Armenia's prime minister in Russia for talks amid strain in ties

MOSCOW (AP) — Armenia’s prime minister visited Moscow and held talks Wednesday with Russian President Vladimir Putin amid spiraling tensions between the estranged allies.

Putin hosted Nikol Pashinyan for talks following a summit of the Eurasian Economic Union, a Moscow-dominated economic alliance. that they both attended earlier in the day. The negotiations came a day after Putin began his fifth term at a glittering Kremlin inauguration.

In brief remarks at the start of the talks, Putin said that bilateral trade was growing, but acknowledged “some issues concerning security in the region.”

Pashinyan, who last visited Moscow in December, said that “certain issues have piled up since then.”

Armenia’s ties with its longtime sponsor and ally Russia have grown increasingly strained after Azerbaijan waged a lightning military campaign in September to reclaim the Karabakh region, ending three decades of ethnic Armenian separatists’ rule there.