Marianna Budanova, the wife of the chief of Ukraine's military intelligence, Kyrylo Budanov, has been poisoned with heavy metals and is currently in hospital, media reported on November 28, citing sources. According to the reports, several military intelligence officials have also been poisoned with "substances" that "are not used in everyday life or for military purposes and their presence may indicate a premeditated attempt to poison a concrete person." The reports, if confirmed, would represent the most serious targeting of a high-profile Ukrainian leadership figure's family member since Russia launched its invasion in February 2022. To read the original story by RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service, click here.

A Moscow court on November 28 ordered the arrest of journalist Anna Loiko in absentia for at least one month on a charge of "publicly justifying terrorism." Loiko, who currently resides in Georgia, works for the online media outlet SOTA. The charge stems from Loiko's 2021 article about the Hizb ut-Tahrir Islamic group, which is banned as "terrorist" in Russia. Last month, police searched Loiko's Moscow apartment and briefly detained her mother for questioning. Loiko has insisted the story in question has nothing to do with justifying terrorism and is about abuse of Russian citizens' rights by the authorities.

A court in Kyrgyzstan has sent an adviser of the southern Batken region's governor to pretrial detention for at least two months on extortion charges. The arrested official, whose identity was not disclosed, is accused of extorting $200,000 from a local businessman. The Central Asian country's State Committee for National Security announced the man's detainment on November 24. The suspect was sent to a pretrial detention center in the country's second-largest city, Osh, on November 26. To read the original story by RFE/RL's Kyrgyz Service, click here.

Six teenagers went on trial in Paris on November 27 over the killing of teacher Samuel Paty in 2020 by an 18-year-old refugee from Russia's Chechnya who was shot dead at the crime scene. The defendants are accused of having identified Paty to the killer in exchange for promises of money. The deadly attack took place after messages on social media said the teacher had shown his class cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad from the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo while talking about freedom of speech. Eight adults implicated in the case will go on trial next year. To read the original story by RFE/RL's Caucasus.Realities, click here.

Police in the central Kazakh town of Shakhtinsk have closed a high-profile case investigating an attack on noted journalist Diana Saparqyzy. The KazTAG news agency reporter's lawyer told RFE/RL on November 28 that the police ruled that "there were no elements of a crime" in the case, which was being investigated as obstruction of journalistic activities. The case was closed almost three weeks ago, police said. Saparqyzy's lawyer said the journalist was attacked in August by five unknown men who forcibly removed her from the grounds of a mining operation in Shakhtinsk, where she was reporting on a deadly accident. To read the original story by RFE/RL's Kazakh Service, click here.

The chief of Kyrgyzstan's State Committee of National Security, Kamchybek Tashiev, said on November 28 that almost 20 former top officials, including "two ex-presidents, four former prime ministers, and two former parliament speakers," had been held responsible for their roles in the high-profile Kumtor gold mine case. He did not specify the names. According to Tashiev, the probe "helped to nationalize Kumtor." Kyrgyzstan regained full control of Kumtor last year under the terms of a deal with the Canadian company Centerra Gold following years of financial and environmental disagreements. To read the original story by RFE/RL's Kyrgyz Service, click here. https://www.azattyk.org/a/32702822.html

Bulgaria's Foreign Ministry says it has given permission to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov's plane to cross its airspace en route to North Macedonia's capital, Skopje, where he is to attend a November 29-December 1 meeting of the Council of Ministers of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). The European Union, of which Bulgaria is a member, imposed a blanket flight ban on Russian planes on February 27 2022, three days after Moscow launched its unprovoked invasion of Ukraine. Bulgaria's decision, announced late on November 27, came at the request of North Macedonia, which currently holds the rotating presidency of the OSCE.

To read the original story by RFE/RL's Bulgarian Service, click here. https://www.svobodnaevropa.bg/a/lavrov-makedoniq-razreshenie/32702706.html

More than 550 settlements are still without electricity in Ukraine amid a cold spell following snowstorms and heavy snowfall over the weekend, despite the fact that technicians working nonstop managed to reconnect several hundred villages and cities, the state-owned Ukrenerho power-grid operator said on November 28.

"Fewer settlements remain disconnected from the power grid -- 559 as of the morning of November 28. Energy workers have been working all night and restored several hundred settlements," Ukrenerho Chairman Volodymyr Kudrytskiy told RFE/RL.

Kudrytskiy said the worst-affected by the bad weather was southern Ukraine, in particular the Odesa, Mykolaiyv, and Kherson regions, where most communities still disconnected are located.

