News

The OMON (riot police) fighters and military servicemen tried to disperse the protesters in Sukhumi, after which clashes broke out in the crowd. Trying to avoid bloodshed, opposition leaders urged their supporters to leave the square in front of the presidential administration and move to the Drama Theatre.

The decision to liquidate the movement "Council of Teips of the Ingush People" was disproportionate to the committed violations and violated the rights of Ingush activists to the freedom of assembly and expression, the Human Rights Centre (HRC) "Memorial* has pointed out in the complaint sent to the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR).

The Achkhoi-Martan Court of Chechnya refused to transfer to another region the consideration of a case against Salekh Magamadov and Ismail Isaev brothers, accused of aiding and abetting a member of an illegal armed formation (IAF). The brothers went on a hunger strike with the demand to send their case to a court outside Chechnya.

Rubati Mitsaeva got the role of a Ramzan Kadyrov’s admirer to motivate other Chechen migrants to return to their homeland, note human rights defenders interviewed by the “Caucasian Knot”.

When explaining the detention of the oppositionist, the Investigative Committee of Armenia reported that Garnik Isangulyan publicly and unreasonably accused an Armenian diplomat of a crime.

In Azerbaijan, journalist Sakhavet Mamed was fined 500 manats for posting an article in an online newspaper about bribes in the country’s army.

In a video message addressed to Alexander Sokurov, Barakh Chemurziev, convicted together with six other leaders of the protest in Magas, thanked the film director for his courage and decision to support for the Ingush activists before Vladimir Putin.

Today, on the birthday of Mikheil (Mikhail) Saakashvili, several dozen of his supporters went out to a protest action in Tbilisi, where they demanded to release the politician and also congratulated him on his birthday, the "Rustavi-2" TV Company has reported on its website today.

Dagestan has the lowest food prices in Russia, Battal Battalov, the acting head of the region's Ministry of Agriculture and Foodstuffs, has stated. In response, Instagram users have noted that people's earnings in the republic are one of the lowest in the country and unstable, while utility tariffs are high.

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.