At an August 31 news conference in Yerevan, Pashinian was asked whether he is pressing Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev to free Vardanyan and other Armenians remaining in Azerbaijani captivity.
“How did it happen so that Ruben Vardanyan renounced his Russian citizenship?” he replied. “Who advised or instructed him to take that step? Who sent him to Armenia, Nagorno Karabakh and for what purpose and with what promises?”
The remarks were denounced by Armenian opposition leaders and other critics. They said Pashinian thus echoed Azerbaijani leaders’ earlier claims that Vardanyan was dispatched to Karabakh by Moscow to serve Russian interests there. They charged that Pashinian is thus helping Baku to legitimize and prolong the prominent tycoon’s imprisonment.
Vardanyan, who held the second-highest post in Karabakh’s leadership from November 2022 to February 2023, was arrested at an Azerbaijani checkpoint in the Lachin corridor as he fled the region along with tens of thousands of its ordinary residents following an Azerbaijani military offensive. He was charged with “financing terrorism,” illegally entering Karabakh and supplying its armed forces with military equipment. He denies the accusations.
Vardanyan’s office said Azerbaijani interrogators asked him questions “in connection with” Pashinian’s comments.
“Having received confirmation of the information about [Pashinian’s] statement in a [phone] conversation with his family, Ruben Vardanyan asked to share his position in a format open to the public,” read its statement.
“Firstly, each person thinks about the actions of another person based on the models and principles of his life,” it quoted him as saying tartly. “Secondly, if the prime minister had any questions for me, he had the opportunity to ask them during our last meeting in November 2022, when I was still the state minister of Artsakh. Nevertheless, I am still ready to answer any of his questions within my capabilities.”
According to the statement, Vardanyan also said he had told Pashinian in 2018 that only “the fate of Artsakh” could force him to “intervene in Armenian politics.”
“As I have always stated openly and consistently, the events of 2020 and lingering threats to Artsakh became a turning point for me. Since then, all my actions have been dictated by concern for the fate of Artsakh and its people,” added Vardanyan.
Pashinian did not immediately react to the tycoon’s response to his controversial statement. His press secretary, Nazeli Baghdasarian, did not answer phone calls from RFE/RL’s Armenian Service.
Vardanyan was appointed as Karabakh state minister November 2022 one month before Russian President Vladimir Putin formally granted his request to be stripped of Russian citizenship. He criticized Pashinian’s policy on the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict during and after his brief tenure that was cut short in March 2023 under Azerbaijani pressure.
Putin pointed to Vardanyan’s renunciation of Russian citizenship when he was asked in December 2023 whether Moscow is doing anything to secure his release. He also implied that Pashinian’s government is not interested in the release of seven other former Karabakh leaders who were also captured by Azerbaijan in September 2023.
Commenting on the tycoon’s fate on August 31, Pashinian also told journalists to keep in mind “who was stressing that Vardanyan is a citizen of another country.”
Born and raised in Armenia, Vardanyan is a former investment banker who made his fortune in Russia in the 1990s and 2000s. He is also known as a philanthropist who has financed many charity projects in Armenia and Karabakh. In another statement issued from an Azerbaijani prison and circulated by his wife in May, the 56-year-old said that he does not regret relocating to Karabakh in September 2022 one year before it was recaptured by Baku.