Kyiv and its surroundings, which besides having to deal with the effects of bad weather were also targeted by Russia's largest wave of drone strikes just days before, has managed to repair all three high-voltage power lines that were damaged by the Russians, Kudrytskiy said.

Earlier on November 28, Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko said the spell of cold weather and snow storms that swept through Ukraine and parts of Southeastern Europe had killed 10 Ukrainians in the Odesa, Kharkiv, Mykolayiv regions, and the capital, Kyiv.

A further 23 people, including two children, were injured in incidents caused by the bad weather, Klymenko said. The highest number of deaths, five, and injuries, 15, was recorded in the Odesa region.

The ministry said 411 settlements in 11 Ukrainian regions remained cut off due to blocked roads as of early on November 28.

In occupied Crimea, winds of more than 100 kilometers per hour were forecast for November 28, Russian state news agency TASS said, adding that similarly strong gusts were expected in southern Russia and parts of northwestern Russia.

At least four people lost their lives because of inclement weather in southern Russia and occupied Crimea, regional authorities said.

With reporting by AP

Aziz Orucov, the executive director of Azerbajian's Kanal 13 Internet TV station, was detained late on November 27 and his home and office were searched by the police. Orucov's lawyer, Bahruz Bayramov, told local media that his client was accused of owning, using, or leasing property illegally. Bayramov said Orucov linked his arrest to his journalistic activity. In 2017, Orucov was sentenced to six years in prison over allegedly gaining illegal revenues from grants but denied the charges. He was released on parole a year later. Kanal 13 and other independent media have been accused by state media of anti-government activities. To read the original story by RFE/RL's Azerbaijani Service, click here.

Russian forces launched a missile strike at the city of Kryviy Rih in the eastern region of Donetsk overnight, Yevhen Sytnychenko, the head of the city's military administration, said on Telegram on November 28. Sytnychenko said the authorities were looking into the consequences of the strike. He said the region's infrastructure appeared to be "working normally." In the neighboring region of Dnipropetrovsk, Russian forces shelled Marhanets, in the Nikopol district, with heavy artillery, regional Governor Serhiy Lysak said on Telegram. There have been no reports of casualties yet, Lysak added. To read the original story by RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service, click here.

Jailed former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan has been denied an open-court trial as ordered by a high court after the government submitted reports citing threats to his life, his lawyer said on November 28. The court hearing the case later said Khan's trial on the charge of leaking state secrets will be held in jail premises but will be open to media and the public, the lawyer said. The Islamabad High Court had ruled last week that holding Khan's trial inside jail premises on security concerns was illegal, and ordered it restarted in an open court. Khan denies the charges.

Russia's capital will more than double its spending on video-surveillance equipment next year, the budget approved by the Moscow City Duma shows. The amount earmarked for such equipment, is 1.97 billion rubles ($22.2 million) in 2024, according to the budget passed last week, compared to 800 million rubles ($9 million) spent this year. The Moscow Times last month reported that official data showed the number of video cameras connected to facial-recognition systems exceeded half a million throughout Russia. Moscow has the most such systems -- 216 installed throughout the city. To read the original story by RFE/RL's Russian Service, click here.

A Russian court has extended by two months the pretrial detention of U.S. journalist Evan Gershkovich, a reporter for The Wall Street Journal being held on spying charges that he, his newspaper and Washington call "false."

After holding a session closed to the media on November 28, the Lefortovo district court of Moscow announced on Telegram it had ruled to keep the 32-year-old correspondent in custody at least until January 30.

"Evan has now been unjustly imprisoned for nearly 250 days, and every day is a day too long," The Wall Street Journal said in a statement after the ruling.

"The accusations against him are categorically false and his continued imprisonment is a brazen and outrageous attack on a free press, which is critical for a free society," it added.

Gershkovich was detained in late March in the Urals city of Yekaterinburg.

Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) said at the time of the arrest that it had opened an espionage case against Gershkovich for collecting what it said were state secrets about the military industrial complex. He denies the charges.

If convicted, he faces up to 20 years in prison.

The White House and The Wall Street Journal have said Gershkovich was working and is a properly accredited journalist in Russia.

"We are deeply concerned by the court's decision to extend his detention for another two months. We reiterate our call for Evan's immediate release," the U.S. Embassy in Moscow said in a post on X, formerly Twitter, adding it had representatives inside the courtroom during the session.

Since his arrest, Gershkovich has been held in Moscow's Lefortovo prison, a notorious institution dating back to tsarist times. Seen as a symbol of Soviet repression, Lefortovo is where Russia holds most suspects in espionage cases.

