looks at geopolitics and security, it shares the same principles, a belief in the rules-based international order anchored into international law, and the same goals, the defense of that order through multilateralism with the UN at its core.”

That's all for this week! Feel free to reach out to me on any of these issues on X @RikardJozwiak, or on e-mail at jozwiakr@rferl.org.

Until next time,

Rikard Jozwiak

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Wider Europe Briefing: Who Escaped The EU's Latest Sanctions, And Brussels' Security Guarantees For Ukraine

April 28, 2026

By Rikard Jozwiak

Arkady Dvorkovich, president of the International Chess Federation, is among the Russian individuals who had sanctions against them lifted by the EU. (file photo)

Welcome to Wider Europe, RFE/RL's newsletter focusing on the key issues concerning the European Union, NATO, and other institutions and their relationships with the Western Balkans and Europe's Eastern neighborhoods.

I'm RFE/RL Europe Editor Rikard Jozwiak, and this week I am drilling down on two issues: What was removed from the latest EU sanctions on Russia, and Brussels' four pillars of security guarantees for Ukraine.

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Wider Europe Briefing: Who Escaped The EU's Latest Russia Sanctions?

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Briefing #1: What The EU Didn't Include In Its Latest Russia Sanctions

What You Need To Know: The European Union finally passed its 20th sanctions package on Russia on April 23, two months after the fourth anniversary of the country's full-scale invasion of Ukraine when the package initially was supposed to be adopted.

Hungary had held up the approval but the resumption of Russian oil flowing to the Central European country last week and the impending change of government in Hungary after the ruling Fidesz party's big electoral loss on April 12 paved the way for a sudden green light by all 27 EU member states. But that didn't stop outgoing Hungarian Prime minister Viktor Orban and his Moscow-friendly government from altering some of the more hard-hitting measures initially proposed by the European Commission.

Deep Background: The first proposal from early February, seen by RFE/RL, included a trio of high-level Russian personalities involved in various sports federations. Those were removed and not listed in the adopted sanctions package due to a wish by Budapest not to target people involved in any type of sports.

The trio were Arkady Dvorkovich, president of the International Chess Federation (FIDE); Stanislav Pozdnyakov, former president of the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC); and Mikhail Mamiashvili, president of the Russian Wrestling Federation.

The proposal noted that Dvorkovich's reelection as head of FIDE in "2022 was welcomed by the Kremlin as a 'victory' for Moscow" and that he in this position "publicly supported the annexation of Crimea and called occupied Ukrainian cities 'new territories' of the Russian Federation."

The document also notes that Pozdnyakov during his reign in the ROC "made a unilateral decision to include the regional sports organizations under the Ukrainian National Olympic Committee's authority as its members, namely the Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics, the Zaporozhye region, and the Kherson region."

The reason for listing Mamiashvili includes that "he is a prominent figure within Russia's state-controlled sports system and is closely affiliated with key representatives of the Russian Government. He maintains close personal and professional ties with the highest levels of Russian leadership, including President Vladimir Putin."

The interesting thing to follow now is whether the incoming Hungarian government will reconsider the inclusion of these names when the next Russia sanctions package is proposed later this summer.

Several EU officials that RFE/RL have been in touch with say that their capitals will try to push the European Commission to re-table this trio, as well as religious figures such as Patriarch Kiryl, which Fidesz previously had struck off the proposed blacklists.

Drilling Down

Not all the watering down, however, was done by Hungary. The initial headline item of the 20th package was a so-called maritime service ban on all Russian oil products that would prevent EU economic operators from providing services to any vessel transporting these products from Russian ports.
This would have removed the current oil price cap, imposed by the Group of Seven (G7), by completely stopping EU vessels from transporting Russian oil while non-EU boats could still continue but would not be able to rely on EU port services or insurance.
But the final text, however, states that for such a move to really happen there needs to be prior agreement in the G7 and the so-called Price Cap Coalition, an informal group consisting of all EU member states, the G7, and Australia.
EU member states such as Cyprus, Greece, and Malta with a big commercial seafaring sectors were never too keen on the EU imposing this ban on its own and with soaring energy prices due to the monthslong closure of the Strait of Hormuz, several EU member states are currently reluctant to also target Russian oil to further drive-up energy costs for domestic consumers.
Perhaps the biggest new thing with these sanctions was Brussels' willingness to finally start hitting third countries that the bloc identified as helping Russia with sanctions circumvention. For the first time ever the club used its anti-circumvention instrument, introduced in 2023, to target Kyrgyzstan.
The instrument focuses on sector-specific export bans with Brussels imposing such a prohibition of two items going from the EU to the Central Asian country: computer-controlled CNC machines that cut, drill, and shape material, as well as radio equipment. Both items can be used for drone production and have been reexported from Kyrgyzstan to Russia in very high numbers in recent years.
But the original draft also listed companies in other countries that disappeared in the final adopted package. This included Kulevi port of Georgia that initially was included for having serviced vessels of the Russian shadow fleet and the Armenian OJSC Unibank for having traded with sanctioned Russian banks.
Both were eventually removed from the final list after the governments of the respective countries provided updated information to the European Commission that they no longer were engaged in activities that prompted their inclusion. The Azerbaijani Yelo Bank, proposed for blacklisting in early February, was however sanctioned.
Three Tajik banks, Dushanbe City Bank, Spitamen Bank, and the Commerce Bank of Tajikistan, all sanctioned by the EU in November 2025, were also removed after Dushanbe proved they no longer helped Moscow with sanctioned crypto-asset services.

Briefing #2: The 4 Pillars Of EU Security Guarantees For Ukraine

What You Need To Know: While the war in Ukraine rages on, the European Union is still planning on what security guarantees it can offer Kyiv, both in case there finally is a cease-fire and final peace deal but also other, smaller measures in case the war predictably rumbles on.

The most obvious European security is of course the pledge to have "boots on the ground" to safeguard a cease-fire. This is the business of individual countries of the Franco-British-led Coalition of the Willing, and most of those boots will be committed by Paris and London.

But the EU is also planning its own security guarantees. The most obvious one is of course eventual Ukrainian membership of the bloc, but despite wishes from Kyiv that process will still take years.

Deep Background: Instead, Brussels is basing its guarantees on three pillars with a fourth being designed. The first is the so-called military pillar and includes monetary assistance to the Ukrainian armed forces of both lethal and nonlethal equipment.

In this pillar you also have the European Union Military Assistance Mission in support of Ukraine (EUMAM), located in both Germany and Poland and functional since late 2022. As of early this year, this mission has trained nearly 90,000 Ukrainian officers on EU soil and is likely to be extended beyond the expiration of the current mandate in November.

The second pillar, known as the "security pillar", has another EU mission in Ukraine, EUAM. Since 2014, this mission aims to reform the civilian security sector in the country so it will meet EU standards in areas such as policing and criminal justice and will continue to be invested in for a foreseeable future.

The same is true for the third pillar, known as the "industry pillar." This one is about merging the Ukrainian and the European defense industries. The key here is the EU's SAFE instrument, the bloc's 150-billion-euro defense fund that encourages joint procurement both between various EU countries and especially with Ukraine.