The Crime of Building Bridges: An Open Letter on the Imprisonment of Ruben Vardanyan

The crime of building bridges

An open letter on the imprisonment of Ruben Vardanyan

To the Government of Azerbaijan and the international community:

 

There are trials intended to discover the truth. And there are trials designed to bury it beneath so many accusations that truth can no longer breathe.

The prosecution of Ruben Vardanyan belongs to the second category.

On September 27, 2023, as the Armenian population of Nagorno-Karabakh fled toward Armenia, Vardanyan was stopped at the border and taken into Azerbaijani custody. In February 2026, after proceedings before a military court, he was sentenced to 20 years in prison. He had faced more than 40 charges, including terrorism, war crimes, and crimes against humanity.

Amnesty International called the proceedings a “travesty,” citing an effectively closed hearing, evidence presented in a language Vardanyan could not understand, inadequate translation, and serious obstacles to preparing his defense. The Azerbaijani authorities reject this criticism and maintain that the trial met international standards. But justice cannot be established merely by the assurances of the state conducting the prosecution. It must be demonstrated through transparency, credible evidence, meaningful access to that evidence, and independent scrutiny. Those safeguards appear to have been gravely deficient.

The architecture is disturbingly familiar, and unmistakably Stalinist in spirit. First, isolate the defendant. Then overwhelm him with accusations. Replace evidence with volume, scrutiny with secrecy, and impartial judgment with a conclusion that appears to have been determined in advance. The courtroom remains, the judges remain, and the vocabulary of law remains, but justice itself has quietly left the building. What survives is not a genuine trial, but the theater of legality: a process in which accusation is treated as proof and the verdict precedes the evidence.

No serious person argues that Ruben Vardanyan, or anyone else, should stand above the law. Azerbaijan has the right to investigate credible allegations of individual criminal responsibility arising from a bitter and bloody conflict. Armenian and Azerbaijani victims alike deserve truth, recognition, justice, reparations, and protection against future violence. But justice must be more than vengeance dressed in legal robes.

By January 2025, Vardanyan reported that he had spent 340 days in solitary confinement and a further 23 days in a punishment cell. Amnesty International raised concerns about prolonged isolation, denial of basic hygiene, alleged pressure to sign falsified documents, and inadequate access to case materials. For long periods, his contact with his family was reportedly reduced to one short weekly telephone call. In July 2026, his wife stated that no family member had been permitted to visit him since his detention began.

Once a week, a voice travels through the prison wall to his wife. That is what remains of family life: a few monitored minutes, followed by another week of silence.

And who is this man whom the Azerbaijani state depicts as a criminal mastermind?

I first met Ruben many years ago, when Russia was opening its borders to the world, while interviewing him for my book The New Russian Business Leaders. As a professor of leadership, I continued to follow his career closely. Over the years, I became increasingly impressed by his determination to place his talents, influence, and resources in the service of others.

Ruben has always been a remarkable convener. He possesses the rare ability to bring together politicians, scientists, educators, business leaders, and philanthropists who might otherwise never find themselves in the same room. His purpose was not simply to enlarge his personal network, but to mobilize human talent around a shared ambition: creating a more humane world.

He exemplifies leadership at its best, not power accumulated for private advantage, but the capacity to connect people, give generously of oneself, and transform individual achievement into collective possibility. To see such a person imprisoned after proceedings condemned by a leading human rights organization is more than a personal tragedy. It is a profound injustice.

Ruben made his fortune in finance. He could have spent the rest of his life protecting it, multiplying it, and constructing monuments to himself. Instead, he turned much of that fortune outward.

He was a founder and the first president of the Moscow School of Management SKOLKOVO. He helped establish the United World College Dilijan, which brings young people from numerous countries to study together in Armenia. He co-founded Matena, an international school dedicated to developing a new generation of leaders and professionals.

He supported the restoration of Tatev Monastery and the revitalization of the surrounding region. The Wings of Tatev cableway, created at his initiative and stretching across a vast Armenian gorge toward the ancient monastery, is both an engineering marvel and a fitting symbol of his life: an attempt to reconnect what geography, history, and human folly had separated.

He also co-founded the Aurora Humanitarian Initiative and the Aurora Prize for Awakening Humanity, which honor individuals who risk their safety, freedom, and livelihoods so that others may survive. Aurora was conceived as gratitude transformed into action: the descendants of survivors of the Armenian Genocide honoring the courageous people who rescue others today.

A man who created an international award for moral courage is now being punished for having demonstrated courage himself.

Whatever one thinks of Vardanyan’s political judgment, his presence in Nagorno- Karabakh was never clandestine. He concealed neither his identity nor his convictions. He moved there publicly, driven by the sincere belief, perhaps politically mistaken, that the region represented something essential to Armenia’s soul and historical memory.

He remained during the blockade, as the population faced mounting deprivation, fear, and isolation. Wealth, comfort, and personal safety offered him countless other places to live. Instead, he chose to share the danger of a community he believed had been abandoned.

One may question that decision without misrepresenting it. Some will regard it as misguided; others, as courageous. It was certainly politically inconvenient. But political inconvenience is not terrorism. A controversial act of solidarity is not, by itself, evidence of criminal intent.

