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Amulsar and Lydian: UK-backed goldmine will now be funded by Russia [1]

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Date: 2023-03

A Russian-backed development bank is set to finance a controversial mining project in Armenia which has been lobbied for heavily by the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO).

The Eurasian Development Bank (EDB), in which Russia holds a 44% interest, is now committed to investing $100m in the Amulsar gold mine in Armenia – which the UK has closely supported over the past decade.

The breakthrough deal comes after the UK has spent the past 12 months attempting to cut off the Russian state’s access to the international finance system via sanctions.

Anna Shakhnazaryan, a member of the Armenian Environmental Front volunteer group which opposes the mine, told openDemocracy it was ‘surprising’ to see the EDB invest in Amulsar given the mine had been billed as a Western project, with the UK government’s close support.

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“Supporters of the mine used to try and dismiss environmental protesters and local residents’ concerns with this rhetoric of ‘Russia vs the West’ [by saying] those who resisted supposedly wanted Amulsar to be handed over to the Russians,” Shakhnazaryan said.

The UK FCDO has long supported the company behind Amulsar, Lydian International, apparently seeing the mine as a flagship Western investment as well as a chance to improve its environmental and social impacts. Lydian was originally registered in Jersey, and headquartered in the US and Canada.

Together with the UK-backed European Bank of Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), the FCDO supported Lydian as the company navigated a series of crises in its relationship with the Armenian government and society over the past 10 years, according to documents obtained by openDemocracy.

Emails released to openDemocracy under freedom of information law show the UK FCDO, and the UK embassy in Yerevan, lobbied the Armenian government to advance Lydian International’s interests as it faced direct fallout from the country’s 2018 ‘Velvet Revolution’.

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[1] Url: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/odr/armenia-amulsar-lydian-gold-mine-uk-russia-edb-bank/

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