The contents of Ruben Vardanyan's final statement at the Baku Military Court have been published.

Former Karabakh State Minister Ruben Vardanyan, at the final stage of his trial in the Baku Military Court, instructed his lawyer not to speak and delivered the closing speech himself, quoting poems by classic Azerbaijani poets.

As "Caucasian Knot" reported, on December 18, 2025, at a hearing of the Baku Military Court, the prosecutor proposed sentencing former Nagorno-Karabakh State Minister Ruben Vardanyan to life imprisonment. Vardanyan pointed out that the process does not meet the criteria for a fair trial. At the hearing on February 10, the end of the trial was announced, and the panel of judges retired to consider the verdict.

Details of the closed final hearing of Vardanyan's case at the Baku Military Court were released by the defendant's family. The legal successors of the victims spoke at the hearing, demanding that Vardanyan receive the harshest possible sentence. However, contrary to official reports, the defense attorney did not speak for the defense during the closing arguments – Ruben Vardanyan himself instructed him not to speak at the final stage of the trial, according to a publication on the Free Vardanyan website on February 11.

Ruben Vardanyan shared his final statement with his family in a telephone conversation. "On the 10th, I delivered my closing statement, forbidding the lawyer from presenting defense arguments because I believe this was not a trial, but a courtroom, and there was no opportunity for a normal trial. Despite all the resistance from the judges, the lawyer did not present any arguments or reasons," he said.

According to Vardanyan, his speech was "very brief," but he read two poems. One of them, written in the early 16th century by the Azerbaijani poet Fizuli, and translated into Russian by Vladimir Lugovskoy, begins: "The padishah of a golden land bribes people with silver, // He prepares regiments to seize another country, // With a hundred intrigues and tricks he conquers it, /// But in this country, too, there is no joy or peace..." As Vardanyan noted in a conversation with loved ones, he believes this work "applies more to Armenia" than to Azerbaijan.

The former Karabakh state minister's speech in court also focused on the issue of achieving peace. "We must understand that we have a long road ahead of us to peace, and it's very difficult. We will need to undergo a major internal revival, to restore ourselves, first and foremost, because peace can only exist, I repeat, when there are two equal neighbors. If one humiliates itself before the other, nothing will work, there will be no peace," the campaign website quotes him as saying.

Vardanyan added that in the courtroom he "represented the Armenian people," as he stated during the trial. "I repeated three times what they tried to interrupt me on: Artsakh was, Artsakh is, and Artsakh will be, existentially speaking. That it was, is, and will be," he emphasized.

According to the politician, true peace will be achieved if "the three leaders of the three parties to the conflict" lay flowers "at the graves of the dead of any nationality, any religion" and apologize "to all mothers for their dead children."

In addition to Fizuli's poem, Ruben Vardanyan read an excerpt from a poem by Huseyn Javid in court. “He reported that during more than two years of detention, he ‘discovered Azerbaijani poetry,’” Minval.az noted in a February 11 publication.

Investor, venture philanthropist, and entrepreneur Ruben Vardanyan only announced his decision to renounce his Russian citizenship and move to Nagorno-Karabakh in September 2022. He explained this by his desire to support local residents who were “in a grave psychological state.” In October 2022, Vardanyan agreed to head the government, and became state minister on November 4, 2022. However, on February 23, 2023, Vardanyan was dismissed after serving as state minister for less than four months. Vardanyan’s defense previously indicated that the prosecution accuses Vardanyan of events that occurred, among other things, many years before his arrival in Karabakh.