Amid deteriorating relations between Russia and Azerbaijan, Moscow has been building up its relations with Armenia, where it has drawn up some 50 agreements on cooperation this week, including a groundbreaking deal to establish a Russian military base in the former Soviet republic.


Federation Council chairman Vladimir Shumeiko, speaking this week during a visit to Yerevan, described Russia's relations with Armenia as closer than with any other former Soviet republic, Interfax reported.


Speaking of "the creation of a single economic, defense and legal space" between the two countries, Shumeiko called for Russian funds to rebuild roads through Abkhazia, destroyed in the Georgian-Abkhazian conflict, to reconnect Armenia with Russia, the agency said.


Among some 50 agreements prepared for Shumeiko's visit this week was a deal to establish the first permanent Russian military base in Armenia, which is widely believed to have received military aid from Russia during its war with Azerbaijan over the enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh.


"It is the first agreement to call it a base and the first long-term agreement between Russia and a country in the "near abroad," said Segodnya defense editor Pavel Felgenhauer on Tuesday.


Long term, Felgenhauer said, means at least 15 years and probably 25 years. The Armenian Defense Minister Serzh Sarkisyan told Felgenhauer in June he hoped it would be "forever."


Cash-strapped and war-torn Armenia, fearful that Turkey will enter the Azerbaijan-Armenian conflict on Azerbaijan's side, is only too eager for Russia to commit its 5,000-odd troops to stay in Armenia.


The agreement will not be welcomed in neighboring Azerbaijan, which has suffered heavily in its conflict with Armenia, losing a fifth of its territory to Armenia in the last year.


Rocked by an attempted coup last week, Azerbaijan's leader, President Heidar Aliyev, blamed "enemies from within and abroad" for trying to destabilize the country.


Russian officials have vehemently denied any involvement in the attempted coup.


In another development involving Russian and Armenian cooperation, a former national security adviser to the Armenian president was sentenced Tuesday to four years imprisonment for attempting to divulge state secrets.


According to Russian scientist Vil Mirzayanov, who faced similar charges and was briefly imprisoned in Moscow in 1992, the official, Vagan Abakyan, former deputy chief security adviser to President Levon Ter-Petrosyan, was arrested by Russian agents at Sheremetyevo airport in May. The Russian agents then handed Abakyan over to their Armenian counterparts.


Abakyan was flown to Yerevan and charged under an old Soviet law.