Azerbaijan Arrests Former Nagorno-Karabakh Separatist Leader, Ruben Vardanyan

Azerbaijan says it has arrested the former leader of the Nagorno-Karabakh separatist government as he tried to cross the border into Armenia.

The arrest of Ruben Vardanyan was announced by the Azerbaijani border guard on Wednesday.

According to the border guard, Vardanyan has been brought to the country’s capital, Baku, and has been handed over to “relevant state bodies”, which will decide his further fate.

The border guard released a photo on Wednesday showing Vardanyan being held by two border guards next to a helicopter. It is not known when and where the photo was taken.

Vardanyan lived for many years in Russia, where he made a fortune by owning a large investment bank. In 2022, he moved to Nagorno-Karabakh, where he served as head of the regional government for several months before resigning earlier this year.

After a lightning offensive last week, Azerbaijan took back control of the breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh from Armenian separatists. Since then, almost 50,000 ethnic Armenians, a third of the population, have left the region.

Nagorno-Karabakh is internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan, but has been ruled by Armenian separatists for over 30 years.