Armenia announces historic intention to apply for EU membership

BREAKING: Armenia announces historic intention to formally apply for EU membership and hold a national referendum, a move that directly challenges Russia's regional influence.

Armenia just said it wants to join the European Union. Out loud, formally, with a referendum.

That's a country that has sat inside Moscow's orbit for three decades, hosting a Russian military base, tied into Russia's economic bloc, now announcing it will apply for EU membership and put the question to its own people in a national vote. You can see the mood on the streets here, flags out, and this is a population that has been drifting west for a while.

Now look at it from the Kremlin's side. Ukraine, Georgia, Moldova, and now Armenia. The neighbourhood Russia calls its own keeps filing paperwork in Brussels. And the EU's front door, well, it's a long corridor. Turkey has been in it since before some of you were born.

So the announcement is historic, the referendum is real, and the reaction from Moscow is the thing to watch. Armenia just picked a side, in public, on the record.

This is Dave King, reporting for HIT.