Billionaire Ruben Vardanian, a former Russian citizen of Armenian descent, has been removed from the post of prime minister in the de facto government of the breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh less than four months after he was appointed, most of which has been dominated by an Azerbaijani blockade into the area.
Nagorno-Karabakh's de facto ethnic-Armenian leader, Arayik Harutiunian, announced the decree on relieving Vardanian of his duties on February 23.
Harutiunian then offered the prime minister's post to Nagorno-Karabakh's de facto prosecutor general, Gurgen Nersisian.
Media reports in Armenia indicated that Azerbaijan had made the removal of Vardanian one of its conditions in reaching a peace agreement during ongoing talks between Baku and Yerevan.
He has also publicly clashed with Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian over the role of Russian peacekeepers in the region, as well as being in office during an Azerbaijani blockade of Nagorno-Karabakh, now in its third month.
Vardanian publicly renounced his Russian citizenship in September and said he made the decision to move to Nagorno-Karabakh with an understanding of all the risks he may face.
He said at the time that after the 2020 Armenian-Azerbaijan war over Nagorno-Karabakh, which resulted in Azerbaijan's regaining control over big chunks of the disputed region and seven adjacent districts, "Armenians around the whole world" must be together with Nagorno-Karabakh.
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.
The 2020 war ended with a Russia-brokered cease-fire under which Moscow deployed about 2,000 troops to the region to serve as peacekeepers.
Vardanian was born in the Armenian capital, Yerevan in 1968. He is the former chief executive officer of Russia’s Troika Dialog investment bank, which was bought by Sberbank in 2011.
In 2021, Forbes estimated Vardanian's assets at $1 billion. Forbes has called Vardanian one of the "founding fathers" of Russia's stock market.