In February of this year, a court in Baku delivered its verdict. Ruben Vardanyan, former State Minister of so-called Nagorno-Karabakh, was sentenced to 20 years in prison by the Baku Military Court following a trial that began in January 2025. He was the last of sixteen ethnic Armenian leaders to be tried. The others, former presidents, defence ministers, and parliamentary speakers, received sentences ranging from lengthy prison terms to life imprisonment.

The organisation said it had requested information from Azerbaijani authorities about the trial and the evidence, and received no response.

Vardanyan was found guilty under several articles of the Criminal Code, including crimes against peace and humanity, war crimes, terrorism, and financing of terrorism. The specific charges included planning and waging a war of aggression, deportation of populations, persecution, mercenary activity, violations of the laws and customs of warfare, intentional murder and attempted murder, creation of a criminal group, and illegal acquisition of weapons.

Now that we have that out of the way, one thing has been clear throughout this entire court process: These criminals are living rent-free in Europe's certain politicians' heads. Especially Ruben Vardanyan.

Into the recent delicate moments that have been ongoing between Azerbaijan and Armenia stepped the EU's ambassador to Armenia, Vassilis Maragos, and promptly put his foot in it.

Responding to a question from an Armenian news outlet, Ambassador Maragos confirmed that the European Union was "closely following" the case of Ruben Vardanyan and other ethnic Armenians held in Baku's jails, and expressed hope that "sensitive humanitarian issues" could be resolved as part of the bilateral peace process. To Baku, this was not diplomacy. It was partisanship wearing a diplomatic badge.

This is, on the surface, a reasonable diplomatic position. It acknowledges the humanitarian concern without weaponising it. It keeps Brussels within the lane of a supportive partner rather than an antagonistic interlocutor. And it reflects an awareness, clearly present in European chancelleries, whatever the European Parliament's louder resolutions might suggest, that the region is at a genuinely historic juncture.

But the criticism from Baku, however, is equally intelligible. The use of the phrase "Armenian prisoners of war" by European officials, a framing that implies protected status under international humanitarian law rather than criminal defendants, grates on a government that regards these individuals as having been convicted of serious crimes by a........

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