Billionaire and former Nagorno-Karabakh state minister Ruben Vardanyan, sentenced in Baku to 20 years in prison, rejected the legal force of the ruling and dropped his appeal. His family explained that this decision stemmed from the fact that, in their view, the trial was a "staged performance" rather than a proper trial: the hearings were held behind closed doors, without access to independent observers, and the prosecution's motions were ignored. The full text of the verdict was also not released.
Chechen servicemen defect to Ukraine
Two servicemen from Chechnya, with the support of the SBU, defected to the Ukrainian Armed Forces. They decided to serve in the Sheikh Mansur Battalion, which is fighting for Ukraine.
As reported by the Ukrainian TV channel "TSN", one of those who defected was a 45-year-old contract soldier named Abdullah. He said that the Chechen police forced him to sign a contract through torture and beatings. Then the man was sent to the territory of the Luhansk region.
The second serviceman, a 23-year-old resident of Chechnya named Seyfullakh, said that from the moment the contract was signed, he intended to defect to Ukraine and fight against Russia. Before that, under the guise of filming a video for his fellow servicemen from the Russian army, he transmitted information to the Ukrainian side about the positions of the Russian Armed Forces, the time and routes of the offensive. Saifullakh was listed as a rifleman of the 242nd Motorized Rifle Guards Regiment.
Let us recall that several Chechen units are fighting for Ukraine. Among them are a separate special purpose battalion (OBON) as part of the foreign legion, as well as the Sheikh Mansur and Dzhokhar Dudayev battalions.
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