Ruben Karlenovič Vardanyan - photo by Aleksey Chalabyan a.k.a Xelgen - CC BY-SA 4.0
Having made a fortune in Russia, Armenian businessman Ruben Vardanyan moved to the then disputed territory of Nagorno Karabakh where he became de facto State Minister. Arrested by Azerbaijan in 2023, he is now on trial in Baku. After going on hunger strike last month, Vardanyan issued an audio statement last week, creating further headaches for the Pashinyan government in Armenia
Earlier this year, 16 prominent former leaders of the former Nagorno Karabakh political entity situated within Azerbaijan went on trial in Baku. The trial was largely ignored by both local and international media until last week, when one of them, Russian-Armenian billionaire Ruben Vardanyan, now on hunger strike, issued an audio statement from his prison cell through his family. The others, including three former de facto presidents, are being tried separately.
Born in Yerevan, Vardanyan made his fortune in Russia, but has invested in businesses and philanthropic projects throughout Armenia. One of the best known is UWC Dilijan, an international college established in 2014. He also co-founded the annual $1 million Aurora Prize that enabled him to establish links with global public figures such as former USAID administrator Samantha Power and Hollywood actor George Clooney. Even so, Vardanyan has been no stranger to controversy.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has sanctioned Vardanyan for his links with Russia and in 2019 the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) cited Lithuanian accusations that Vardanyan operated a Russian multi-billion money laundering scheme, the Troika Laundromat, through his bank. Vardanyan denies the claims. Vardanyan has often been accused of seeking power to maintain Moscow’s influence in Armenia.
Following the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, he renounced his Russian citizenship and moved to Karabakh. Some accuse him of doing so to avoid further international sanctions. Vardanyan was appointed de facto State Minister in the breakaway region in September 2022 before its dissolution on 1 January 2024. Despite claims of close links with Moscow, however, three months later he refused to allow Russian peacekeepers to install scanners on the only road connecting Armenia to Karabakh.
Azerbaijan claimed that landmines and precious minerals were illegally being transported through de facto Azerbaijani territory between the two entities. Vardanyan also organised a group of Karabakh Armenians to prevent Azerbaijani officials from checking Karabakh's Kashen mine soon afterwards, ushering in the semi-blockade of Karabakh by Azerbaijan. Even then, while many activists in Armenia and its diaspora claimed Karabakh would starve, it was Vardanyan that publicly declared that it would not.
Even while Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan continued to blame Moscow for the situation, Vardanyan instead told international media that Russian peacekeepers were bringing in supplies in convoys made up of dozens of trucks on an almost daily basis.
Nonetheless, in February 2023, Vardanyan was dismissed by the then de facto authorities. Even then, his own network of charitable organisations in Karabakh made sure that the most vulnerable parts of the population, especially the elderly and disabled, were supplied with bread and cooked meals. The semi-blockade ended after 10 months in September 2023, when Baku launched a military operation to disarm Karabakh Armenian defence forces. Over 100,000 fled the region, including Vardanyan and the previous de facto leadership.
Many among the de facto administration were detained as they passed through the checkpoint on the way to Armenia. Now they stand accused in Baku. For Vardanyan, however, the stakes are potentially higher. Not only had he been most vocal in rejecting any talk of Karabakh’s gradual integration into Azerbaijan, he also gave a controversial interview where he mentioned operations that assassinated several Azerbaijani and Ottoman Turkish officials a century earlier. It is believed Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev took this as a personal threat.
Held in pre-trail detention by Baku for over a year, Vardanyan went on hunger strike for the second time on 19 February. In an audio statement released by his family last week, he says he is doing so not to demand his immediate release, but to protest against what he claims to be a “judicial farce”, demanding international observers at his trial and to be alongside the former Karabakh Armenian officials. Until recently, the Pashinyan government has been largely silent on the trial.
Pashinyan and Vardanyan have long been at odds, with the former also questioning why the latter renounced his Russian citizenship and moved to Karabakh. Armenian officials have only now started to comment after former de facto president, Arayik Harutyunyan, admitted during his own trial that it was Pashinyan who ordered missile attacks on Azerbaijan’s city of Ganja during the 2020 war.
In response, Pashinyan claims that Harutyunyan was given psychotropic drugs, something that the former official denies. Yerevan now accuses Baku of holding “sham trials”. Nonetheless, Vardanyan’s American lawyer, who is prevented from visiting Azerbaijan to meet his client in person, still accuses the Pashinyan government of failing to “take basic steps”.
Last week, a finalist for Vardanyan’s Aurora Prize, Pakistani human rights activist Syeda Ghulam Fatimasays, announced that she intends to visit Baku to attend the trial. Vardanyan also now speaks of peace, and appeared to admit the massacre of Azerbaijanis civilians in Khojaly in 1992. He linked the tragedy to the earlier pogrom of Armenians in Sumgait in 1988. This cycle of violence will continue until “real long-term peace” is established, he said.
He also took a moment to acknowledge the humanity of some of his Azerbaijani captors while recognising the negative attitude towards him by others in Armenia. This marks a reversal by the increasingly frail-looking Vardanyan. In 2023, he even called on Yerevan residents to remove the “traitors” in power during municipal elections, a clear reference to Pashinyan’s Civil Contract. Vardanyan instead urged voters to choose a candidate from the Country for Living party that he financed.
At the beginning of this month, the party’s leader, Mane Tandilyan, also launched her own hunger strike so Vardanyan would end his. Given the considerable weight loss, his supporters claim his life is in danger. Such concerns have only increased following news that the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has been instructed by Baku to leave Azerbaijan. It is the only international body with access to the 23 ethnic Armenians still held by Azerbaijan.