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The EU and its US ally should take equal and tough action against these oligarch agents of Moscow – and ignore any PR efforts to hoodwink us otherwise.
What do Ruben Vardanyan and Ilan Shor have in common? Both men are post-Soviet oligarchs who made their billions through Kremlin ties. Both are, by varying degrees, under restrictions or sanctions imposed by the western governments or their allies. And both were dispatched by Moscow to ferment unrest and then take power in Armenia and Moldova respectively, to maintain Russia’s influence in Euroasia by any means necessary.
Vardanyan and Shor all represent the same threat to Armenia and Moldova’s attempts to build western liberal democracies, entrench the rule of law, and integrate away from Russian-dominated Eurasia into Europe. Yet they are not being treated the same. If we are serious about defending and upholding western values and norms, they should be when both are Kremlin proxies.
Just consider the facts.
Vardanyan was parachuted in by Moscow to become State Minister of an unrecognised and illegal ethnic Armenian squatter state lying within the sovereign territory of Azerbaijan to maintain it within Russia’s sphere of influence and use it as a launching pad to remove Armenia’s pro-European Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan. Shor is accused of funding 130,000 fraudulent votes in last month’s Moldovan referendum on EU membership that very nearly succeeded in tipping the country toward joining the Russian-controlled Eurasian Economic Union instead.
If the West is serious about countering these Russian-inspired revanchist tendencies and upholding free, fair, and democratic values they should treat both Kremlin agents equally for who they are: Russian-made men on a mission to destabilise countries seeking to join Europe. It also means the western media should be careful to report responsibly – and accurately – on the activities and motivations of these very similar Kremlin-controlled oligarchs.
Yet, it seems, some elements of the media are willing to be hoodwinked by well-oiled public relations operations. Of the two oligarchs and Kremlin agents, PR consultants working for Vardanyan are making loud noise and spreading fake news about their client. This is being broadcast to maximum volume in a bid to undermine COP29, the world’s annual climate change summit, which Azerbaijan – where Vardanyan resides in jail, awaiting trial – is about to host.
According to the spin campaign managed by the expensive American PR firm Edelman, Vardanyan is a philanthropist and father. He may well be both; however, these are no excuses. This Armenian-born, Russian-made, Ukrainian-sanctioned crooked oligarch made the money he showers on others in the Wild West dash to crony capitalism that dominated 1990s and still post-Soviet Russia – a pattern he shares with Shor. Russia’s secret FSB police collected huge volumes of kompromat on all three allowing it to control them as puppets.
Vardanyan has been accused of money-laundering on an epic scale, washing $4.6bn through the notorious ‘Troika Laundromat’ centred on the Russian private bank Troika Dialog which he founded and ran through a motley collection of 70 offshore shell companies. His interests include a top management role in Volga Dnieper, a major Russian military logistics provider – hence his sanctioning by Ukraine’s Government as a party to the Kremlin’s criminal and illegal war.
Complicit in Russia’s illegal war, it’s perhaps not surprising that Vardanyan’s fingerprints are also all over yet another illegal Kremlin-backed occupation. As ‘State Minister’ of the fake micro-state ‘Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh’, Vardanyan became the figurehead of a thirty-year Armenian-Russian military project operating inside Azerbaijan’s sovereign borders. Controlled by Armenia, and with support from its military and financial allies Russia and Iran, this pseudo-republic could scarcely have found a more representative leader than an ethnic Armenian backed by the FSB, Russia’s successor to the KGB. When the puppet state finally collapsed last year, Vardanyan was intercepted by the Azerbaijani authorities attempting to flee the territory.
To any independent observer, the case against Vardanyan appears open and shut. In the interests of full disclosure, I cannot be independent about this man: As a proud Ukrainian patriot born in Britain, I could not be as he is a Kremlin agent who supports a genocidal war intent on destroying Ukraine and Ukrainian identity.
Vardanyan should be treated and judged in the same way as Shor, who made his corrupt fortune through the 2014 Moldovan bank fraud scandal that saw funds equivalent to 12% of Moldova’s GDP transferred to offshore shell companies and disappeared.
So, what steps should western powers take towards these oligarchs on the Kremlin’s staff?
Firstly, we should not believe the hype of expensive PR companies, whose job it is to deflect and hide the truth about them.
Secondly, the West should act to place western sanctions on those the government of Ukraine have already sanctioned. If we want to maximise support to our allies in Kyiv, we should make sure there are no loopholes. If Ukraine believes a crooked agent of the Kremlin like Vardanyan is a threat to its survival, then so should the West.
The US, UK, and EU all have imposed sanctions on Shor for spearheading Russian interference in the politics of Moldova. There is no justification for why Vardanyan should be treated any differently for his spearheading of Russian interference in the political affairs of both Azerbaijan and Armenia.
What Vardanyan has done to assist Russian empire-building through war and military occupation, Shor is doing through election fraud. In the final analysis, the intended result is the same.
The EU and its US ally should take equal and tough action against these oligarch agents of Moscow – and ignore any PR efforts to hoodwink us otherwise.
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Taras Kuzio is a professor of political science at the National University of Kyiv Mohyla Academy, author of Russian Nationalism and the Russian-Ukrainian War (2022) and Crimea 2014-2024: Where Russia’s War Started and Where Ukraine Will Win (2024).
