[Armenian News note: the below is translated from Azeri]

17 April: Prosecutor-General Zakir Qaralov has sent an appeal to Russian Prosecutor-General Yuri Chaika following the demonstration of the flag of the self-declared regime located in the Azerbaijani Republic's occupied areas and [the demonstration of] other slogans in a report published on Izvestia newspaper's news portal iz.ru by the editorial board of that portal on 16 April 2018.

The press service of the Prosecutor-General's Office told APA that the appeal flatly condemned the illegal actions against Azerbaijan's sovereignty and territorial integrity and said that the provocation by the editorial board of the news portal caused a major public outcry. The appeal expressed confidence that an impartial and fair investigation would be conducted and that a legal evaluation would soon be given to those actions.

The website of Izvestia newspaper had published an interview with Serzh Sargsyan, former president of Armenia who has been nominated for prime minister.

One of the photos published alongside the interview, which was conducted by journalist Alexei Zabrodin, showed the flag of the self-declared Nagorno-Karabakh separatist regime and a plaque that read "Welcome to Free Artsakh [Nagorno-Karabakh]".

One of the questions in Sargsyan's interview was about the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

The editor-in-chief of Izvestia newspaper is Arseny Oganesyan, an ethnic Armenian. The newspaper was founded in 1917.