News

16-year-old Givi Beruashvili, a resident of the Ditsi village on the border with South Ossetia, was kidnapped from his land plot, the Georgian State Security Service (SSS) reported.

Nagorno-Karabakh should return to the negotiating table, and the Minsk Group co-chairs should propose new principles to resolve the conflict, say politicians in Stepanakert.

The public statement about dislike for Russians was misunderstood, said Magomed Khanbiev, a Chechen MP, explaining that he meant militaries. Djambulat Umarov, a Chechen Minister, has supported Khanbiev, also pointing to an inaccurate interpretation of his words. However, social network users and republic's residents are sceptical of these statements.

On March 16, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliev signed a decree to pardon 431 convicts, including more than a dozen political prisoners.

Residents of Makhachkala and Kizilyurt District are suspected of having transferred more than 10 million roubles to members of the "Islamic State" (IS), a terrorist organization banned in Russia by the court.

The Armenian Ministry of Defence (MoD) has reported a detention of a violator of the Azerbaijani border. The man was a resident of the border area; the militaries wounded him in the leg.

The international Human Rights Watch (HRW) has demanded to immediately release Oyub Titiev, the head of the Grozny office of the Human Rights Centre (HRC) "Memorial".

Law enforcers would not conduct the traditional Friday raid near the "Tangim" mosque in Makhachkala, fearing inspections by the prosecutor's office, where believers have turned to, believes Magomed Magomedov, a member of the mosque public council.

Opponents of the new authorities are trying to give a political colouration to the protests against the demolition of cafés in Yerevan, but in reality it does not exist, the political analysts interviewed by the "Caucasian Knot" believe. They blame the city Mayoralty for the escalation of the conflict.

The court has ruled to fine David Gaag and Cole Brodovsky, American missionaries, and deport them from Russia. They refused to plead guilty of handing out leaflets in the streets in Novorossiysk, but refused to appeal against the judgement.

Amiran Borchashvili, a resident of the village of Dumasturi, who perished in Syria, grew up in a respected family and studied at the university; his departure for the "Islamic State" (IS), a terrorist organization, banned in Russia by the court, surprised his friends, local residents told the "Caucasian Knot".

The US sanctions imposed in connection with the murder of Boris Nemtsov are not fundamentally new and unable to create problems for Ramzan Kadyrov. They could even increase the popularity of Kadyrov in the Middle East, the political analysts interviewed by the "Caucasian Knot" believe.

The Kremlin has granted complete freedom to Chechen leadership, the blogger Tumso Abdurkhmanov assessed the federal authorities' reaction to the words of the Speaker of the Chechen Parliament, who declared blood feud to Tumso. Oppositionist Alexei Navalny has noted that Magomed Daudov's words are contrary to the status of a high-ranking official.

The farmyard of Balki, near which an armed clash broke out on March 14, is a very quiet place, populated mostly by pensioners, said local residents, noting that they heard loud shots at night of the special operation.

The Federation Council is engaged in a check initiated by Valery Rashkin, a State Duma member from the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (CPRF), concerning verification of the information stating that when Rauf Arashukov got his senator's mandate in 2016, he had a residence permit in the UAE, the "Kommersant" reports.

The Leninsky District Court of Rostov-on-Don extended until June 17 the term of house arrest to activist Anastasia Shevchenko, accused of involvement in an undesirable organization. The defence's request to let Anastasia Shevchenko take her children to school and go for walks was dismissed.

Magomed Khanbiev, a member of the Chechen parliament, published a video in which he declared himself "the son of Ichkeria" and said that he "did not like Russians." Russian oppositionist Alexei Navalny drew attention to the fact that the authorities of the country failed to react to the statement voiced by the MP.

Alexander Dvornikov, the commander of the Southern Military District of the Russian Armed Forces, has become one of the Russian citizens included in the EU sanctions list. After the incident in the Kerch Strait, Alexander Dvornikov is banned from entering the territory of the EU member countries.

In Yerevan, after drawing up protocols on administrative violations, the police released participants of a protest action against the dismantling of cafes.

Azerbaijani authorities fail to persecute and punish those who violate human rights; and this creates an atmosphere of impunity, says the report of the US State Department about the state of human rights in the world in 2018. Azerbaijani activists agree with the criticism and believe that sanctions should be imposed on the country's authorities.