The resignation of Armenia’s Prime Minister Serzh Sargsyan after more than a week of mass protests in Russia’s backyard begs the question: Why has Moscow not intervened? The demonstrators bring to mind “color revolutions” in the post-Soviet neighborhood that the Kremlin seems to abhor, like in Georgia and Ukraine. But even genuine revolutions, which Armenia has not yet seen, are not enough in and of themselves to prompt Russia to intervene. For Moscow to intervene in one of its Soviet-era satellites at least two conditions need to be present. First, Vladimir Putin has to see an acute threat to Russia’s vital national interests, such as the potential expansion of antagonistic Western-led alliances too close to Russia’s borders. Second, the chances for defending or advancing its interests through the use of force have to be relatively high.

The first condition is missing in Armenia because the dominant, pro-Russian wing of the country’s ruling elite has retained power. Sargsyan’s Russia-friendly Republican Party and its Dashnak allies control a majority in parliament, which means they can nominate and approve the next prime minister. If protest leader Nikol Pashinyan succeeds in ending the party of power’s control of parliament through protests or early elections, then, yes, that would be a revolution. For Russia to intervene, however, Pashinyan would not only have to oust the current party of power, he would also have to show a determination to move Armenia into the EU or NATO. So far, Pashinyan has showed no such intentions, which should come as no surprise. Whatever his personal views, he realizes NATO is in no mood to accept more post-Soviet states in the short to medium term, and Armenia, therefore, has no viable alternative but Russia as its guarantor of security, while it faces two hostile bordering states, Azerbaijan and Turkey. That pro-Russian elites have so far remained in control of Armenia in spite of Sargsyan’s resignation explains why Vladimir Putin — who is said to have a much cooler personal relationship with Sargsyan than with ex-President Robert Kocharyan — has not condemned the events in Armenia. Moreover, representatives of the Russian government and parliament vowed support for Armenia and some of them even welcomed the change, for example deputy speaker of the State Duma Igor Lebedev. Armenia’s situation stands in stark contrast to cases when former Soviet republics have come under the rule of leaders intent on bringing them into blocs that Russia views as unfriendly competitors, such as NATO and the EU. Russia intervened in Georgia in 2008 because Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, with strong backing from George W. Bush, nearly succeeded in obtaining a Membership Action Plan from NATO. By that time, Georgia had been growing both friendlier with the West and more democratic for over four years. Yet Putin did not intervene until he saw the Bush administration come close to winning a MAP for Georgia and Ukraine at NATO’s Bucharest summit, which the Russian leader attended personally to head off the efforts. Although the summit ultimately did not offer the MAPs, thanks in part to opposition from German Chancellor Angela Merkel, its final communique did say that “NATO welcomes Ukraine’s and Georgia’s Euro-Atlantic aspirations for membership in NATO. We agreed today that these countries will become members of NATO.” At the time, Putin probably thought he could not afford a double intervention into both Georgia and Ukraine. He picked Georgia, as least in part, because Saakashvili took Russia’s bait by launching a ground assault to establish control over breakaway South Ossetia. Ukraine might have been next, but in 2010 its then-leader Viktor Yushchenko lost the presidency to the more Moscow-friendly Viktor Yanukovych, who made it clear he would not seek membership in NATO. The need to intervene in Ukraine subsided until 2014 when a pro-Western faction of Ukraine’s ruling elite came to power again amid expectations it would take the country into the EU and NATO in the wake of the Euromaidan revolution.