Armenian News - NEWS.am presents the daily digest of Armenia-related top news as of 05.05.21:

-              Armenian soldier has died at combat position of a military unit.

On May 4 at around 8 p.m. fixed-term serviceman, Private Artyom Melkonyan received a lethal firearm injury after being carelessly shot by a fellow serviceman while serving on-duty at a combat position of one of the military units in Armenia.

-              More than 120 members of the European Parliament have urged the EU to increase pressure on Azerbaijan to release Armenian prisoners of war captured last year in fighting over Nagorno-Karabakh, Euroactiv reports.

"We ask you to act to demand the return of all Armenian prisoners of war to their country," they said, in a letter to the heads of the European Commission, European Council, and EU diplomatic service.

It called on the officials — Ursula von der Leyen, Charles Michel and Josep Borrell “to bring all our weight, and use all levers at our disposal, to demand that Azerbaijan purely and solely respect international law”.

-              As of Wednesday morning, 493 new cases of the coronavirus were confirmed in Armenia, and the total number of these cases has reached 217,900 in the country, the National Center for Disease Control and Prevention informed Armenian News-NEWS.am.

Also, 13 more deaths from COVID-19 were registered, making the respective total 4,178 cases.

The number of people who have recovered over the past one day is 452, the total respective number so far is 201,559, and the number of people currently being treated is 11,134—which is an increase by 28 in one day.

And 3,954 COVID-19 tests were conducted in Armenia over the past one day, while 1,000,909 such tests have been performed to date.

-              Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Wednesday is scheduled to arrive in Yerevan where he is scheduled to meet with Armenia’s leadership, on Thursday. Then, on May 10 and 11, the Russian FM will pay a working visit to Baku, TASS reported.

The priority topic of these talks will be the implementation of the existing agreements on the Nagorno-Karabakh (Artsakh) conflict.

-              A magnitude-2.3 earthquake was registered Wednesday in Armenia, at 9:56 am local time, 14 km northwest of Yelpin village in Vayots Dzor Province, and 10 km beneath the surface.

The seismic activity measured magnitude 3 at the epicenter, the Ministry of Emergency Situations informed.

The tremor was felt in Zangakatun, Tigranashen, and Paruyr Sevak villages of Ararat Province—and with a magnitude of 2 to 3.