Moscow-led economic grouping threatens to suspend Armenia over its EU bid

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Moscow-led economic grouping threatens to suspend Armenia over its EU bid

2026-05-30 02:17 Last Updated At：02:21

MOSCOW (AP) — Members of a Russia-led economic alliance on Friday warned member Armenia that it could face suspension over its aspirations to join the European Union as tensions continued to simmer between the Kremlin and the Armenian leadership.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and leaders of Belarus, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, who attended a summit of the Eurasian Economic Union in Kazakhstan's capital of Astana, noted that Armenia's bid for the EU membership creates “significant risks” for their economic security. They ordered their officials to prepare a report in December on “possible consequences of suspending” Armenia's membership in the grouping.

The four leaders also urged Armenia to hold a referendum to offer voters a choice between seeking a membership in the EU or staying in the Eurasian Economic Union, a single market created in 2015 to allow the free movement of goods, capitals and labor. Armenia's Prime Ministe r Nikol Pashinyan has previously rejected the idea of holding the vote.

The warning comes just over a week before Armenia's parliamentary elections on June 7, in which Pashinyan, in power since 2018, seeks to retain his job.

Armenia, which signed a U.S.-brokered agreement last year ending decades of hostilities with Azerbaijan, has increasingly sought to forge closer ties with the U.S. and the EU. Pashinyan has declared an intention to join the EU and his government has suspended the country’s participation in a Moscow-dominated security pact, the Collective Security Treaty Organization.

Armenia's westward shift has angered the Kremlin. Putin has warned Pashinyan that his country would suffer massive economic damage if it pursues its EU aspirations. In recent days, Moscow warned Armenia that it could stop supplies of cheap natural gas and banned imports of Armenian brandy, fruit and vegetables, part of the Kremlin's efforts to sway the outcome of Armenia's election.

Putin has said Armenia can't be a member of both the EU and the Eurasian Economic Union. He warned Friday that Armenia could lose up to 14% of its Gross Domestic Product if it opts out of the Moscow-dominated bloc.

Pashinyan has countered Putin's warnings by arguing that for now Armenia can combine its membership in the Eurasian Economic Union with developing cooperation with the EU.

Speaking Friday, Putin also compared the current arguments with Armenia to the developments in Ukraine, whose bid to sign an association deal with the EU led to the ouster of its Moscow-friendly president, Russia's annexation of Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula in 2014 and Moscow's support for a separatist insurgency in eastern Ukraine that erupted the same year. In February 2022, Putin sent troops into Ukraine, staring the largest military conflict in Europe since World War II.

Bus hits cars in Virginia, killing 5 people and injuring 34, state police say

STAFFORD, Va. (AP) — A bus struck six vehicles on Interstate 95 in Virginia as traffic slowed for a work zone, killing five people and sending 34 to hospitals, state police said Friday.

The crash happened at about 2:35 a.m. on southbound I-95 in Stafford County. All five of the people who died were in vehicles hit by the bus, and three of the injured are in critical condition, police said.

“The preliminary investigation indicates that traffic was slowing southbound for an upcoming work zone,” state police said in a news release. “A bus failed to slow for traffic and struck six vehicles."

It was not immediately known what the bus was being used for or how many people were aboard.

“We’ve got patients in multiple hospitals. We’ve got the driver at a hospital here,” said Peyton Vogel, a Federal Transit Administration spokesperson who was on the scene. “I’ve got to say, this is one of the most tragic things I’ve ever seen. Absolutely tragic.”

Mary Washington Healthcare said it received 19 patients from the crash. It posted online that seven of the patients were taken to its trauma center in Fredericksburg, where four were being discharged and three remained in treatment — one in serious condition and two in critical condition. Twelve were taken to its hospital in Stafford, where they were later discharged in good condition.

The crash is under investigation and charges are pending, police said.

The National Transportation Safety Board posted online Friday that it was sending a “go-team” to conduct a safety investigation into the crash and that it would have a spokesperson at the scene.

The southbound lanes had reopened by noon Friday, but traffic was still backed up for a couple of miles, according to a state transportation advisory.

While it is too soon to say what caused Friday's crash, federal authorities have been grappling with interstate passenger bus safety issues for decades.

Following a series of passenger bus crashes in 2008 that killed 41 people, the U.S. Department of Transportation published a Motorcoach Safety Action Plan.

The NTSB investigated 16 fatal motorcoach crashes between June 1998 and January 2008, finding that driver-related problems such as fatigue, medical condition, and inattention accounted for 56 percent of the accidents. The agency said driver-related problems were responsible for 60 percent of the fatalities in those crashes.

Among the actions recommended were creation of a pre-employment driver history screening program, and a national drug- and alcohol-testing database “to enable motorcoach operators to determine if drivers have a history of violating DOT alcohol or drug rules.”