Armenian News - NEWS.am presents the daily digest of Armenia-related top news as of 29.12.2020:

  • Four Armenian POWs have returned to Armenia through the mediation of Russia and the International Committee of the Red Cross.

Their relatives have already been informed about the return. The POWs are under doctors’ supervision to receive necessary medical and moral-psychological support.

There was also a dead body along with those returned, the office of Deputy PM Tigran Avinyan noted.

Meanwhile, two Azerbaijanis who were in captivity were brought to Baku.

Goris town deputy mayor Menua Hovsepyan had gone live on Facebook Monday at the entrance to Vorotan village and showed Azerbaijanis placing the sign.

The people of Syunik Province have later put paint on the sign.

According to the Armenian ombudsman, what the Azerbaijan military has done is a step with clear intention to intimidate civilians.

According to Hunan Tadevosyan, Artsakh [Nagorno-Karabakh] State Service for Emergency Situations' representative, the search and rescue group had left for Fizuli today, but the Azerbaijanis did not allow them to carry out search operations there.

According to him, the bodies of 1,111 fallen Armenian servicemen had been retrieved so far.

The Azerbaijanis on Monday had not permitted three search and rescue teams to enter Hadrut.

“Azerbaijan threatened by saying that if the residents don’t leave the territories before tomorrow morning, it will attack the villages with troops. The villagers and the village head say the Armenian government knew about this ten days ago,” Hovsepyan said. The villagers have shut down the highway passing through the village and want to know who was aware of this.

Earlier, Azerbaijanis have given people an hour to leave the premises of 12 buildings and structures located in the premises of a gardening company in the Armenian city of Goris.

There are also homes in that building with citizens living there.

According to the Russian Ministry of Defense, the ceasefire regime is being maintained along the entire length of the line of contact.

Earlier, a number of Azerbaijani media outlets reported disinformation on the resumption of fighting between the Armenian and Azerbaijani military in the Hadrut region of Artsakh.

The Artsakh defense army and Armenian defense ministry have refuted the reports.

At Tuesday’s special session, My Step bloc’s faction unanimously voted in favor of the matter of terminating the powers of Naira Zohrabyan—a member of the opposition Prosperous Armenia faction—as Chair of the Standing Committee on Protection of Human Rights and Public Affairs of the NA.

Opposition Bright Armenia and Prosperous Armenia factions and Zohrabyan herself have boycotted the session.

On Monday morning many citizens had formed a "wall of shame" in front of the entrances of the National Assembly (NA) building, and they were giving a "special treatment" to the ruling My Step bloc MPs entering the building.