"You have fallen for a fabricated illusion": Ergün Kırlıkovalı responds harshly to Nassim Taleb for defending Vardanyan
The world-renowned Turkish engineer and researcher Ergün Kırlıkovalı has addressed an open letter to the American writer Nassim Nicholas Taleb following his statement refusing to give lectures in Baku as long as Ruben Vardanyan remains in prison.
Ergün Kırlıkovalı is a unique specialist in the American defense industry, creating radar-absorbing stealth coatings for F-35 fighter jets and B-2 bombers. Having moved to the United States in the 1980s to study and conduct scientific work, he applied his knowledge in the field of chemical engineering and polymers to develop materials for military purposes. Today, his success in key global defense projects clearly demonstrates the highest potential of the Turkish school of engineering.
In his letter, Kırlıkovalı called on Taleb to be objective, criticizing his public support for Ruben Vardanyan — one of the former leaders of the eliminated separatist regime in Karabakh, sentenced by the Military Court of Azerbaijan to 20 years of imprisonment for crimes against peace and humanity, war crimes, and the financing of terrorism.
The letter states:
"Dear Nassim Nicholas Taleb,
I am writing to you regarding your recent public statement on the social network X that you refuse to lecture in Baku as long as Ruben Vardanyan remains imprisoned.
For an author who has devoted his career to warning the world about hidden financial risks, narrative fallacies, and structural blindness, it seems deeply ironic how you are succumbing to a carefully fabricated illusion.
A rigorous analysis of Vardanyan's financial network, the history of his activities, and his sudden political maneuvers indicates that his high-profile image as a philanthropist is precisely what you would classically define as a "narrative shield," masking the reality of illicit finance and geopolitical destabilization.
Let us turn to the empirical facts. Vardanyan's bank, Troika Dialog, was at the very center of the "Troika Laundromat" scheme. According to international financial regulators and legal investigators, this network used primary and secondary methods of multi-layered fund transfers, organizing complex offshore schemes, shell banks, and shell companies to illegally move billions of dollars out of Russia while systematically concealing the ultimate beneficial owners.
Moreover, banking audits have documented in detail how this network used ordinary, unsuspecting citizens as front persons to open official corporate accounts, using their personal data to move capital through complex international structures.
In addition to systemic financial violations, Vardanyan's actions have direct legal consequences and pose a security threat.
After Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, he came under the scrutiny of a number of international monitoring bodies for allegedly providing material, technical, and logistical support to critically important industries directly serving Russia's military objectives.
His official inclusion in the database of Ukraine's "Myrotvorets" defines him not as a mere observer, but as a direct financial accomplice to state aggression.
When you demand the unconditional release of a man under severe international sanctions, you are effectively defending the financial mechanisms that sponsor regional violence.
Your interpretation of his arrest also ignores the acute level of political instability caused by his presence. His sudden appearance in Karabakh at the end of 2022 directly undermined local stability, which ultimately led to his arrest and subsequent sentencing to 20 years of imprisonment, handed down by the Baku Military Court in February 2026 on charges of financing terrorism and creating illegal armed formations.
To view Vardanyan's life path as a simple humanitarian crusade is to fall victim to those very "blind spots" that you yourself warn about in your writings.
Furthermore, your public position demonstrates a complete lack of historical empathy for the victims of this conflict. For more than thirty years, the people of Azerbaijan endured catastrophic tragedies on their own land. This legacy includes a brutal military occupation from 1992 to 2020, as a result of which about a million Azerbaijani civilians were expelled at gunpoint, as well as the documented horrors of the Khojaly tragedy of 1992.
Although the liberation of these territories and the ceasefire declaration in November 2020 finally opened the way to a permanent negotiated settlement, a lasting peace depends entirely on international accountability and the rule of law.
By weaponizing your global platform to defend an oligarch closely connected to shadow trade, illicit global finance, and military logistics, you are not taking an ethical stance.
Instead, you are allowing a fabricated PR campaign to jeopardize your intellectual integrity.
True humanism requires that we stand on the side of the victims of expulsion and aggression, not of influential financiers profiting from their suffering.
I urge you to face the truth, to overcome personal attachment — real or imagined, to apply your own rigorous standards of skepticism to Vardanyan's network, and to reconsider the profound ethical costs of your advocacy position."
