STRATEGIC ASSESSMENT. The Kremlin vowed to “protect the rights” of Ruben Vardanyan, the ex-leader of the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh detained by Azerbaijan, only to backtrack on the promise moments later when journalists pointed out that Vardanyan is no longer a Russian citizen.
Azerbaijan’s state border service said Wednesday it detained Vardanyan as he attempted to cross the border into Armenia, alongside thousands of ethnic Armenians fleeing the breakaway region.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said he was unaware of the former investment banker’s arrest when asked by reporters for comment.
“In any case, he’s a Russian citizen, so one way or another we have to get information. Of course, we will protect his rights,” Peskov said. But when reporters pointed out that Vardanyan was no longer a citizen of Russia, Peskov said: “If he renounced his Russian citizenship, it is a different matter.”
He did not provide further clarification. Armenian-born Vardanyan had been a Russian citizen when he co-founded the Russian investment banking firm Troika Dialog and served as founding president at the Moscow School of Management at Skolkovo in the mid-2000s.
He later renounced his Russian citizenship and moved to Nagorno-Karabakh, where he served as the head of the disputed territory between November 2022 and February 2023. President Vladimir Putin approved Vardnyan’s application to revoke his Russian citizenship in December last year.
Following his detention Wednesday, Vardanyan was brought to Azerbaijan’s capital of Baku, the country’s border agency said in a statement.
Azerbaijan captured Nagorno-Karabakh in a lightning offensive last week, with Russian peacekeepers deployed there after a 2020 war over the territory refusing to intervene. Yerevan said Wednesday that more than one-third of Nagorno-Karabakh’s population of 120,000 has fled the enclave since Azerbaijan crushed the rebels’ decades-long fight for independent statehood.
Armenian diplomats said they will seek consular access to Vardanyan as a citizen of Armenia, an official who spoke on condition of anonymity told Russia’s state-run RIA Novosti news agency.
Ruben Vardanyan, the former co-owner of the Russian financial group Troika Dialog, has been arrested by Azerbaijani border guards as he was trying to leave the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh, Baku’s State Border Service reported on Wednesday.
The Armenian businessman and politician, who renounced his Russian citizenship last year, was a minister in the self-proclaimed government of the breakaway region until February. Baku retook control of Nagorno-Karabakh in a swift military operation last week.
Vardanyan’s wife Veronika Zonabend told journalists that her husband was “taken prisoner” alongside “thousands of other Armenians” who were trying to leave the region. Azerbaijani authorities reported taking a senior leader of “Armenian separatists” into custody at the Lachin checkpoint. He was transported to Baku, where his fate will be decided, the statement said. Media in Azerbaijan have shown images of the detained billionaire.
The checkpoint where Vardanyan was apprehended is part of the so-called Lachin corridor, a key mountain road connecting Nagorno-Karabakh with Armenia. Baku installed it in April during a row with Yerevan over respective responsibilities under a 2020 armistice brokered by Russia, which had ended a 44-day war over the region.
The 55-year-old Yerevan-born entrepreneur made his fortune as an investor in Moscow in the 1990s. Troika Dialog, which grew into a multibillion-dollar enterprise, was bought by the country’s largest bank, now called Sber, in a deal finalized in 2012.
Vardanyan also led several venture capital projects apart from Troika. As of 2021, Forbes estimated his net worth at $1 billion.
He announced that he had renounced his Russian citizenship and relocated to Nagorno-Karabakh in September 2022 in a video address recorded in the region. He stated that it was his duty to move to “the center of Armenianhood” to invigorate its people and deflate tensions with Azerbaijan.
Vardanyan took a ministerial position in Nagorno-Karabakh the following month.
