Armenia

Russian state-owned domestic news agency RIA reports that a group of Armenian protesters stormed into a government building in Yerevan on Monday demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan.

"We are completing our action. Our goal was to show that we can enter any ministry," said one of the participants according to RIA.

Three schoolgirls and their family members were deported to Georgia and Armenia in the early morning hours Thursday. The children were born and raised in Austria, and protests had formed against the deportation.

ÖVP security spokesman Karl Mahrer defended the deportations in advance by referring to the current legal situation. He rejected the idea of facilitating access to citizenship for children born in Austria.

Politicians from the SPÖ, Neos, and Greens had previously joined the protests against the deportation.

The Prime Minister of Armenia has announced that there is no diplomatic solution in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and subsequent war with Azerbaijan. He has vowed to fight "until the end".

Armenia and Azerbaijan have accused each other of violating a humanitarian ceasefire that came into force midnight on Sunday. In the early hours of Sunday, Azerbaijan fired artillery shells and rockets. This was reported by Shusan Stepanyan, a spokeswoman for Armenia’s defence ministry. Azerbaijan later accused Armenia of breaking the truce.

The countries have been fighting over Azerbaijan’s ethnic Armenian-controlled enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh.

After around ten hours of talks between diplomats from Armenia and Azerbaijan, both countries have agreed to a cease-fire in the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region. It came into effect only hours later at noon local time on Saturday.

The negotiations had been initiated and taken place under Russian supervision. The cease-fire happens "on humanitarian grounds for exchanging POWs and other detained persons and dead bodies" according to a statement.

Both the Armenian and the Azerbaijani government have announced that they will join peace talks in Moscow.

Armenia has announced that they are ready to work together with the Organization for Security and Co-operation (OSCE) in order to return to cease-fire terms with Azerbaijan. In the announcement, they referred to the terms set out in an agreement from 1994-1195.

Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliyev has stated that they "only have one condition: Armenian armed forces must unconditionally, fully, and immediately leave our lands".

Fights had previously broken out in the Nagorno-Karabakh region and over 100 deaths have been reported.

Armenia says a Turkish F-16 shot down one of its SU-25 fighter jets in a significant escalation of the conflict over the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region.

Turkey, which openly backs Azerbaijan in the conflict, has denied the claim.

The prime minister of Armenia, Nikol Pashinyan, has claimed that Azerbaijan has initiated a "missile & aerial attack" against Artsakh, a territory that is claimed by Armenia.

Azerbaijan claims to have launched a "counter-offensive" against Armenia.

Both countries are now at war.

The government of Armenia has approved a law to ratify an agreement between Japan and Armenia with the aim to develop the economic cooperation of the countries.

According to the agreement Japan will provide a grant for economic and social development purposes worth around $3,7 million. The Armenia government has committed to use the funds to purchase four-wheel ambulances and vehicles to provide remote regions with improved medical care.

The Prime Minister of Armenia, Nikol Pashinyan, has stated the country has improved the overall situation over the past days. Still, current measures need to be kept up to prevent returning to a crisis and a severe increase in the numbers.

According to Arsen Torosyan, Minister of Health, the number of heavy and extremely heavy Covid-19 cases has dropped from 650 to about 500. The country has reported 37,937 Covid-19 cases in total.