As Vice President JD Vance prepares for a diplomatic visit to Armenia and Azerbaijan later this month, the son of an imprisoned Armenian Christian is urging the Trump administration to press for the release of prisoners still held in Azerbaijani custody following the September 2023 takeover of the Armenian settlement of Nagorno-Karabakh.
In a Feb. 4 interview with Zeale News, David Vardanyan described the detention of his father, Ruben Vardanyan, a prominent Armenian philanthropist and former state minister of Nagorno-Karabakh. Vardanyan said his father was detained as part of a mass arrest that illegally swept up at least 22 Armenians following Azerbaijan’s military offensive in the region.
“This was a mass arrest done at the end of an ethnic cleansing campaign of over 120,000 Christian Armenians,” Vardanyan said.
He explained that Azerbaijani forces laid siege to the region for several months by blocking the only road linking the community to Armenia, known as the world’s oldest Christian nation.
Nagorno-Karabakh, also known as Artsakh, has been populated by Armenians for more than 2,000 years and, according to Vardanyna, is one of the oldest Armenian settlements. The region had been predominantly Armenian in population and self-governed since 1991, though it has been internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan.
Vardanyan said his father moved to the region after the 2020 war between Armenia and Azerbaijan to support the local Christian population, which he believed “was being abandoned by the world.”
“He decided to give up all of his whole life and risk everything,” Vardanyan said. “He tried to defend them — to live with them at the most dire hour. And he's been paying the price for standing up in a peaceful means to try to defend a persecuted minority group.”
Conditions of detention
Vardanyan described the charges against his father — roughly 40 counts, including allegations such as financing terrorism and illegal border crossing — as fabricated and said the proceedings lack basic legal safeguards. He said Azerbaijan is prosecuting Ruben Vardanyan in a military tribunal even though he never held a military position — a violation of international norms.
“He is effectively in a political show trial,” Vardanyan said,
Independent journalists and monitors are barred from the proceedings, and family contact has been severely restricted since Azerbaijan expelled the International Committee of the Red Cross from the country, Vardanyan added. The family’s only contact now comes through brief, heavily monitored phone calls. Moreover, his father has been held in solitary confinement and subjected to abuse.
Azerbaijan has not released a comprehensive list of detainees. Vardanyan said 19 prisoners are currently confirmed to be held after four were released, but the total number may be higher due to unaccounted-for prisoners of war. As Zeale News previously reported, roughly 80 individuals are still unaccounted for after the military takeover.
Vardanyan said the prosecutions reflect Azerbaijan’s broader political system, which has been controlled by the Aliyev family for roughly four decades and lacks an independent judiciary or free press.
Christian persecution in Azerbaijan
Vardanyan also said detainees face restrictions on practicing their Christian faith. He said attempts during the first week of his father’s detention to send him a Bible and another foundational text of Armenian Christianity were denied, even though authorities allowed several other books through.
“But worse,” he said, “we've heard from other prisoners that those who had crosses tattooed or any kind of [marks] on their bodies, they had them burned off in prison.”
He pointed to extensive documentation of Armenian churches and Christian holy sites destroyed in the now-abandoned Nagorno-Karabakh region after its takeover, describing the campaign against Christians as systematic and deliberate.
Freedom House ranks Azerbaijan among the world’s most repressive countries, giving it a score of seven out of 100 in its “Freedom in the World Score.” By comparison, Cuba scores 10, Iran 11, and Venezuela 13.
What’s next
Renewed attention to the prisoners of war comes as Vance is expected to visit Armenia and Azerbaijan as part of a U.S. diplomatic push tied to President Donald Trump’s proposed “Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity,” a regional transportation and economic initiative.
Trump said the visit would build on a peace framework announced at the White House in August 2025 aimed at ending the decades-long territorial dispute over Nagorno-Karabakh. Reuters reported that the framework included mutual recognition of territorial integrity and commitments to international law.
According to Vardanyan, the August event did not produce a signed peace treaty but instead resulted in the initialing of a framework text that he said makes no reference to Armenian detainees.
“You cannot have Christian hostages remaining in dungeon cells and expect the world to believe that real peace exists,” he said.
Vardanyan expressed gratitude to Trump and the U.S. for prioritizing the protection of Christians worldwide and noted that Trump had previously addressed the fate of the Armenian prisoners. According to OC Media, Trump told Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan in August that he intended to request the release of the prisoners held in Azerbaijan and said he believed Baku would comply.
“This is a unique opportunity again to show the world that the President and the vice president mean what they say,” Vardanyan said. “The defense of Christians is a key priority for this administration, not only in the U.S., but throughout the world.”
He said the vice president — who has spoken publicly about global persecution of Christians — could help secure the prisoners’ release through direct engagement with regional leaders.
“This is an easy win,” Vardanyan said. “There are 90 remaining Christians who, I believe, can be brought home with the vice president’s support.”