2024-08-17 05:57:38
According to the investigations so far, the leaders provided falsified medical reports that declared young men unfit for military service and excluded them from further registration. Initially, 20 people were identified.
5.55pm: Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin is travelling to the former Soviet republic of Azerbaijan on the Caspian Sea amid heavy fighting between Ukrainian and Russian troops in the Kursk region. Putin will be on a state visit to the Azerbaijani capital Baku on August 18 and 19, the Kremlin announced in Moscow. The programme includes negotiations with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev on the development of the strategic partnership between the two countries, as well as questions of international and regional politics.
Putin is also expected to comment on peace talks between Azerbaijan and its neighbor Armenia. The South Caucasus republics have been working on an agreement for some time after Armenia lost the war over the Nagorno-Karabakh region and handed over control of the territory to Azerbaijan.
5.32pm: According to Russian sources, two aid workers in the western Russian region of Kursk who were trying to help evacuate civilians in the face of the Ukrainian advance were killed in an attack on Friday. The two employees of the Popular Front, an association of non-governmental organizations in Russia, “were killed by a bullet that hit their vehicle in one of the border regions of Kursk,” their organization explained on the online service Telegram. A third person was injured. According to reports, one of the dead was a nurse, the other a press employee. The information cannot be independently verified.