On 21 April, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov spoke on the issue of Russia’s gas prices in Armenia during an online round table organized by the Gorchakov Fund, reported aysor.am. 

He said that when the gas price for Armenia and Belarus was set lower than the market one, everyone took it for granted. “And no one said that it was politics. Everyone was saying that it should be so,” he stated. “I think that allies must by all means receive economic privileges. But when the price has gone… where it is now, there are some contract commitments. I am convinced that in the process of reviewing the applications, and we received them from our Belarus and Armenian friends, our allied relations will be taken into consideration. But it is probably wrong to recall this only when the situation becomes diametrically opposed to the one existing 3-4 years ago,” he added. 

Referring to Armenia, he said one of the problems that has not been dealt with for few years is the tariff inside the country which complicates preferential pricing approaches. “If to speak about allied relations, they must be reflected in all sectors, if to speak about economy, we look forward to regulation of the judicial proceedings that started in Armenia two years ago against our joint enterprises, including South-Caucasian railways, without any attempts to inject things not appropriate to relations between the allies,” Lavrov said.

“I am speaking very frankly about it as we have few complicated situations in which our Russian companies appeared. I hope we will solve all these issues amicably,” he said. He also said that during the recent phone conversation between Putin and Pashinyan, the two leaders stressed that “they see [ways to develop an] allied and strategic partnership, and I assure you that all the issues will be settled in accordance with… both parties.”

On 31 March, Armenia's Vice Prime Minister Mher Grigoryan wrote a letter to Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller, suggesting that they renegotiate the existing gas price. Armenia also considered the discussion about a price reduction for gas on the Georgian-Armenian border and the payment for gas imports to be in the national currency and arrive in a timely manner. On the same day, Armenia’s Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan conducted a phone call with the Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko. They both indicated that the current price for Russian gas is overpriced given the recent trends in the world market (Caucasus Watch reported).

On 23 September 2019, the Russian RTVI reported through a source familiar with the process of negotiations between Armenia and the Russian Railways state corporation, that Russia is planning to breach the contract signed in 2008 with Armenia on concession management of Armenian railways. Afterwards, the information was confirmed by the Russian Ministry of Transport. The events followed as Armenia’s Investigative Committee reported in December 2018 that they were investigating the activities of the South Caucasian Railway (SCR), the Armenian company which received the concessions, over 10 years, checking the effectiveness of investments of $226.8 million (Caucasus Watch reported).