The ‘state minister’ position offered to Vardanyan, who has amassed a large fortune in Russia, is equivalent to ‘prime minister’ of the separatist regime in Khankendi. While speaking to Russia’s RBK TV channel about the offer, the billionaire said that both deliberating the offer and working out certain points require time. He believes it is necessary to research whether accepting the offer will help save ‘Artsakh’ as a subject. He added that Arayik’s proposal alone would not suffice to take on the position, he ‘can decide to accept only with the consent of the people’.

Most political analysts do not rule out that the course of events may hide Ruben Vardanyan’s intention to assume the position of the Prime Minister of Armenia in the immediate future. Some sources speculate that the Armenian society is interested in having a stronger political figure in power to replace Nikol Pashinyan, who signed the capitulation papers on 10 November 2020.

As Nikol Pashinyan blamed the military defeat mainly on the former Minister of Defence David Tonoyan and then had him arrested accusing him of arms deals, both the revanchist forces in the Armenian society and Tonoyan’s friends abroad grew extremely dissatisfied. His supports and patrons were urged to become even more active as around a week ago the court refused to release Tonoyan from pretrial detention on bail.

One might ask: ‘What does the Ruben Vardanyan plot have to do with it?’ That is the most interesting part.

Social network posts say that Ruben Vardanyan went to school number 20 named after John Kirakosyan in Iravan (Yerevan) in the 70s. That is when the future billionaire made friends with David Tonoyan and Anushavan Khachatryan, who were younger than him and were in the same grade.

Years later, Khachatryan became one of Vardanyan’s business partners in Russia. As David Tonoyan’s career skyrocketed in Armenia, the duo then turned into a trio. As Tonoyan was appointed the Minister of Defence, the corruption schemes in Armenia’s state defence budget unfolded unlimited opportunities for this trio to grow rich.

With Tonoyan’s blessing, Meditech LLC gained the monopoly in supplying the Armenian army with medical equipment. The director of the company was Tonoyan’s former classmate Anushavan Khachatryan. At a time when the COVID-19 pandemic was taking over the globe, his school friend had a blooming business supplying the Armenian army with laboratory equipment, medical reagents and gloves, blood transfusion systems, syringes, and most importantly, artificial ventilation machines at inflated prices.

Khachatryan’s Meditech had even monopolized the food supply for the Armenian army due to the Armenian Defence Minister Tonoyan’s patronage, who at this point had become a business partner of sorts. Interestingly, Tonoyan’s son and Khachatryan’s nephew, who embezzled enormous funds allocated for the Armenian armed forces, were both doing their military service in Karabakh, which is an Azerbaijani territory. They were both transferred to Armenia right before the war. In other terms, they prioritized the lives of their loved ones over the ordinary Armenian soldier, whom they deliberately robbed.

It is quite possible that Vardanyan, who has been growing quite active recently, will attempt to have his schoolmate Tonoyan released from pretrial detention. He has already set into action. In this regard, his de-facto business partner Khachatryan is also expected to chip in one way or another. The most important thing at the moment is which forces are interested in having Tonoyan released and how the subsequent events will unfold.

AzVision.az 

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