News

The Azerbaijani soldiers, detained after crossing the border, have been handed over to Baku through Russia's mediation, the Armenian Ministry of Defence (MoD) has informed. The above soldiers were taken prisoners of war (POWs) after they lost their way due to bad weather, the Azerbaijani MoD has informed.

Two German diplomats were declared persona non grata in Russia in response to similar German actions against Russian diplomats after the verdict in the case of the murder of Chechen field commander Zelimkhan Khangoshvili. The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) has treated the sentence to a Russian citizen found guilty of assassinating Khangoshvili as a political order.

Armenia and Turkey have appointed special representatives for normalizing the two countries' mutual relations; their meeting is planned for the near future.

At their four solo pickets held in Makhachkala, Dagestani journalists demanded to release Abdulmumin Gadjiev, stop arrests without proofs and persecuting journalists; they also called for the release of political prisoners.

Today, in Rostov-on-Don, the Southern District Military Court has found six residents of Dagestan guilty of organizing a terrorist community and plotting attempts on law enforcers and sentenced them to 6.5-8 years of imprisonment.

Today, a video depicting capture of two Azerbaijani soldiers has been posted on YouTube. The soldiers were taken prisoner in the area of the Ishkhanasar village, reports Daniel Ionnisyan, a coordinator of the Union of Informed Citizens. The Ministries of Defence of Armenia and Azerbaijan did not comment on the information.

Today, law enforcers have disrupted a solo picket by farmer Mikhail Shevchenko in front of the FSB building in Stavropol. The picketer protested against ineffective investigation into threats and raider land seizure.

Verdict of guilty against the leaders of the protest in Ingushetia; end of the Azerbaijani activist Salekh Rustamov’s hunger strike; arrival of migrant Rubati Mitsaeva in Chechnya, – see the review of these and other events in the Caucasus during the week of December 13-19, 2021, prepared by the “Caucasian Knot”.

In Azerbaijan, a crash of a helicopter of the State Border Guard Service, in which 14 people were killed, was caused by an error of the pilots during landing, the General Prosecutor’s Office of Azerbaijan reports today.

During the week from December 13 to December 19, 2021, the ongoing armed conflict in Northern Caucasus brought no information about any casualties or wounded persons. These are the results of the calculations run by the "Caucasian Knot" based on its own materials and information from other open sources.

Karim Fuad and his wife, Anastasia Marchenko, has complained to the Russia's General Prosecutor's Office (GPO) about actions of law enforcers, who had falsified two criminal cases against Fuad, planted drugs and damaged property during a search of their house located in the Zelenchuk farmstead of the Gulkevichi District in the Krasnodar Territory (also known as Kuban by the name of the major river). In the complainants' opinion, the criminal prosecution has a xenophobic background.

In Berlin, at the request of Georgian authorities, Giorgi Kalandadze, a former head of the General Staff of the Georgian Armed Forces, has been detained.

The South-Ossetian authorities have released Gela Gochoshvili, who was detained in August for trespassing the border, the Georgian State Security Service (SSS) has informed.

The Armenian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) has announced the names of ten military servicemen who were returned to their homeland; on November 16, they were taken prisoners of war (POWs) by Azerbaijan.

Supporters of Mikheil (Mikhail) Saakashvili have held a protest action in front of the building of the Georgian Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA). They called for the release of the oppositional politician and demanded from the police to stop political persecution of the opposition.

After he stopped his long hunger strike, the health condition of the Azerbaijani activist, Salekh Rustamov, began improving, said Adil Geibulla, a doctor.

Salman Geroev, a Kazakhstani public figure of Ingush origin, has called on the Russian president "not to be an enemy of the Ingush people" and to intervene in the situation with the verdicts rendered to seven Ingush activists. The verdicts were passed with authorities' awareness, while an appeal to Putin is doomed to failure in advance, commentators on the YouTube have noted.

Azeri law enforcement bodies have announced a restart of criminal proceedings on complaints of torture of the Azerbaijani militaries suspected of treason.

The Azerbaijani General Prosecutor's Office (GPO) has refused to initiate a criminal case against doctors on the complaint lodged by relatives of Ogtai Gyulyalyev, a human rights defender, about doctors' failure to provide him with proper medical care. The GPO sees no corpus delicti in doctors' actions, Mekhman Aliev, the director of the "Turan" News Agency, has informed.

Law enforcers have detained Isa Bekov, a resident of Ingushetia, during his solo picket in support of the leaders of the republic's protests. After drawing up a protocol on violation of the mask regime, the picketer was released.