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Dozens of soldiers from the Shirak District of Armenia were captured in the Hadrut District of Nagorno-Karabakh, protesters claim with reference to some videos posted on the Internet. According to a source from the Defence Army, a group of Armenian soldiers was cordoned off, and only a few dozen of them managed to break through.

In Tskhinvali, about 50 people have stayed to spend the night in a square, where relatives and friends of Inal Djabiev are holding a round-the-clock protest action. The main demands of the protesters remain unchanged: the resignation of the General Prosecutor and the punishment of the persons guilty for the Inal Djabiev's death.

The "Akhmat" fight club will not be able to attract sponsors' funds from abroad and invite foreign fighters because of the US sanctions, while the "Akhmat" football club (FC) will be less affected by sanctions, sports observers suggest.

In fact, the villages of Khin Takher and Khtsaberd in the Hadrut District of Nagorno-Karabakh stay abandoned, military expert Alexander Golts notes. According to expert Vladimir Yevseev, it is too early and unsafe for people to return to the destroyed villages. The expert also adds that a "gray zone" should be created to prevent such incidents.

The counterterrorist operation (CTO) conducted in the Achkhoi-Martan District of Chechnya, in which law enforcers liquidated an alleged militant, became the third in Chechnya since the start of the year. The previous CTO was conducted in Grozny in October.

The communication with soldiers of several military posts set up in the vicinity of the villages of Khin Takher and Khtsaberd has been lost; searching for them is underway, the Nagorno-Karabakh's Ministry of Defence (MoD) has informed.

Kazbek Baidulaev, a native of the Chechen village of Yandi, whose murder in a counterterrorist operation (CTO), conducted in the Achkhoi-Martan District, was announced by Ramzan Kadyrov, was earlier named among those killed on October 11. According to law enforcers, the man perished in a shootout in the Sernovodsk District.

During a counterterrorist operation (CTO) conducted in the Achkhoi-Martan District of Chechnya, a member of an illegal armed formation (IAF) was killed, Ramzan Kadyrov has reported, indicating that the alleged militant was alone; and the law enforcers involved did not suffer.

The defence of the blogger, Malika Djikaeva, will appeal against the verdict announced by the court of three years in prison within a drug dealing case. Social network users have expressed bewilderment at the apology of Djikaeva's mother to Ramzan Kadyrov.

The two elderly men beheaded in the video have been identified, The Guardian reports. They were ethnic Armenians, their fellow villagers have reported.

For three days already, more than 60 Khin Shen villagers in Nagorno-Karabakh cannot leave the village because the road is blocked by Azerbaijani militaries, David Davidyan, the head of the neighbouring Mets Shen community, has reported.

Relatives of deceased Inal Djabiev disagree with the results of a forensic examination, and that fact prevents the transfer of the criminal case to court, states Anatoly Bibilov, President of South Ossetia. The leader of the republic has also added that he will pay for the repeated forensic examination if the family has financial difficulties and will meet the relatives of Inal Djabiev at any time.

Journalist Afghan Sadygov has been refusing to accept food and water for the 42nd day in a SIZO (pre-trial prison). The SIZO medical staff began to administer intravenous food to Afghan Sadygov. According to physician Aidar Abdullin, intravenous injections of nutrients are applied to critically ill patients.

Araik Arutyunyan, President of Nagorno-Karabakh, refused to meet the co-Chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group from the United States and France. The Russian co-Chair did not come to the meeting due to illness. Araik Arutyunyan has missed a rare chance to discuss with the mediators the status of Nagorno-Karabakh and the problems that arose after the war, political analysts note.

For several months, the family of Nadir Shakhbazov has been unable to reunite with their daughter in Azerbaijan because of the closed border with Dagestan and irregular departure of people to their homeland. The family members have to rent an apartment and are short of money to pay tickets for a plane.

The court has sentenced six protesters against the outcomes of the Georgian parliamentary elections to seven days of arrest each. They were detained on December 13, after an attempt to enter the Adjara parliament building and clashes with the police.

The Russian Ministry of Defence (MoD) has reported that 566 refugees had been brought to Stepanakert by buses from Yerevan, accompanied by patrols of Russian peacemakers and military policemen.

Six Armenian reservists have suffered during the shootout near the villages of Khtsaberd and Khin Takher; ten others have been presumably taken prisoners of war (POWs), Stepanakert has stated.

During the Yerevan-Baku exchange of prisoners of war (POWs), 44 of them have been returned to Armenia, but some of Armenian ones remain in Azerbaijan, the Karabakh authorities have informed.

In 2020, Russia is one of the leaders in the number of imprisoned journalists, Abdulmumin Gadjiev, an editor of the "Chernovik" (Draft) portal among them, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has reported.