BAKU, Azerbaijan, January 23. Ruben Vardanyan, a fugitive Russian billionaire of Armenian origin, who recently took over separatists in Karabakh did not expect his BBC's HARDtalk interview to derail every couple of minutes, but this is exactly what's happening when someone is lying and the host of the show comes prepared, Trend reports.
In the interview, Vardanyan keeps lying about Armenians living in Karabakh 'for thousands of years', continues on to call Karabakh by its Armenian name, until Stephen Sackur stops him to point out that the whole world calls it Karabakh, before trying to switch topics.
The so-called 'state minister' clearly expected his lies to fly, but was stunned by the correction, and tried to bring up the old soviet-era books, including those published in Azerbaijan, which allegedly referred to Karabakh by its Armenian name. This, of course, was another lie.
Obviously, the interview wasn't going as expected, since Vardanyan was hoping it will go smoothly, meaning answering only questions agreed upon in advance, and not real ones.
In 25 minutes, Vardanyan was cornered several times by Sackur, which was probably the reason that Vardanyan didn't share it on his social media pages.