Ruben Vardanyan steps down from Artsakh prime minister post after less than 4 months in office

The ultra-wealthy entrepreneur and investor Ruben Vardanyan has been dismissed from his prime minister’s post in the breakaway Artsakh Republic, also known as Nagorno-Karabakh.

The decision to relieve Vardanyan of his responsibilities in the government was announced during a meeting headed by Artsakh President Arayik Harutyunyan, who thanked Vardanyan for his work. “All of this time,” he said, “Ruben Vadanyan and I were together, monitoring daily events in both Artsakh and the outside world, constantly exchanging ideas for decisions to be made in the current situation.”

Ruben Vardanyan is the former owner of the Troika Dialog investment company and founder of the Skolkovo business school in Russia. In 2021, Forbes estimated his worth to be a billion dollars, ranking him 116 among Russia’s 200 richest people.

Vardanyan accepted the invitation to join the Artsakh government on November 4, after moving to the republic and renouncing his Russian citizenship. (He also has an Armenian passport.) His term as prime minister thus lasted less than four months.

The unrecognized republic’s Prosecutor General Gurgen Nersisyan has now received on offer to become Vardanyan’s successor.

In 2019, Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) published a series of investigations about Vardanyan and his “Troika Laundromat,” tracing $4.5 billion in hidden transfers to Russia’s most influential people.