Georgian citizen Nikolas Berianidze, who was sentenced to life imprisonment in the "DPR", has been recognized as a political prisoner. This was reported by the independent human rights project "Memorial".

Next week, the Council of the European Union will meet to discuss the situation in Georgia. The corresponding statement was made by the European Commissioner for EU enlargement Marta Kos, who stressed that what is happening in the country is "far from what we expect from a candidate country."

A court in Crimea has fined the independent Muslim community “Eski Kyrym” 400 thousand rubles. The reason for the fine was the banned books found in the Zubeir-Jami mosque in Stary Krym during a visit by security forces.

A court in Makhachkala sentenced activist and blogger Ramazan Rabadanov to three years and two months of suspended imprisonment. He was found guilty of possessing weapons and ammunition. The activist was also fined 50,000 rubles.

Rossotrudnichestvo has assessed Azerbaijani spying accusations and its closure of the Russian project Russian House as "stupid". The corresponding statement was made by the head of the Federal Agency for CIS Affairs, Compatriots Living Abroad and International Humanitarian Cooperation Yevgeny Primakov. He noted with regret that members of the Russian community in Azerbaijan did not support Russia during the aggravation of relations between the two countries.

Head of the Foreign Policy Department of the Presidential Administration of Azerbaijan Hikmet Hajiyev expressed the country's position on the Russian-Ukrainian war in an interview with the Slovak publication Hospodárske noviny.

The OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights may send an observation mission to the local elections to be held in Georgia this autumn. This will be implemented if official Tbilisi promptly initiates an invitation.

18 residents of the Magaramkent district of Dagestan were hospitalized in moderate and mild conditions after being poisoned by drinking water. In total, over 100 people sought medical attention with signs of intestinal infection.

A Baku court has rejected appeals to soften the preventive measure against Russian journalists of Sputnik Azerbaijan Igor Kartavykh and Yevgeny Belousov. The decision of the court of first instance to arrest the defendants remained in force.

Timur Yalkabov, sentenced to 17 years, was transferred to strict conditions in IK-17 in Murmansk. According to his wife, the reason was allegedly that the prisoner did not work in his previous place of detention - the prison in the city of Dimitrovgrad in the Ulyanovsk region.