The former head of the Government of the Nagorno-Karabakh enclave and former Russian businessman Rubén Vardanián was arrested yesterday while trying to flee among the tens of thousands of Karabakh refugees who were leaving this region of the South Caucasus. Upon reaching the border, Azerbaijani guards stopped him and detained him.
The arrest of the former prime minister of this separatist region was confirmed by his wife. “This morning, my husband, Ruben Vardanián, a philanthropist, businessman and former Minister of State of the Republic of Artsakh, was arrested and captured by the Azerbaijani authorities at the border, while trying to leave Artsakh along with thousands of other Armenians,” said Veronika Zenobend. on Telegram. Azerbaijan’s border service reported that he had been transferred to the capital, Baku.
Azerbaijan also arrested the former head of the Nagorno-Karabakh Security Council, Vitali Balasanian, at the border. The Azerbaijani Army announced it on Telegram without giving more details.
Born in Yerevan, capital of Armenia, Vardanián was a well-known businessman in Russia, founder of the investment bank Troika Dialog. In September 2022 he announced his renunciation of Russian citizenship and moved to Nagorno-Karabakh. A month later the president of that self-proclaimed republic, Arayik Harutyunián, proposed to him to head the Government.
But his time in politics was brief. Last February he was dismissed. The billionaire then said that it was due to the existing differences with Harutyunyan, although he continued to unite them with a “common idea.” Despite leaving the Government, he decided to stay and continue working in the region.
Nagorno-Karabakh is an internationally recognized region as part of Azerbaijan but populated mostly by Armenians. As the Soviet Union dismembered, it declared independence, sparking the first of two wars between Azerbaijan and Armenia.
The adventure of this small state of 4,400 square kilometers ended last week, when on September 19 and 20 the Azerbaijani Army launched a lightning military operation that forced the separatist authorities to surrender. Azerbaijan has already held two meetings with Karabakh leaders to negotiate how to reintegrate the territory into its administrative system.
Vardanián and Balasanián are the first detained among the current or former Karabakh leaders. Their arrests were the most prominent political incidents on the fourth day of the Karabakh exodus. This began on Sunday, when, assuming the recovery of the region was certain, Azerbaijan opened the Lachin corridor, the only passage that connects Nagorno-Karabakh with Armenia and which the Baku forces have kept blocked since December 2022.
After the victory of its military offensive, Baku promised the Armenians living in Karabakh “a change for the better”, assured that it seeks to “build a joint life on the basis of peace” and rejected the accusations of “ethnic cleansing” that it made. the Prime Minister of Armenia, Nikol Pashinian.
But tens of thousands of people believe that life will be better for them in the sister country. Television images yesterday continued to show long queues of cars and trucks on the road that crosses the Lachín corridor. The distance between the region’s capital, Stepanakert, and the border is 77 kilometers, but it is taking about 30 hours to travel that distance. In that town of Kornidzor, already in Armenia, a humanitarian center has been established. As of yesterday, 50,243 refugees had arrived there, according to data released by the Government of Armenia. That represents more than a third of the population of Nagorno-Karabakh, which was estimated at 120,000 inhabitants.
Western governments are trying to pressure the president of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliev, to allow the sending of international observers, because he fears a humanitarian disaster among the local population. “It would be a sign that Azerbaijan is serious in its commitments to the security and well-being of the people of Nagorno-Karabakh,” German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock wrote on X (former Twitter).
The head of the United States Development Agency, Samantha Power, is in the region. After visiting Kornidzor, she moved to Baku to discuss “the humanitarian situation” with Aliev.