To transform his presence among the people of Nagorno-Karabakh into proof of an immense criminal conspiracy is to blur the distinction between moral commitment and military aggression. It risks criminalizing not only one man, but the idea that one human being may choose to share the danger of another.

Azerbaijan now faces a choice. It can continue to treat Ruben Vardanyan as a trophy of victory, a prominent Armenian displayed in a prison cell as proof of the state’s power. Or it can demonstrate a greater and rarer kind of strength: the capacity to distinguish justice from revenge.

This is not only about Ruben. It is about the kind of peace that can emerge from decades of suffering. Armenians and Azerbaijanis have inherited grief, fear, resentment, and memories of violence, wounds passed from one generation to the next, often before they have been acknowledged, mourned, or understood.

Historical wounds do not heal through denial, forced forgetting, or the selective punishment of one side. Nor do they disappear when political leaders declare a conflict finished. When suffering remains unexamined, it hardens into grievance; grievance becomes identity; and an identity organized around injury continually searches for new evidence of betrayal.

Dealing with such wounds requires more than a ceasefire or a diplomatic agreement. It demands truth that recognizes the suffering of both peoples, accountability that is individual rather than collective, and justice transparent enough to command confidence beyond the victorious side. It also requires the difficult work of mourning: acknowledging what has been lost without turning loss into a permanent license for revenge.

Proceedings that fail to meet credible international standards cannot perform this work. Selective justice does not heal historical wounds. It keeps them open, gives vengeance the appearance of law, and passes unresolved pain to another generation.

At a minimum, Vardanyan must receive unrestricted access to independent legal counsel, regular family visits, independent medical monitoring, and meaningful international scrutiny of both his treatment and conviction. The evidence against him should be fully disclosed, properly translated, and examined in proceedings that meet internationally recognized fair-trial standards.

If Azerbaijan can establish individual criminal responsibility through a credible and transparent process, let the evidence be seen and tested. If it cannot, he must be released.

Peace cannot be built upon hidden prisoners and sealed courtrooms. It cannot be negotiated in conference halls while human beings remain buried in isolation. A peace agreement that leaves political captives behind is not reconciliation. It is the continuation of conflict by quieter means.

Nor should the international community mistake silence for prudence. Governments may find the issue diplomatically inconvenient. Institutions may prefer carefully balanced language. Business interests may discourage confrontation. But neutrality in the face of a gravely deficient judicial process does not preserve peace. It rewards the use of imprisonment as a political instrument.

The international community should demand transparency, humane treatment, credible judicial review, family access, and independent observation. These are not anti- Azerbaijani demands. They are the minimum requirements of a state seeking recognition as a responsible member of the international order. Azerbaijan’s dignity does not depend upon keeping Ruben Vardanyan in prison. It would be better demonstrated by ensuring that justice can withstand examination.

I knew Ruben before the prison uniform, the military courtroom, and the multiplication of accusations into a catalog seemingly designed to overwhelm individual assessment. I knew him as a builder of institutions, a champion of education, a humanitarian, and a bridge-builder in a region where too many people have devoted themselves to constructing walls.

That personal knowledge does not place him above the law. It does, however, make the disparity between the man I encountered, and the caricature presented by the prosecution impossible to ignore.

Ruben spent much of his life building schools, restoring cultural memory, rewarding courage, and connecting people across national and professional boundaries. One of the bridges he helped create is literally suspended above the Armenian mountains. Now the world must build a bridge to him.

And so, borrowing the moral language of Émile Zola, I say: J’accuse.

I accuse those who conceal accusation behind secrecy and call it justice.

I accuse those who bury a man beneath a mountain of charges while denying him the means to challenge them.
I accuse those who preserve the appearance of a courtroom, the judges, the procedures, the solemn vocabulary of law, while emptying it of fairness. And I accuse the international community of invoking human rights in speeches while abandoning them whenever their defense becomes diplomatically inconvenient.

Open the courtroom. Open the prison. Let Ruben Vardanyan’s family embrace him. Give independent lawyers and international observers access to the evidence. Let every accusation be disclosed, translated, examined, and challenged. Let Azerbaijan submit these proceedings to the standards of justice it has pledged to uphold.

If the evidence is credible, it has nothing to fear from daylight. If the trial was fair, it has nothing to fear from scrutiny. But if the conviction cannot survive either, then let us call it by its proper name: not justice, but vengeance wearing the robes of law.

Human rights defended only when convenient are not rights but decorations. Justice that cannot tolerate examination is not justice but theater. And peace purchased through sealed courtrooms, hidden prisoners, and enforced silence is not peace. It is conflict deprived of witnesses.

Open the doors. End the isolation. Restore his access to his family, independent counsel, and the outside world. Give him the fair and transparent hearing to which every human being is entitled.

And if Azerbaijan cannot, or will not do so, release Ruben Vardanyan.

He devoted his life to building bridges. Do not make his prison the monument to a world that chose walls.

Let him cross the final bridge home.

 

Manfred F. R. Kets de Vries
Distinguished Clinical Professor of Leadership Development and Organizational Change/ Psychoanalyst

Elisabet Engellau Kets de Vries Co-chair of United World College Dilijan