On August 24, the Lefortovo district court extended for three months, until November 30, Gershkovich's detention. On October 10, the court rejected Gershkovich's appeal against the extension.

A U.S. citizen based in Moscow, Gershkovich, 31, had been in Yekaterinburg reporting about the attitude of Russians toward the Kremlin's war against Ukraine and on the Wagner mercenary group.

Lawyer Maria Korchagina told reporters that the defense asked the court to change the preventive measure for Gershkovich from incarceration to house arrest, a ban on certain actions, or 50 million rubles ($561,000) bail. The bail was to be provided by Dow Jones&Co, the owner of The Wall Street Journal.

The U.S. State Department has declared Gershkovich "wrongfully detained," which gives the department grounds to act in the interest of Gershkovich.

Russia has been accused of detaining Americans to use as bargaining chips to exchange for Russians jailed in the United States.

RFE/RL journalist Alsu Kurmasheva, who holds dual U.S. and Russian citizenship, has been detained since last month and charged with failing to register as a "foreign agent," a crime that carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison.

Kurmasheva, who had traveled to Russia in May for a family emergency, was temporarily detained while waiting for her return flight on June 2 at Kazan airport in Tatarstan, where both of her passports were confiscated.

As she awaited the return of her travel documents, she was detained again and charged on October 18.

More than 30 RFE/RL journalists have been listed as "foreign agents" by the Russian Justice Ministry in their personal capacity.

RFE/RL says the "foreign agent" law amounts to political censorship meant to prevent journalists from performing their professional duties and is challenging the authorities' moves in Russian courts and at the European Court of Human Rights.

With reporting by Current Time

Russian President Vladimir Putin on November 27 signed a national budget for the next three years that increases spending by around 25 percent. The budget foresees spending in 2024 of 36.6 trillion rubles ($415 billion) with an expected deficit of 1.595 trillion rubles ($9.5 billion). After the budget was passed by the lower house of parliament, Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin said it was developed specifically to fund the military and to mitigate the impact of international sanctions. Part of the Russian budget is secret as the Kremlin tries to conceal its military plans and sidestep scrutiny of its operations in Ukraine.

There will be no meeting between U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov at a conference in North Macedonia this week, Russian news agency TASS reported on November 27, citing a comment by Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov. Washington has not requested a meeting "and there will be no meeting," Ryabkov was quoted as saying. Lavrov said earlier that he would take part in the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) meeting if Bulgaria opened its air space to the Russian delegation. He also said some Western countries had asked to meet him.

At least 13 people were killed and dozens injured in Ukraine, Moldova, and Russia due to a winter storm that wreaked havoc in areas of Southeastern Europe and along the Black Sea coast, toppling trees and pulling down power lines, leaving hundreds of thousands of people without electricity.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on November 27 said five people were killed and 19 were injured in Odesa and stressed that it was important that every community ensure that more people do not lose their lives due to bad weather.

"Unfortunately, as of now, there are some deaths. The highest number [of casualties] is in the Odesa region -- five people," Zelenskiy said in a video message.

According to the Ukrainian Energy Ministry, there were 882 settlements in 12 regions without power as of the evening of November 27 due to strong wind and snowfall. The Odesa region had the largest number of settlements without electricity -- 313, affecting about 110,000 consumers.

Ukraine's Emergency Service reported that by the evening of November 27, 1,233 vehicles had been towed and 164 trees removed.

• Reuters
• RFE/RL
• TASS

A Russian-installed official in Ukraine's Crimea peninsula said that one person had been killed and others injured as severe storms left more than half a million people without electricity and heat in the region that Moscow illegally annexed in 2014.

Moldova, Bulgaria, and Romania were also badly affected by the storm, which swept in from the Black Sea, bringing snowfall as far north as Moscow in what the Hydrometeorological Center of Russia called "one of the strongest storms to ever hit at the end of November."

Authorities in Moldova said there were nine road accidents in which two people died and 14 were injured. In addition, two people were found dead inside a car inundated by mud near the village of Coscalia.

The Russian Energy Ministry said about 1.9 million people were affected by power cuts in the southern regions of Daghestan, Krasnodar, and Rostov, as well as in the as the Russian-occupied parts of Ukraine's Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, Zaporizhzhya, and Crimea regions.

Several people were injured in the Krasnodar region when hundreds of trees were blown down, the Russian Emergencies Ministry said. The storm also caused a large Belize-flagged cargo ship to run around near Anapa, the ministry said.

