Alexander Skakov: “A revolution can’t be ongoing, it’s not normal”

Russian-Armenian relations are at a normal level, and I don’t see serious challenges. This is what Russian politician Alexander Skakov told 168.am, touching upon the recent domestic political developments in Armenia.

Let us remind that after the court ruled to change the preventive measure for second President of Armenia Robert Kocharyan, Prime Minister of the Republic of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan announced the launch of the second phase of the Armenian revolution and called on citizens to block the entrances to and exits from all courts of Armenia. Later, the Prime Minister gave a speech devoted to changes to be made in the judiciary and stated that judges must be vetted. Yesterday, it was also announced that the proceedings of the case of second President of the Republic of Armenia Robert Kocharyan, former Deputy Prime Minister of the Republic of Armenia Armen Gevorgyan, Seyran Ohanyan and Yuri Khachaturov had been suspended and forwarded to the Constitutional Court.

According to Alexander Skakov, it is nice when a revolution has a certain ending since it becomes easy for a country to get on track. Skakov added that it’s a fact that Pashinyan failed to change the power structures and the judiciary and it’s clear that he will now try to do his best to solve the problem, and all the recent statements serve as evidence of his desire to do so.

According to the Russian politician, revolutionary processes must draw to an end someday since it’s impossible and abnormal to constantly be in a revolution.

“The public also gets tired of ongoing revolutionary ideas and developments. The revolution served its goal, that is, shift of power. Now it is time to end it and start working on a regular basis,” he said.

As far as Moscow’s position on these developments and the case of second President of the Republic of Armenia Robert Kocharyan is concerned, Skakov said Russia is following the developments and isn’t interfering.

“Generally speaking, Moscow has a fundamental position on the issue of persecution of ex-presidents, that is, ex-presidents must not be persecuted. Remember Kyrgyzstan’s Akayev — this is the practice that is acceptable for Russia in the post-Soviet territory, meaning ex-presidents must not be persecuted, even if there is a ground for that,” Skakov said.

However, according to him, Russian-Armenian relations are at a normal level, and there are no serious challenges.

“There are forces that are going to thrust a wedge in those relations. Those forces aren’t very far from Armenia and have serious levers of influence in Moscow and other member states of the Eurasian Economic Union such as Kazakhstan and Belarus. So, there have been and there will be challenges, but as I see, it’s possible to overcome these challenges with few losses,” Skakov said.