ISW: Armenia may strike another blow to Russia and abandon Mir system

Armenia’s Central Bank will reportedly ban the use of the Mir system on March 29 and that 17 of 18 Armenian commercial banks will stop using the system on March 30, Report informs via the report of US Institute for Study of War (ISW).

The US imposed sanctions against the Mir system’s operator, the National Payment Card System Joint Stock Company, in February 2024.

Kremlin mouthpieces associate the deterioration of relations between Russia and Armenia with Yerevan's cooperation with the West.

A Kremlin-affiliated milblogger claimed on March 20 that Armenia’s increased cooperation with the European Union (EU) equates to a loss of Armenian sovereignty.

US sanctions continue to influence the financial sector in post-Soviet countries, as two banks in Kazakhstan recently banned the use of Russia’s Mir national payment system to prevent secondary sanctions.

Kazakhstan’s Freedom Finance Bank stated on February 28 that it suspended operations with the Mir payment system due to US sanctions.

At the same time, Kazakhstan’s Bereke Bank also stopped issuing cash from cards using the Mir system on March 6. Russia’s Sberbank, which fell under Western sanctions in 2022, previously owned Bereke Bank, and a company owned by the Kazakh government bought over 99 percent of Bereke Bank’s shares in September 2023, leading the US Treasury Department to remove sanctions on Bereke Bank in March 2024.