News

Seven former militaries of the Ukrainian battalion "Donbass", detained during a special operation in December in Tbilisi, have been released on bail, said Semyon Semenchenko, an MP of the Verkhovna Rada (Supreme Assembly) of Ukraine.

Citizens of South Ossetia will no longer be able to cross the border with Georgia on their passports; they will have to get a special pass, the South-Ossetian KGB (Committee for State Security) has announced.

Bekkhan Yusupov reported that he had been detained because of storing rounds, and not due to suspicions of homosexuality. The man accused the newspaper "Novaya Gazeta" of slander. Residents of Chechnya expressed their scepticism about the Bekkhan Yusupov's public speech.

In the Achkhoi-Martan District, the authorities have forbidden gathering wild garlic on the territories adjacent to Ingushetia until January 31, reported residents of Chechnya. The ban was introduced on January 1 because of operational activities, reported the Chechen Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA).

Azerbaijani positions in the Karabakh conflict zone were shelled for 25 times within the last 24 hours, including those deployed in two border villages, the country's Ministry of Defence (MoD) has stated.

A formal reason for her dismissal was a minor error in her tax declaration, while the real reason was her criticism of the Ministry of Public Health (MPH) for insufficient supply of patients with medications, she has stated.

Arrest of Karachay-Cherkessian Senator Arashukov and his father; election of Mayor in Makhachkala; report on an attack on a law enforcers' checkpoint in Chechnya; mass evacuation in Southern Russia caused by reports of mine planting; ECtHR's decision on the complaint about deportation of Georgian citizens from Russia, – see the review of these and other events in the Caucasus during the week of January 28-February 3, 2019, prepared by the "Caucasian Knot".

Residents of the Pankisi Gorge in Georgia have held an action in Birkiani against the construction of the "Khadori-3" hydropower plant (HPP). They have refused to resettle because of the construction, even if they are offered better conditions.

Two attacks based on intolerance to non-traditional sexual orientation committed in Georgia; two suspects were detained, the police said.

A month after the murder of pensioners committed in the dwelling settlement of Ilsky, Seversky District of the Krasnodar Territory (also called Kuban by the name of the main river), investigators regard homophobia one of the priority versions. The suspected killer is detained and gives confessions.

The Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has given a negative opinion on the pardoning the lifelong convict Mger Enokyan. A new petition can be filed in a year, but the prisoner is unlikely to do it, his wife has stated.

The fate of one of the five Ingush students detained in Cairo in the summer of 2018 remains unknown, said Yushaa Gazgireev, a State Duma MP. Tatiana Moskalkova, the Russian Ombudsperson, has decided to join the efforts aimed to clarify the reasons for the detention of young people.

In the period from January 27 to February 2, 2019, soldiers of the Armed Forces of Azerbaijan fired over 1300 shots at the positions of the Defence Army of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic (NKR), the NKR's Ministry of Defence (MoD) reported on February 2.

A resident of the Urus-Martan District has posted in the WhatsApp his apology to the employees of the gas supplying company, whom he had accused of "injustice." The man has apologized fearing the coercion to publicly repent on the TV, local residents have suggested.

The website "Aravot-ru.am" has been blocked in Russia for refusing to remove the data on the Sochi businessman of Armenian origin from the material about the cooperation of the Armenia's Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) with crime bosses, the editorial board of the website has reported.

About 50 residents of Rostov-on-Don gathered for a picket demanding to decriminalize the article on "undesirable organizations" and stop the criminal prosecution of the local activist Anastasia Shevchenko.

The Georgia's Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA) has detained 17 people on charges of storing and mass dissemination on the Internet of video records that violate the privacy.

In 2008, the opposition tried to involve military servicemen in the political confrontation. The second President of Armenia, Robert Kocharyan, has stated at the trial that he had stopped these attempts.

The North-Caucasian District Military Court has instructed investigators to check the applications of Pavel Grib that he had given confessions under pressure. The court also agreed to question the doctor from Ukraine, Vasily Pritula, who had supervised Pavel Grib since childhood.

The "Islamic State" (IS, earlier ISIL), a terrorist organization, banned in Russia by the court, has declared Mansur Beltoev, the Ingushetia resident killed in the attack on Chechen law enforcers, to be its militant; however, it marked the Stavropol Territory as the place of the attack.