In a bitter farewell to his home of 21 years, Garo Dadevusyan wrenched off its metal roof and prepared to set the stone house on fire. Thick smoke poured from houses that his neighbors had already torched before fleeing this ethnic Armenian village about to come under Azerbaijani control, AP reported.

Moldova’s PM Ion Chicu reshuffled his ministers ahead of the second round this Sunday of a presidential election that could potentially change the political weather in this divided country, news wires reported. He appointed five new ministers after his coalition partners from the Democratic Party (PD) redrew their ministers last Saturday.

Police in Georgian capital Tbilisi fired water cannon and tear gas against hundreds of protesters gathered outside the Central Election Commission (CEC) on Sunday to support a call by opposition parties for a rerun of parliamentary elections, held on 31 October, Reuters reported. The opposition is demanding the resignation of the CEC chief Tamar Zhvania, saying the elections were rigged.

Azeris celebrated on the streets of Baku after President Ilham Aliyev said on Sunday his country’s forces had taken Shusha, the second-largest city in the Nagorno-Karabakh enclave, but Armenian officials denied the city had been captured.

The leader of the Action and Solidarity Party, Maia Sandu won the first round of the presidential election in Moldova on Sunday. The pro-European centre-right candidate came out on top with 36.1% of the vote, announced Moldova’s Central Electoral Commission on Monday morning, with 99.81% of the ballots counted.

Georgia faces political crisis after the opposition refused to recognise the results of parliamentary elections, held on Saturday, news wires reported. According to the Central Election Commission, the ruling Georgian Dream party was well out in front with 48.1%t after the votes at nearly all of the polling stations were counted. The largest opposition party, the United National Movement, was in second place on 27.1%.

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky has suffered a setback in Sunday's local elections, early exit polls showed, while his pro-Russian and pro-European rivals are leading in most of the country's major cities, news wires reported.

Russia’s foreign minister Sergey Lavrov on Tuesday warned that Moscow could freeze its contacts with the EU in response to its sanctions over the poisoning of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, news wires reported. The tough statement comes a day after the EU foreign ministers agreed to impose sanctions on Russian officials and organizations blamed for Navalny’s poisoning with a Soviet-era nerve agent Novichok.

Belarusian police detained numerous protesters on Sunday during demonstrations against President Alexander Lukashenko in Minsk, in what observers called the most violent crackdown seen in weeks, dpa reported.

Moscow schools began unplanned holidays on Monday and businesses were required to have at least 30% of their staff working remotely, as COVID-19 cases across Russia hit their highest level since 12 May.