This article was originally published by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and is reprinted with permission.
A Russian billionaire of Armenian descent has decided to renounce his Russian citizenship and move to the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh.
Ruben Vardanyan said he made the decision to move to Nagorno-Karabakh with an understanding of all the risks he may face.
“This was a difficult but right decision,” Vardanyan said in his video statement issued on September 1.
Vardanyan stressed that after the 2020 Armenian-Azerbaijan war over Nagorno-Karabakh, which resulted in Baku regaining control over big chunks of the disputed region and seven adjacent districts, “many people in Artsakh (the Armenian name of Nagorno-Karabakh) started feeling that they have been abandoned.”
“I believe that after the 2020 war, we, Armenians of the whole world, must be together with Artsakh,” Vardanyan said, adding that after settling in Nagorno-Karabakh he will move all his assets in Russia to his family fund.
Vardanyan’s announcement comes less than a week after Azerbaijani forces took control over the key town of Lachin, linking the breakaway region with Armenia. The town had been under the control of Russian peacekeepers since the six-week war that left more than 6,500 dead ended in November 2020 with a Moscow-brokered cease-fire.
Baku last month forcibly took control of several strategic heights near the disputed region, and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said that people who “illegally settled” in villages in the Lachin district should leave the area “on their own will.” He added that families of Azerbaijanis who had been forced to leave the territory 30 years ago would be returning.
Nagorno-Karabakh, which along with the seven adjacent districts had been under ethnic Armenian control for nearly three decades prior to the war in 2020, is internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan.
Vardanyan, 54, was born in Yerevan. He is the former chief executive officer and shareholder of the Troika Dialog investment bank that was bought by Sberbank in 2011.
Last year, Forbes estimated Vardanyan’s assets at $1 billion.
Since Russia launched its ongoing unprovoked invasion of Ukraine in late February, many oligarchs and businesspeople have left Russia amid Western sanctions targeting some Russian tycoons close to Kremlin over its aggression against Ukraine.