Armenia will introduce a new biometric identification system on 1 November, with citizens set to receive passports containing electronic chips and a new generation of national ID cards. The reform is intended to make Armenian identity documents compatible with international authentication systems and, in the longer term, allow their holders to pass through automated border gates.

Utility bills rose across the North Caucasus on 1 October. The average increase across the North Caucasus Federal District (NCFD) was 14.5% — almost 2.7 percentage points higher than in the rest of Russia. The national average stands at around 12%.

The Russian nationalist movement Russkaya Obshchina (Russian Community) has publicly backed Moscow police officers who forcibly removed the hijab of Fatima Aliyeva, a doctor from Dagestan. In a post on its Telegram channel, the group accused the woman of deliberately provoking the incident and attempting to discredit law enforcement. It also pledged to defend the officers if, in its view, they faced persecution or threats against their relatives.

In Khasavyurt, 15-year-old Maryam Akavova rescued a six-year-old child from a Lada Priora that had caught fire. On October 27, the ninth-grade student was walking past a parked car when she noticed a boy’s head sticking out of a window. Upon getting closer, she saw that the glove compartment inside the vehicle was already on fire.