Russia’s government published the report at 13:30 Moscow time on Tuesday under a heading that names the authors and the subject: members of the Eurasian Intergovernmental Council from Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan presented a report on the possible consequences of suspending the Treaty on the Eurasian Economic Union in respect of Armenia. The full title runs to the treaty’s date, 29 May 2014, and the publication comes in two files, the report itself and an appeal to the Supreme Eurasian Economic Council signed by the four heads of government.
The appeal was sent the same day to the Eurasian Economic Commission “for official transmission” to the council’s members, whom the release lists by name and patronymic: Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan of Armenia, then presidents Alexander Lukashenko, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, Sadyr Japarov and Vladimir Putin. Armenia is addressed as a member of the body that will consider suspending it.
The order came from the presidents. At the Supreme Council in Astana on 29 May 2026 the four leaders issued a joint statement on Armenia’s steps towards European integration, instructed their representatives to report by December 2026 on the consequences of a possible suspension and supported a referendum in Armenia on the choice between the union and the European Union, as Armenpress summarised the background on Tuesday evening. Delivery came in October, with the council’s next meeting expected in December, Interfax noted.
The legal part is the hinge. The treaty “does not explicitly provide a mechanism allowing member states to unilaterally suspend its application” to another member, the authors write in Armenpress’s rendering, so they turn to universally recognised norms of international law, the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties of 1969 in particular, under which the other parties have the right to take a joint decision on the temporary suspension of the treaty in respect of Armenia. Such a decision could remain in force until a referendum is held in Armenia, the report says, and Armenia’s law on starting the accession process puts the union’s objectives at risk.
The same passage cites Article 3 of the treaty, which binds members to create favourable conditions for the union’s work and to refrain from measures that could jeopardise its objectives. The four governments add a sentence of restraint in Interfax’s quotation: respecting the right of the people of Armenia to decide independently on participation or non-participation in unions and integration associations, they “are not interested in the Republic of Armenia leaving the Eurasian Economic Union.” The report’s economics then describe what a suspension would cost.
Such a decision could remain in force until a referendum is held in Armenia, the report says, and Armenia’s law on starting the accession process puts the union’s objectives at risk.
Gas comes first. The report assumes a price of $300 a thousand cubic metres with volumes unchanged, against the current base price of $177.50, a rise of about 69% that would lift Armenia’s annual gas bill by $268.5 million, from $389.0 million to $657.5 million, Interfax reported from the text. “The real contract price for the gas supplied may be higher given the market situation on the world gas market,” the document says, and it recalls a price of about $270 in 2013 and a European TTF average of about $422 in 2025.
Trade comes second. The union takes 37.8% of Armenia’s trade, 38% of its exports and 37.7% of its imports, and under suspension the turnover with the four countries would fall by $4,439.7 million, or 55.6% against 2025, from $7,990.6 million to $3,550.9 million. Exports to the union would fall threefold, from $3,170.0 million to $1,084.3 million, and imports by 48.8%, from $4,820.6 million to $2,466.6 million, on a scenario in which Armenia keeps its full membership of the CIS.
Remittances are the third. Transfers from Russia would fall by more than half, to $1.8 billion from $3.88 billion in 2025, and from all union countries to $1.85 billion from $3.95 billion. The commission counted 126,900 Armenian workers in the union last year, 124,600 of them, or 98.2%, in Russia, and the report says they would come under the labour quotas and the tax rules that members apply to third countries’ workers, as Armenian goods would come under third-country tariffs.
Armenpress added the macroeconomic lines from the same document: GDP down 15.6%, inflation up 14.9 percentage points, consumption down 14.6%, exports of Armenian-made goods down by 30 to 50% and re-exports by more than 90%. “For the economies of the member states of the Union, the economic effect of suspending the membership of the Republic of Armenia will not be significant,” the report says of the other side of the ledger.
Kazakhstan’s and Kyrgyzstan’s names stand on the appeal beside Russia’s and Belarus’s. Olzhas Bektenov and Adylbek Kasymaliev are the council’s members for Astana and Bishkek, and the release names no place or ceremony of signing: on Tuesday Bektenov, Mishustin and Belarus’s Alexander Turchin sat at the same table in Dushanbe for the SCO prime ministers’ council, where Kyrgyzstan was represented by first deputy chairman Daniyar Amangeldiev. By 07:55 Moscow time on Wednesday the fronts of Kazinform, Kapital and 24.kg carried no line on the report.
Yerevan’s channel of record carried it twice. Armenpress ran the legal part at 16:44 Yerevan time on Tuesday and the figures at 18:11, both without a government comment, and nothing newer stood on its English front by 08:38 Yerevan time on Wednesday, when its latest item was Tuesday’s 21:42.
For the two Central Asian signatories the report’s own sentence says the effect on their economies will not be significant, without a Kazakh or Kyrgyz figure. What they signed is a mechanism: a union of five in which four claim the right to suspend one by a joint decision, on legal grounds the treaty itself does not contain, for as long as it takes to hold a referendum the four presidents supported in May. The Supreme Council that receives the appeal meets in December.