A well-known Belarusian opera singer and political activist says her parents have been fined for "disobeying police orders" after their house was searched and they refused to record a video calling on their daughter to stop her political activities.

Marharyta Lyauchuk said her parents were detained on May 26 in the western region of Brest and then ordered to pay 2,240 rubles ($660) each for what the judge said was refusing to follow police orders. It was not clear which orders they refused to follow.

Lyauchuk earlier told RFE/RL that before detaining her parents, police searched their house in the village of Stradzech in the western Brest region.

According to Lyauchuk, her parents' neighbor, who was present when officers searched her parents' house, told her that her parents were handcuffed and taken away.

Last July, Belarusian authorities launched a criminal case against Lyauchuk, accusing her of "desecrating the national flag." The charge stemmed from a video on Lyauchuk's YouTube channel.

Police also searched the home of Volha Pavuk, the former wife of noted opposition blogger and singer Andrey Pavuk, on May 26.

Pavuk, his former wife, and their children left the country in the wake of anti-government protests questioning the official results of an August 2020 presidential poll that handed a sixth consecutive term in office to strongman Alyaksandr Lukashenka.

He was charged in absentia with publicly insulting a prosecutor and disclosing the personal data of a prosecutor’s aide. He denies the charges.

Lyauchuk and Andrey Pavuk recorded several joint singing sessions critical of Lukashenka and his government and posted them on YouTube.

Both are on the Interior Ministry's list of wanted persons.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) has called on Tajikistan's government to refrain from abusing participants in the protests that erupted earlier this month in the restive Gorno-Badakhshan autonomous region.

The protests were initially sparked by anger over the lack of an investigation into the 2021 death of an activist while in police custody and the refusal by regional authorities to consider the resignation of Governor Alisher Mirzonabot and Rizo Nazarzoda, the mayor of the regional capital, Khorugh.

The rallies intensified after a protester was killed by police on May 16, prompting the authorities to launch what they called a "counterterrorist operation" during which as many as 40 people were killed by the security forces, according to Fernand de Varennes, the UN special rapporteur on minority issues.

As government forces dispersed the protests, the authorities also cut Internet and mobile connectivity in the autonomous region.

"Tajik citizens in the autonomous region were peacefully exercising their rights to freedom of expression and assembly to protest abuses against their community when the police engaged in excessive force," HRW's Syinat Sultanalieva said in a statement on May 26.

"Tajik authorities should immediately stop harassing protesters, investigate the abuses against them, and restore communications in the region to allow citizens access to information," the statement said.

"The authorities should also immediately end abuses against protesters in the towns of Khorugh and Rushan, whom central Tajik authorities have labeled 'militants' and 'members of terrorist groups,'" the statement added.

Gorno-Badakhshan, a linguistically and ethnically distinct region whose residents identify themselves as "Pamiri," was home to rebels who opposed government forces during the Tajik civil war in the 1990s.

Although it occupies almost half of the entire Central Asian country, it has a population of only 250,000. The region is difficult to travel around because of the mountainous terrain, while its economy is wracked by unemployment, difficult living conditions, and high food prices.

The escalating violence in the region has sparked a call for restraint from the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, the Western diplomatic missions in Tajikistan, and human rights groups.

In a rare display of political protest in Russia, a group of lawmakers representing the Communist Party in the Far Eastern region of Primorye have called on President Vladimir Putin to stop military operations in Ukraine and withdraw all troops from the country.

Leonid Vasyukevich, a member of the regional Legislative Assembly, read out the statement at a session held by lawmakers on May 27.

The statement said that as Russian troops are suffering significant losses in Ukraine, there is no way to get any success by military means.

"We understand that if our country does not stop the military operation, there will be more orphans in the country. During the military operation, young men are dying or becoming disabled, while they could be very useful for our country," the statement said.

Vasyukevich said that the statement was signed by him and his colleagues Gennady Shulga, Natalya Kochugova, and Aleksandr Sustov.

The region's governor, Oleg Kozhemyako, who was at the session, ordered Vasyukevich and Shulga, who vocally supported the statement, to be removed from the premises.

"The action defames the Russian Army and our defenders who are fighting against Nazism. You are a traitor," Kozhemyako said, addressing Vasyukevich.

The lawmakers then deprived Vasyukevich and Shulga of their right to take the floor at the session. The leader of the Communist lawmakers, Anatoly Dolgachyov, said the deputies' action will have "very severe repercussions."

Vasyukevich, Shulga, and Kochugova did not respond to an RFE/RL request for comment on the situation.

Sustov told RFE/RL that he had "my personal thoughts about the special military operation [in Ukraine,] but I did not sign the statement," contradicting Vasyukevich's statement.

The Interfax news agency reported that Kochugova said at the session that she did not sign the statement either.

Russia launched its unprovoked invasion of Ukraine on February 24 and has met with much stiffer-than-expected resistance from Ukrainian troops.

Ukrainian and Western officials say thousands of Russian soldiers have died during the war.

Moscow has said little on the death toll. In its last official statement, the Defense Ministry said on March 25 that 1,351 of its soldiers had been killed in the fighting.

With reporting by Interfax, Kommersant, and NewsBox.24

Russia says it is expelling five Croatian diplomats over "unfriendly actions" taken by Zagreb against Moscow, including the expulsion of 24 Russian diplomats from Croatia in April.

The Foreign Ministry said in a statement on May 27 that it had summoned Croatia's ambassador to Moscow to inform him of the move, taken "in connection with the groundless attempts of the Croatian authorities to blame Russia for war crimes in Ukraine and the provision of military assistance by the Croatian side to the neo-Nazi Kyiv regime."

