YEREVAN, June 7 -- The ballot was cast. The message was measured. Standing outside a polling station in Yerevan on Sunday morning, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said something that sounded, in isolation, almost anodyne: that the ties between Armenia and Russia have institutional depth and are built on mutual respect. In the context of what surrounds him on election day - a fractured opposition, an empty Russian ambassador's chair in Yerevan, and the most geopolitically loaded parliamentary vote in the country's post-Soviet history - it was anything but.

"The relations between Armenia and Russia have institutional depth and are based on mutual respect," Pashinyan told reporters after casting his vote. He offered no elaboration. ...