Ruben Vardanyan was a popular speaker of a small, off-the-map region. Reporter for Rain TV
Rain TV journalist Alexander Atasuntsev in the "Reporter" telegram channel referred to the announced "interviews" of the former military and political leadership of Artsakh illegally held in Baku, distributed by the Azerbaijani TV company. The journalist writes:
"Of all the detainees, Ruben Vardanyan stands out the most. And not because he is a world-famous billionaire and philanthropist, but because Vardanyan was not a "defeated separatist". he moved to Nagorno Karabakh in 2022, when Armenia had already lost the war, and that region was, in fact, already doomed. He did not fight against Azerbaijan, he did not make "separatist" decisions.
On the one hand, his arrest was predictable: open hostility was shown several times in Baku, and on the other hand, the question arose: why him? Azerbaijan, for example, detained Vardanyan, while allowing Samvel Babayan, the former commander of the NKR Defense Army, to leave Nagorno-Karabakh, who in 1994 signed a cease-fire agreement with Baku on behalf of the unrecognized republic. In other words, Babayan signed the capitulation of Azerbaijan in the first Karabakh war.
It seems that it was more logical to settle scores with him, but no. Vardanyan did not manage to do practically anything during the short period of his tenure as the Minister of State. In all his interviews and statements, he was discreet, he did not make bellicose statements, he did not advance any idea of revanchism, he spoke more about Karabakh from the point of view of the need to protect the Armenian population and heritage there. The last time I visited Stepanakert was when Vardanyan was newly appointed to that position.
It was just a few weeks before the closure and blockade of Lachine Corridor. Since then, foreign journalists have not been able to enter Karabakh. The people of Karabakh have always, in general, mistrusted newcomers, and after losing the war, they became more isolated and found themselves in a gloomy foreboding.
The last 40 years had taught them that the people from outside would be temporary at best, and at worst, they would abandon them at the most inopportune moment, like the Soviet internal troops, like the Russian peacekeepers. Vardanyan's arrival in Karabakh was viewed philosophically. "It can't be worse, but suddenly he can succeed." And in such conditions, as a state minister, nothing was expected from him, but Vardanyan made a breakthrough in another place. Probably, during the entire existence of the NKR, there has never been any Karabakh politician, be it president or commander, who was quoted as often by the world press as Vardanyan. He was a world-renowned speaker from a small, off-the-map region. Apparently, this is what predetermined his place on the "black list" of Baku.
