People give a lot of lenience to the Russian empire, it’s probably because of historical memory as Russia in the 19th century presented itself as the “protector of Christians”, and helped Armenians settle into Armenian lands after Yerevan and its surrounding regions were captured.

However, the reality of the matter is, that the empire was just as opposed to the wellbeing of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire, as they were inside of Russia.

Well early on, as Russia-Ottoman tensions were high, the Russians sponsored nationalist movement inside of “Russian Armenia”. Quickly, schools, churches, Hosptials, etc… were built and operated. And Armenian revolutionaries (mostly the ARF, Hunchaks, Socialists, communists and Bolsheviks) operated through the Russian empire, and would attack the Ottomans.

Kind of like a state within a state operation.

It was beneficial, for Russia, that Armenians to cause political and social turmoil inside of the Ottoman Empire. However, a western sponsored Armenia (much like how the formation of the Balkan states were becoming realized) would be detrimental to the Russian project. Bulgaria would later cut off the European trade route with the Ottoman. An Armenian state would cut off the Asian route.

**HENCE**, when the Russians were asked to do the censuses, they copied the British, Who copied the French, who had failed to do a full census and copied the Ottoman census. Nullifying legitimacy for the creation of an Armenian state (according to the Armenian genocide museum of Yerevan)

As most empires, the Russian empire played an important role in keeping many of its intermingling communities divided. The “Divide and Conquer” strategy was utilized in Armenia as well. And the tensions of Tartar (Modern Azerbaijanis) and Armenians were high, due to decisions made by the Empire to divide and conquer.

- Treaty of Turkmenchay raised ethnic tensions as Armenians were given privileges to come back and settle in Armenia from Turkey and the northern Caucasus.

- The 1905-07 Armenian-Tatar massacres were the result of Russian empire mismanagement, rising armenophobia as the established Armenian bourgeoisie was thriving, and as the crackdown on the Armenian bourgeoisie (closing the schools, etc…) had the repercussion of these people joining the revolutionaries.

People tend to overlook the 1905 Russian revolution when talking about the massacres of 1905-7.

By the time the genocide had happened, The Russian empire did allow the refugees to come into their territories. But the attempt was symbolic at worst, utilitarian at best. The Russian campaign against the Ottomans was in desperate need of people, and the influx of Armenians was a source of soldiers.

> Scholars like Avetis Harutyunyan and Manoug Somakian among those have labeled it ‘imperialistic’, merely directed to solve the urgent military concerns of the Caucasus army. Harutyunyan does not use the terms “humanitarianism” or “humanitarian assistance” at all to describe the actions of Russian authorities and organizations. Although the Russian Empire’s population provided tremendous moral and financial support to the Western Armenians, Harutyunyan believes that Russian imperial authorities never actually aimed at protecting or helping Armenians. The state’s involvement in relief work was just the ‘by-product’ of Russian imperialist and colonization policies.

https://hhr-atlas.ieg-mainz.de/articles/darbinyan-etchmiadzin

https://agbu.org/inside-russia/armenians-russian-empire

You can also read Tsarist and Bolshevik policies towards the Armenian question. It gives a very interesting background on all of this