According to Armenian media, Vardanyan was secretly transported from Karabakh in a truck belonging to the peacekeepers to be taken to Moscow for new instructions and assignments.
We are told that in Moscow Vardanyan showed no particular desire to return to Khankendi and agreed to do so only under outright pressure and threats. The scandalous oligarch was returned to Khankendi in the same manner: in a “peacekeepers'” truck.
An old wisdom says one cannot step in the same river twice. Much less in the same political project, especially a failed one. Vardanyan may be returned to Khankendi, but the situation may hardly be reverted to the state of early fall of 2022, when Ruben Karlenovich waxed poetic, promising his “Artsakh brothers” mountains of gold, milk and honey, sunshine and rainbows, a second wind of “miatsum”, and lobbying support. It will not be possible now to “reset” the deplorable results of his efforts.
The second and much more important question is with what instructions and assignments the provocateur oligarch returns to Khankendi. Many experts believe that Vardanyan’s return is a clear sign of the aggravation game his masters are playing in the region. The “legislative initiatives” of Arayik Harutyunyan, who suddenly decided to specify the powers of the “president of Karabakh” and the transfer of power, should this position become vacant “in a military situation”, is another indirect, but very telling sign that another aggravation game is being planned in the camp of Khankendi separatists. Vardanyan’s secret trip to Moscow shows exactly where the order for this scenario comes from. All the more so that Arayik Harutyunyan claims there are more weapons in Karabakh than in Armenia. Finally, one cannot rule out a more cynical approach—the assumption that Türkiye will not bother to help Azerbaijan, being too busy dealing with the aftermath of the earthquake.
We shall not comment on whether Russia will bother to help Armenia, being too busy with the war in Ukraine. 44 days in the fall of 2020 showed that some in Moscow expected and still expect Armenia to do its own dirty work of disrupting pipelines, destabilizing the situation in Azerbaijan, and so on.
But rest assured: Azerbaijan has enough power and resources to stop the provocation games, should the separatists in Khankendi cross the “red lines”. The proof of that is Operation Farrukh, Operation Vengeance, and the 44-day war. If Vardanyan and his masters learned nothing from those, it means that all the responsibility for the consequences of these games will fall on them. And these consequences will be the most severe for the masterminds behind the provocations.
