Live Updates: Russian Peacekeepers Inspecting All Vehicles in Lachin Corridor

Over 1,200 refugees returned to Nagorno-Karabakh from Armenia on Thursday, the Russian Defense Ministry said.

"On November 19, 2020, 1,235 refugees returned to Nagorno-Karabakh from the territory of the Republic of Armenia. A convoy of 27 buses followed the Yerevan-Stepanakert route, accompanied by patrols of the Russian peacekeeping contingent and military police, and arrived at the main square of Stepanakert," the statement says.

The Interdepartmental Center for Humanitarian Response leads and controls ensuring the security of the return of refugees and the movement across the contact line. Since November 14, about 4,000 residents, who previously left their homes, returned to Stepanakert.

"The safety of the movement of buses across the contact line for the return of civilians to their homes in Stepanakert was ensured by Russian servicemen," the ministry added.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Armenian Foreign Minister Ara Ayvazyan discussed by phone the implementation of the agreements between Moscow, Yerevan and Baku on Nagorno-Karabakh, the Russian Foreign Ministry said on Thursday.

"The Russian foreign minister congratulated his Armenian colleague on his appointment. The foreign ministers discussed the state and prospects of Russian-Armenian allied cooperation, as well as the schedule of upcoming contacts. They exchanged views on the practical implementation of the agreements of the leaders of Azerbaijan, Armenia and Russia dated 9 November", the ministry said.

"The United States welcomes the three Co-Chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group and the Personal Representative of the Chair-in-Office to the Permanent Council. We thank you and the Head of the High-Level Planning Group for your timely and objective update on the situation on the ground, recent developments, and thoughts on the way forward", Ambassador James Gilmore III, the head of the US mission to the OSCE said to the OSCE Permanent Council in Vienna.

In his statement, Gilmore also said that Washington “sincerely welcomed” the cessation of hostilities and acknowledged a Moscow-brokered agreement that led to a ceasefire. The diplomat also said that the US appreciates “the additional information provided today regarding the implementation of this arrangement as it goes on to take shape.”

"[An Iskander] was used, but I cannot say in which direction", Former Chief of Armenia's army General Staff Movses Hakobyan said at a briefing, replying to a question as to why the Armenian forces had not used this weapon.

"The LUKOIL Charity Fund will allocate 10 million rubles each to the families of the killed crew members of the Russian helicopter shot down on 9 November 2020 over the territory of Armenia, and in addition to this, it will purchase an apartment in Voronezh for the family of one of them", Lukoil said in a statement.

The company will also provide 5 million rubles to the crew member, senior lieutenant Vyacheslav Gryazin, who was injured in the incident, according to the statement.

"In the past day,  1,199 displaced persons returned to Nagorno-Karabakh from Armenia. ... Since 14 November, more than 3,000 people of Nagorno-Karabakh returned to their homes", a spokesman for the Russian Defense Ministry Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov said at a news briefing.

The ceasefire agreed last week by the Russian, Azerbaijani and Armenian presidents is holding, with people and transport moving safely through the only mountain pass between Armenia and the breakaway region, Konashenkov added.

"Russian peacekeepers guarantee the safe movement of people and civilian vehicles through Lachin Corridor", he said.

"I want to note that we see the quite significant news blackout and even attempts to misrepresent in the media what happens around the implementation of the trilateral statement on the Nagorno-Karabakh settlement", the Foreign Ministry's spokeswoman, Maria Zakharova, said on Thursday at a briefing.

"No, this option is unacceptable. No matter how paradoxical it may sound, in this situation, it is Nikol Pashinyan who is the stabilising factor", Parliamentary Vice Speaker and member of the My Step alliance Lena Nazaryan said at a briefing in Yerevan in response to a question of whether the alliance was mulling changing the head of government.

"On 10 November, Armenia and Azerbaijan reached a new consensus on a ceasefire with active mediation by Russia. China welcomes and highly appreciates this", Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi has said in an interview with the Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper.

Wang hoped that the sides would follow the reached agreements and return to political negotiations and settle differences and debates in a peaceful manner.

In late September, a few days after the military clashes broke out in the ethnic Armenian enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh, French President Emanuel Macron slammed Turkey's backing Azerbaijan in the conflict, and accused Ankara of sending Syrian jihadist militants to fight in the disputed area.

The French response raises existing tensions between both countries, which also involve Eastern Mediterranean and recent unrest in France over the Islamist threat following a series of terrorist attacks. The latter occurred in the wake of reprint and continuous usage of cartoons depicting Islamic prophet Mohammad, which is considered as blasphemy by the Muslims.

The French Armenian community is the largest in the European Union and the third largest in the world; while France along with Russia and the United States, co-chaired the Minsk Group, designated to encourage a peaceful settlement of the armed conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh through negotiations.