The number of deaths caused by the storm in the Krasnodar region and Russian-occupied Crimea was four, state-run Russian news agency RIA Novosti reported on November 27.

The body of a man who drowned was found in the Russian coastal city of Novorossiisk, the press service of the Interior Ministry in the Krasnodar region said.

The body of another victim, believed to be a crew member of a Malta-flagged ship that was in the Kerch Strait during the storm, was pulled from the water in Sochi. Two other deaths were reported in Crimea, but only one of them was confirmed by officials.

Mikhail Razvozhayev, the Russian-installed governor of Sevastopol, said some parts of the city were being evacuated on November 27. Three people were hospitalized with injuries, he said, adding that 354 homes were without electricity and many others were without natural gas.

The Aquarium Museum in Sevastopol reported the storm tore through the complex, killing all of the estimated 800 animals housed in the facility.

In the Russian-occupied part of the Kherson region, 94 settlements were without electricity, said Vladimir Saldo, the Russian-installed head of the region. The wind knocked down nine power lines and damaged more than 50 towers, and communications and Internet have been disrupted.

Authorities in Romania and neighboring Moldova said hundreds of cities and villages were without electricity and water in the two countries on November 27 following heavy snowfall and blizzards that prompted severe disruption of road and railway traffic.

In Bulgaria, snowfall and blizzards prompted authorities to declare a state of emergency in several areas in the northeast of the Balkan country -- Silistra and Razgrad regions, Valchi dol municipality, Varna region, and Shumen region. Some 1,000 settlements were without electricity, Prime Minister Nikolay Denkov said at an emergency government meeting on November 26.

With reporting by RFE/RL's Russian Service, Digi24.ro, Hotnews.ro, Unimedia.md, AP, and Reuters

Pakistan's military said on November 27 that an Afghan national carried out a suicide attack a day earlier on a security forces convoy that killed two civilians and injured several others.

The military said in a statement that "a motorcycle-borne suicide bomber, affiliated with Hafiz Gul Bahadur and later identified as an Afghan national," carried out the attack in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province in northwestern Pakistan. It added that seven civilians and three soldiers were injured in the attack.

It gave no further details.

Pakistani officials have not provided any other information, and there has been no claim of responsibility for the attack.

Hafiz Gul Bahadur is the leader of a Pakistani Taliban faction based in North Waziristan.

The security situation in the province in recent months has worsened despite the promises of the government and security authorities. There were multiple deadly incidents last week, including the killing of an employee of the Forestry Department in North Waziristan on November 23.

Two days ago, two soldiers were killed in a landmine explosion and a policeman was killed in an attack on a checkpoint in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, while in South Waziristan on November 22, three civilians, including a local leader, were killed and four were injured in a bomb blast in Azam Worsk. No one has claimed responsibility for those attacks.

The bombing in Azam Worsk occurred after two soldiers were killed in an armed attack on a post in Sar Rogha in South Waziristan. The Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP) claimed responsibility for that attack.

The Pakistani government and army say they have continued their operations against the militants.

The army said on November 21 that it had killed three suspected militants in an encounter in North Waziristan. The army added that one of its soldiers was also killed in the clash.

Earlier, the army had claimed the killing of 11 suspected militants in clashes during operations in Peshawar and Tank in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa on November 16.

Pakistan's caretaker prime minister, Anwar ul-Haq Kakar, on November 20 said terrorist attacks inside his country have increased 60 percent since the Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan in August 2021. Some 2,300 people have been killed in these attacks.

North Macedonia Foreign Minister Bujar Osmani said November 27 that Malta has agreed to take over the OSCE's rotating presidency from Skopje in January. "Thank you Malta for your willingness to take on this vital role and to all colleagues for your flexibility and support," Osmani, who currently chairs the OSCE, wrote on X, formerly Twitter. EU and NATO member Estonia was supposed to take over from January, but Russia and Belarus vetoed it, arguing that Estonia is a NATO country. EU member Malta is militarily neutral, although it has condemned Russia's invasion of Ukraine. To read the original story by RFE/RL's Balkan Service, click here.

Finland expects more asylum seekers to arrive at its border via Russia and plans to take further measures to stem the flow after closing all but one entry point. "Intelligence information from different sources tells us that there still are people on the move," Prime Minister Petteri Orpo said. Some 900 asylum seekers from nations including Afghanistan, Kenya, Morocco, Pakistan, Somalia, Syria, and Yemen have entered Finland from Russia in November, an increase from less than one per day previously. Finland blames a change in Russian border protocol and calls it a hybrid attack. Moscow denies the charge. To read the original story by Reuters, click here.

