The news became known in the evening of April 21st, the time when a number of Facebook personal accounts of the Ukrainian parliamentarians posted publications with attached scanned copies of the letter.
The authors of the letter declare: "We consider unacceptable and absurd grotesque the nomination for the Peace Prize of a person who supports terrorism and separatism, is known to be involved in corruption scandals, is considered a sponsor of Russian aggression in the post-Soviet territories and an enemy of Ukraine".
Ukrainian MPs call on Nobel Committee to reject Kremlin ally's nomination for Peace Prize
According to the Ukrainian and international media, Ukranian parliament members have grounds for such characterizations of Ruben Vardanyan.
Vardanyan himself is known for running the Russian company Troika Dialog. According to an OCCRP (Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project) investigation, this company was used for secret money transfers to Putin's close friends. Between 2006 and 2013, more than $4.6 billion were pumped through the accounts of Vardanyan's offshore networks. In 2020, Russia's main opposition figure, Alexei Navalny, recently killed by the Kremlin regime, accused Vardanian of bribery of approximately $50 million.
In 2019, 22 members of the European Parliament initiated sanctions against Vardanyan as an "associate of the Kremlin".
Three years later, in 2022, 46 members of the U.S. Congress put Vardanyan to the draft sanctions list, along with the Moscow regime's chief propagandist, Margarita Simonyan.
Also in 2022, Zelensky issued a decree, adding Vardanyan to Ukraine's sanctions lists as a person who provides "Senior management of a systemically important Russian company that is involved in... support of actions that undermine or threaten the territorial integrity, sovereignty and independence of Ukraine".
Finally, in 2023, the SBU included Ruben Vardanyan to the "Peacemaker" database, stating that Vardanyan is subject to "immediate transfer to law enforcement agencies of Ukraine or NATO countries".
"Today in the Peacemaker, tomorrow the nominee for the Nobel Prize. Absurd!", - wrote on his personal Facebook page Volodymyr Vatras - an MP from the Servant of the People party.
"Sometimes it seems to me that the world is going crazy. Last year it was Don Don, this year Vardanyan, maybe next you'll give the Nobel Peace Prize to Putin? It's surreal…" - echoed his party colleague Anna Skorokhod.
The authors of the collective letter emphasize that people behind Vardanyan's nomination for the most prestigious award of the planet were Russian agents of influence. The fact that this is an operation to whiten the reputation of "Putin's man", who could potentially compete with Pashinyan, is evidenced by the "launch" into infospace of the news by Russia's primary media sources, Sputnik and RBC. The owner of the latter, Grigory Berezkin, is also under sanctions by the EU, Canada, Britain and Australia.
In their letter, Ukrainian parliament members further summarize: "We call on the Nobel Committee to reject the application of Vardanyan's accomplices, as it is impossible for a proven criminal to serve the cause of peace".
To date, the Nobel Committee has not responded to the letter from the Ukrainian parliamentarians.
