Ivan Boyko18:24, 04/17/24

The odious Armenian politician, businessman and Putin’s biggest friend in the South Caucasus, Ruben Vardanyan, has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. With the note “for the development of peaceful initiatives.” The Kremlin is actively lobbying for Vardanyan’s nomination, as they plan to receive political dividends from this status. Focus writes about this .

Vardanyan himself is known as one of the leaders of the Russian offshore company Troika Dialog. According to an OCCRP investigation, money was secretly transferred through this company to Putin’s close friends. In 2006-2013, more than $4.6 billion passed through the accounts of Vardanyan’s offshore networks. In 2020, the main Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, recently destroyed by the Kremlin regime, accused Vardanyan of bribery in the amount of about $50 million.

In 2022, Vardanyan, like other Putin proxies, was included in the draft of new US sanctions.

In June 2023, on the initiative of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), he was included in the Ukrainian database of accomplices of Russian aggression “Peacemaker” with the characteristic: “An accomplice of Russian-fascist invaders and terrorists. An accomplice in the crimes of the Russian authorities against Ukraine and its citizens… is subject to immediate detention and transfer to law enforcement agencies of Ukraine or NATO countries.”

Two months later, the former head of the Security Council of the Armenian enclave in Karabakh, Samvel Babayan, told Public TV of Armenia that in 2022-2023 Vardanyan served as a Russian agent in the South Caucasus. According to the influential publication The Washington Times, there is also a connection between Vardanyan and the ayatollah regime.

Using the international authority of the Nobel Committee, Kremlin propagandists hope to whiten Vardanyan in the eyes of the West.

If he receives one of the most prestigious world awards, then under the aura of a “peacemaker”, Moscow will be able to use him again in the future in its intrigues in the South Caucasus. After all, at the beginning of last year, the Kremlin considered Vardanyan as a real candidate for the post of Prime Minister of Armenia – in the event of the overthrow of the pro-Western Nikol Pashinyan.

The ex-minister and former deputy minister of defense of Armenia spoke almost openly about this, and the Public TV of the republic even blacklisted Vardanyan due to attacks on the head of government.

(C)UNIAN 2024