Russia's Investigative Committee said on August 23 that it launched an investigation into the death by suicide of teen athlete Ksenia Cheponova, which she apparently carried out as a result of a bullying over her ethnicity. The noted 17-year-old sambo wrestler's body was found on August 17 in Novosibirsk, where she studied at a sports college. Before her death, Cheponova left a message on Telegram saying she was tired of being humiliated for her ethnicity.
Amid the public outcry that followed, the acting governor of the Altai region, Andrei Turchak, asked Investigative Committee chief Aleksandr Bastrykin to investigate Cheponova's death. Altais are Turkic-speaking indigenous people of Siberia. To read the original story by Current Time, click here .
A Baku court on August 23 sent Azerbaijani political analyst Bahruz Samadov to pretrial detention for at least four months on a high treason charge, which he rejects. Samadov, a doctoral student at Charles University in Prague, was detained a day earlier. Police told Samadov's grandmother her grandson was suspected of illegal drugs-related activities.
Later, a lawyer called and told her Samadov "is being accused of treason." Samadov has been critical of Baku's military offensives in 2020 and 2024 that ended with Azerbaijan regaining control over the then mostly ethnic Armenian-populated breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh. To read the original story by RFE/RL's Azerbaijani Service, click here .
U.S. President Joe Biden reiterated.