MOSCOW, June 3 - President Vladimir Putin has read long-term ally Armenia the riot act: persist in wanting to join the European Union and you can kiss goodbye to cheap Russian oil and gas.

The Russian leader issued the warning before a parliamentary election in Armenia on Sunday, which polls suggest the party of Western-leaning Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan will win.

It is not an empty threat. Armenia, a landlocked country of 3 million with centuries-old ties to Russia, is highly dependent on Moscow, which has imposed temporary bans on important Armenian exports before the vote.

But Putin's words also reflect an uncomfortable truth for Moscow. Waging war in Ukraine with no end in sight after more than four years of fighting, Russia is mounting an intensifying and increasingly complex rearguard action around the world to try to retain its geopolitical clout.

While Moscow focuses resources on the war in Ukraine, the European Union and the United States have been courting and squeezing traditional Russian allies and interests, both in what Moscow sees as its own backyard and also further afield.

From Havana and Caracas, from Belgrade to the steppes of Central Asia, and even in west Africa, where Moscow's forces are helping fight Islamists, Russian influence is under pressure.

RUSSIAN CONCERN

Armenia, a longstanding recipient of Russian largesse and home to a Russian military base, signed a partnership agreement with the U.S. last month and Pashinyan won fulsome endorsement from President Donald Trump.

Armenia, once part of the Soviet Union, also passed a law last year setting out a legal basis for it to join the EU.

"Of course we are deeply concerned about the Armenian authorities’ policy of rapprochement with the Euro-Atlantic community whose core policy is directed against Moscow," Maria Zakharova, Russia's Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, told reporters.

"The Anglo-Saxons are openly boasting about 'detaching' Armenia, as they say, fr...