The Azerbaijani Ministry of Foreign Affairs strongly condemned New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani's statement, calling it provocative and a distortion of historical facts. Speaking on the anniversary of the 1915 events, Mamdani linked the killing of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire to modern-day events, accusing Azerbaijan and Turkey of attacking Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh in 2020 and "expelling" more than 100,000 people in 2023.
A court in Moscow extended the arrest term of MMA fighter from Chechnya Ilyas Yakubov by two months. He is accused of publicly justifying terrorism.
Earlier, Yakubov announced that the investigation was being delayed: according to him, it was taking a long time and was ineffective. The accused has been held in a pre-trial detention center for 10 months; the courts have refused to transfer him to house arrest.
The reason for his arrest was his publication on social networks. In the video, the athlete is training, and in the background is a recording of a monologue by Chechen field commander Shamil Basayev: “We have no other way, because our people can be defeated, but cannot be conquered.”
Lawyer Abdul-Kerim Taramov said that there is no evidence in the case that the profile with the nickname “ilyas_yakubov91” belongs to Yakubov.
Ilyas Yakubov comes from the Chechen city of Shali. He is the champion of the Shali region in freestyle wrestling, a master of sports in combat sambo, and a winner of the Moscow Cup in pankration.