“Whoever scares you with another war is misleading you again,” Vardanyan appealed to Armenians, clearly alluding to Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s justification of unilateral Armenian concessions to Azerbaijan. “There are many other ways to lose the right to own your state in today’s world. It is not necessary to conquer it militarily again. The war is ongoing, but now it is possible to conquer without a single shot, using technology, finances, economic dependence, infrastructure, information control, and political warfare.
“If you continue to live in illusions that everything will eventually end and you will be able to earn a living in peace and be happy … Believe me: this is self-deception.”
“After losing Artsakh, we will also lose Armenia in the coming years if we do not radically change our attitude towards the concepts of elite, power, state, and who should lead us,” he warned in the message recorded by his family during his regular phone call from an Azerbaijani prison.
Without mentioning Pashinian by name, Vardanyan appeared to compare the Armenian premier to Kaj Nazar (Nazar the Brave), a satirically inept character from a famous Armenian fairy tale.
The Armenian-born billionaire and philanthropist, who served as Karabakh premier from November 2022 to February 2023, also said: “I am shocked by the depth of hatred that the current leadership of Armenia has for the Artsakh people.”
He poured scorn on the “moral cripples” who lambaste Karabakh’s ethnic Armenian population for fleeing the region following Azerbaijan’s large-scale military assault in September 2023.
They presumably include parliament Alen Simonian, the Armenian parliament speaker and a leading member of the ruling Civil Contract party. Echoing Pashinian’s earlier claims, Simonian claimed last month that Karabakh’s army did not put up strong resistance against Azerbaijani troops.
At least 198 soldiers and 25 civilian residents of Karabakh were killed during the 24-hour hostilities. The Azerbaijani Defense Ministry acknowledged roughly 200 combat deaths among its military personnel involved in the operation.
“For your information: during the period when the last [Azerbaijan] military operation took place, the officially recognized number of casualties on the other side was four times higher than their losses during the same period in the 44-Day War [of 2020,]” argued Vartanian.
The 56-year-old tycoon was arrested at an Azerbaijani checkpoint in the Lachin corridor during the resulting exodus of Karabakh’s population. He rejects a long list of accusations levelled against him. Seven other former Karabakh leaders are facing similar charges in their separate trial that also began on January 17.
In his latest appeal, Vardanyan announced that he has decided to “suspend” the hunger strike which he began on February 18 in protest against the trials regarded by him as a “farce.” He claimed to be in “excellent” shape despite looking frail and gaunt during his recent appearances at an Azerbaijani military court.
The images circulated by Azerbaijani state media added to public anger in Armenia with the Armenian government’s cautious stance on the trials. It was not until February 24 that the government denounced the “mock trials” through Foreign Ministry Ararat Mirzoyan. Pashinian’s administration has since continued to face opposition accusations that it is doing little to try to secure the release of at least 23 Armenians remaining in Azerbaijani captivity.
Pashinian was already accused by critics last fall of helping Baku legitimize Vardanyan’s continuing imprisonment with his scathing comments about the former Karabakh premier made during an August 2024 news conference in Yerevan. Some of Pashinian’s staunch supporters continued to attack Vardanyan on social media even after the start of his trial.