KYIV -- Ukrainian investigators have charged five emergency officials with violating aviation safety regulations that led to the helicopter crash that killed Interior Minister Denys Monastyrskiy and 13 other people in January.

The State Bureau of Investigations (DBR) said on November 27 that the five -- Ivan Korobka, Volodymyr Leonov, Oleh Ivanov, Andriy Dvornyk, and Yan Koshman -- are officials of the State Emergency Service.

They were officially indicted after the investigation into the aircraft crash ended, the statement said.

The five were detained in August. A court later released them but ordered to stay at home during nighttime.

The helicopter of the State Emergency Service carrying Monastyrskiy, his first deputy minister, Yevhen Yenin, State Secretary Yuriy Lubkovych, and other officials, was on its way to the eastern regions of Kharkiv and Dnipropetrovsk, when it crashed in foggy conditions into a kindergarten and the surrounding residential area of Brovary near the Ukrainian capital on January 18.

The crash killed 14 people, including those onboard as well as four women and a child in the kindergarten. Another 31 people, including 13 children, were injured. Some were evacuated to the European Union for treatment at the time.

Investigators say the helicopter did not have permission papers to carry out flights for purposes other than emergency situations.

"The crew commander began the flight without having full information about weather conditions for the whole route of the flight, and the crew did not have the necessary permission to carry out flights in complicated weather conditions, as well as the necessary certificates. None of the supervising officials responsible for aviation safety either canceled the flight or postponed it until better weather conditions," the DBR's statement said.

Monastyrskiy, 42, was appointed to the post of the interior minister in mid-July 2021. In September 2022, six months after Russia launched its ongoing unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, Monastyrskiy participated in the largest prisoner exchange between Ukraine and Russia, when 215 Ukrainian soldiers returned home.

A Moscow court on November 27 sentenced journalist Aleksandra Bayazitova, a former reporter of Izvestiya and Kommersant newspapers, and media manager Olga Arkharova to five years and 4 1/2 years in prison, respectively, on a charge of extortion. The court held that the two had attempted to extort 1.2 million rubles ($13,400) from Aleksandr Ushakov, the vice president of state-owned Promsvyaz Bank, in exchange for not publishing "negative information" about the bank on Bayazitova's YouTube channel. Bayazitova pleaded not guilty while Arkharova pleaded guilty. The trial was held behind closed doors. To read the original story by Current Time, click here.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said he would take part in a meeting of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) in North Macedonia if Bulgaria opened its air space to the Russian delegation, and that some Western countries had asked to meet him. Since President Vladimir Putin ordered Russian troops into Ukraine in 2022, the West has sought to isolate Moscow, and face-to-face meetings between senior ministers have been rare. Lavrov said North Macedonia had invited him to attend a meeting of foreign ministers of the OSCE in Skopje from November 30 to December 1.

The Kyrgyz State Committee of National Security (UKMK) said on November 27 that its officers had detained Erkin Toigonbaev, the mayor of the southern town of Toktogul, and two other men including his son on suspicion of illegally obtaining a quartz mine near the town. According to the UKMK, the crime took place last year when Toigonbaev served as a district governor. The alleged illegal mining activities of Toigonbaev and his son caused damages, including through the alleged violation of environmental safety regulations, estimated at around 74 million soms ($835,000). To read the original story by RFE/RL's Kyrgyz Service, click here.

A collection of gold artifacts from Crimea, known as the Scythian Gold, which was on loan to a Dutch museum when Russia seized Ukraine's peninsula in 2014, was returned to Ukraine after Dutch courts decided that the collection cannot be returned to Moscow-annexed Crimea. The Kyiv-based National Museum of Ukrainian History said on November 27 that it has the items now and will keep them until Crimea's 'de-occupation." In 2016, a court in Amsterdam ruled that the collection was part of Ukraine's cultural heritage and should be returned to Kyiv, a decision Moscow appealed. To read the original story by RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service, click here.

Alyaksandra Kasko, a 30-year-old Belarusian rights activist who was arrested in early February right after she returned from Poland, went on trial in the western city of Hrodna on November 27 on charges of inciting hatred, mishandling personal data, organizing an extremist group, assisting the implementation of extremist activities, spreading lies about authoritarian ruler Alyaksandr Lukashenka, contempt of court, and insulting an official. If convicted, Kasko faces up to 12 years in prison. The charges stem from Kasko's activities protesting the official results of a widely disputed presidential election in 2020 that handed Lukashenka victory. She has been declared a political prisoner by rights organizations. To read the original story by RFE/RL's Belarus Service, click here.