Labor migrants are attempting to leave Russia as their jobs have been hit by sanctions. But they can’t cross the border into Azerbaijan, which has remained closed since the beginning of the pandemic.
A disengagement from the world medical community combined with conservative societal norms have led to many doctors shunning COVID jabs even as the wave of infections reaches new heights.
Tbilisi’s world-famous nightclubs were the country’s last businesses to reopen following the COVID lockdown. But it took a confrontation with the authorities to make it happen.
For the most part, pro-government forces did not sympathize with the protests, but they also didn’t like the idea of Russia and Armenia getting involved in suppressing them.
Many object that the CSTO didn’t aid Armenia when it asked for help, and pointed at the irony of the current government coming to power as the result of street protests.
The president has doubled down on his claims that terrorists with foreign backing are behind the protests, which began this week over fuel prices then snowballed.
The Russia-led security bloc will be sending peacekeeping forces, the first time in its history that its collective security provision has been exercised.