Russia said on Thursday it hoped Armenia joining the International Criminal Court (ICC) would not affect relations, after warning the Caucasus country for months against the move.
Armenia -- which has distanced itself from its historic ally Russia in recent months -- formally joined The Hague-based court on Thursday.
It is now obliged to arrest President Vladimir Putin if he sets foot on Armenian territory because the ICC issued an arrest warrant for the Russian leader in March 2023.
"It is important for us for such decisions not to negatively affect -- de jure and de facto -- our bilateral relations, which we value and which we want to develop further," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.
He said Armenia's decision to become a state party to the ICC was its "sovereign right".
The Kremlin had earlier warned Armenia that joining the ICC would be the "wrong decision".
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan sought to portray joining the court as a move against Yerevan's foe Azerbaijan, not Russia.
But he has, in recent months, made critical comments about Russia's role in the Caucasus.
Yerevan has grown angry over Moscow's failure to back Armenia in its conflict with Azerbaijan for control of the Nagorno-Karabakh region.
It says Russia's peacekeeping force did not act to stop Azerbaijan's lightening military operation to retake control of the region in September last year.
The enclave in Azerbaijan had been controlled for three decades by Armenian separatists.
- 'No longer allies' -
Despite careful statements from Pashinyan and the Kremlin, Yerevan residents who AFP spoke to hours after the country joined the ICC reflected an increasingly stark rift with Russia.
"Russians had better shut up. Their rhetoric is cynical given their behaviour towards Armenia," 56-year-old financier Manush Sargsyan told AFP.
Manager Hohar Badalyan, 44, said he had also lost faith in Moscow.
"Our relations with Russia have already been spoiled," he said.
"We are frustrated. They are no longer our allies."
He said he was nonetheless in favour of avoiding "scandals" with Moscow over the ICC.
But officials in Moscow insisted Armenia's security still depends on a Russian-led military alliance called the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO).
Armenia hosts a permanent Russian military base and is part of the CSTO, which consists of several former Soviet states.
"The security of Armenia, including in the military-technical sphere, is not possible without cooperation within the CSTO," the Russian foreign ministry's CSTO representative, Viktor Vasilyev, told news agencies.
Armenia signed the ICC founding Rome Statute in 1999 but did not ratify it, citing contradictions with the country's constitution.
The constitutional court said in March last year those obstacles had been removed, after Armenia adopted a new constitution in 2015.
