News

Following the Azerbaijan's statement about 135 bombardments, the Ministries of Defence (MoDs) of Armenia and the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic (NKR) characterized the situation on the contact line and on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border on the first day of 2018 as calm.

The Central Election Commission (CEC) of Russia has started to consider the documents submitted by Aina Gamzatova, a wife of the Mufti of Dagestan. The woman decided to run for presidency as a self-nominated candidate.

At a request of the Prosecutor's Office, the Investigating Committee of the Russian Federation (ICRF) has been engaged in the case of an armed attack, reported Vyacheslav Prudnikov, a "Caucasian Knot" correspondent in the Rostov Region.

Within the last 24 hours, Armenian Armed Forces violated the ceasefire in the area of the Karabakh conflict for 135 times, the Azerbaijani Ministry of Defence (MoD) has reported today.

CTO of Georgian law enforcers in Pankisi Gorge; the nomination of Dagestan Mufti’s wife for Russian presidency; Facebook’s explanation of blocking Kadyrov's accounts – read about these and other events in the Caucasus that happened during the week of December 25-31, 2017, prepared by the "Caucasian Knot".

In the evening on December 31, visitors and employees of the Volgograd Airport were evacuated after a phone call about planted bomb; however, the police found no explosives in the building.

A Petersburg court has ruled to arrest the man accused of the explosion in the supermarket until the end of February.

On October 31, 2017, in Volgograd, activists of the "Strategy-31" campaign held four solo pickets in defence of the freedom of assembly.

The deaths of Afghan Mukhtarly's sister and his two nephews was caused by the gas furnace that went out at night, said Elshan Mukhtarly, Afghan’s brother. Apart from this version, investigators also consider food poisoning as a possible death reason.

Today, the sister of the Azerbaijani journalist Afghan Mukhtarly and his two nephews were found dead in Zagatala. Elshan Mukhtarly, Afghan’s brother said that the woman and two children got poisoned with gas.

The people who attacked Andrei Rudomakha, the coordinator of the "Ecological Watch for Northern Caucasus" (EcoWatch) in Krasnodar, acted in an organized manner and had information about activists’ travels. They may have attitude to law enforcers, Mr Rudomakha himself and his associates believe.

Relatives of those perished one year ago in the air accident near Sochi received compulsory payments; and now they demand compensations from the insurance company for loss of breadwinners, their advocate has stated.

On December 30, officials of the Georgian State Security Service (SSS) provided information to the elders of the Pankisi Gorge about the links of the persons detained in the recent counterterrorist operation (CTO) with terrorists.

A combat grenade was found by residents of Rostov-on-Don in a yard, after which the territory was cordoned off.

At the gathering in Shali, the Speaker of the Chechen Parliament condemned three men who in the video posted on the YouTube criticized the large-scale reconstruction of the city centre.

In 2017, Azerbaijani militaries made over 180,000 shots at the positions of the Defence Army of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic (NKR), by using missiles, mortars and grenade launchers. This was stated by the KBR’s Ministry of Defence (MoD).

On December 29, the eve of the New Year, the head of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, awarded 32 orphans with keys to new apartments. Local residents report a multi-year waiting list of orphans for housing.

Ali Gasanov, an assistant to Azerbaijani president, has stated that his country is ready to provide the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic (NKR) with broad autonomy if it gets back to Azerbaijan. The political analysts, interviewed by the "Caucasian Knot", were sceptical about this proposal.

In 2017, Azerbaijani authorities scaled up their attacks on human rights, the activists and political analysts, interviewed by the "Caucasian Knot", believe. They pointed to a severe verdict on the "Nardaran case" and increased pressure on independent journalists.

The terrorist organization "Islamic State" (IS) (banned in Russia) claims responsibility for the explosion in a supermarket in Saint Petersburg on December 27, the SITE Intelligence Group, which tracks terrorists’ network activities has reported.