The statement did not say how long the diplomats had to leave Russia.

Croatia expelled the Russian diplomats in April in response to Moscow's unprovoked invasion of Ukraine.

CHISINAU -- A Moldovan court has placed former President Igor Dodon under house arrest for 30 days to allow prosecutors to investigate allegations of corruption and treason.

The May 26 decision by the Ciocana district court in Chisinau came two days after Dodon's house was searched and he was placed under detention for 72 hours.

Dodon told journalists after the hearing that the case was politically motivated, a charge the government has rejected.

Dodon, who was openly backed by Moscow and was seen as a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, was president from 2016 to 2020, when he lost to Maia Sandu, a pro-Western, U.S.-educated former World Bank official.

Dodon said he had no property other than that which he had officially declared, and told journalists that the judge was carrying out a "political order" from Sandu. Dodon's brother-in-law, Petru Merineanu, was also arrested for 30 days, but he will be kept in a detention facility.

The government has rejected the allegation of political interference in the case, which comes as relations between Russia and Moldova are increasingly strained.

Justice Minister Sergiu Litvinenco said the case would be carried out "in strict accordance with the law," while Foreign Minister Nicu Popescu told RFE/RL that Dodon's case was part of Moldova's fight against corruption and "unrelated to geopolitical events."

"The fight against corruption starts from the top, from combating corruption among the political class among the oligarchs," Popescu told RFE/RL.

SEE ALSO:

Moldovan Foreign Minister Says Dodon Arrest Strictly Tied To Fight Against Corruption

Russia has repeatedly voiced "concern" about Dodon's rights being respected, with Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov saying that Russia was "naturally alarmed that such a practice and persecution once again affects those who advocate the development of friendly relations with Russia for mutual benefit."

Moldova, one of Europe's poorest countries, has a long border with Ukraine and has been hosting hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian refugees since the start of Moscow's unprovoked invasion of Ukraine.

Russia has some 1,500 troops in Moldova's Moscow-backed separatist region of Transdniester, a sliver of land sandwiched between Moldova proper and Ukraine.

In recent months, Transdniester separatists claimed that Kyiv had orchestrated what they claimed were shootings, explosions, and drone incursions, raising fears that Moldova could be drawn into the conflict in Ukraine.

SEE ALSO:

Amid Rising Russian Threat, Moldova Mulls Scrapping Neutrality

With reporting by Reuters, AP, and dpa

Russian forces have pressed ahead with their offensive to capture the easternmost Ukrainian pocket in the Donbas and indiscriminately bombarded the northeastern city of Kharkiv, where they killed nine people and wounded 19, Ukrainian military officials say, as Kyiv warns that the situation in the east is even worse than generally believed.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy accused Moscow of carrying out a "genocide" in the east, where Russians were advancing on the key twin cities of Syevyerodonetsk and Lysychansk, and urged the West to "stop playing" with Russia and help end the war.

Live Briefing: Russia's Invasion Of Ukraine

RFE/RL's Live Briefing gives you all of the major developments on Russia's invasion, how Kyiv is fighting back, the plight of civilians, and Western reaction. For all of RFE/RL's coverage of the war, click here.

Zelenskiy, in his nightly video address on May 26, condemned Moscow's brutal assault on the two cities, which lie on either side of the Siverskiy Donets River, adding that its bombardment could leave the entire region "uninhabited."

"All this, including the deportation of our people and the mass killings of civilians, is an obvious policy of genocide pursued by Russia," Zelenskiy said.

Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said on May 26 that the military situation in eastern Ukraine was even worse than people say it is.

In a live question-and-answer session with Twitter users, Kuleba also said the country needed heavy weapons now to effectively fight Russia and said peace talks with Russia were not really taking place.

In its daily intelligence bulletin, Britain's Ministry of Defense said that while Russian ground forces continue to put pressure on the Syeyverodonetsk pocket with some success, Ukraine retains control of multiple defended sectors, denying Moscow full control of the Donbas.

But the British intelligence report noted that in recent days, Russia appeared to have moved 50-year-old T-62 tanks from deep storage into the theater of operations in the Donbas -- a fact that highlights Russia's shortage of modern, combat-ready equipment.

Furthermore, "the T-62s will almost certainly be particularly vulnerable to anti-tank weapons and their presence on the battlefield," British intelligence assessed.

SEE ALSO:

Interview: Can Russian Forces Encircle Ukraine's East?

On the diplomatic front, Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi had a phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin on May 26.

Draghi told a news conference that during the call he felt not even a glimmer of hope for peace. However, Draghi said he felt a readiness on Putin's part to try to find a solution to the international food crisis.

According to the Kremlin, Putin told Draghi that Russia "is ready to make a significant contribution to overcoming the food crisis through the export of grain and fertilizer on the condition that politically motivated restrictions imposed by the West are lifted."

Ukraine is one of the world's largest exporters of wheat, corn, and sunflower oil, but Russian forces are currently blocking Ukraine's Black Sea ports, endangering world food supplies.

The international community has been calling on Russia to unblock the ports and allow the export of Ukrainian grain.

The Russian Defense Ministry has proposed a corridor to allow foreign ships to leave Black Sea ports and another to allow vessels to leave Mariupol on the Sea of Azov.

Britain immediately accused Russia of "trying to hold the world to ransom," insisting there would be no sanctions relief.

Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said Putin was "essentially weaponized hunger and lack of food among the poorest people around the world."

Speaking during a visit to Sarajevo on May 26, she said any appeasement "will simply make Putin stronger in the longer term."

Zelenskiy urged the West to take the situation seriously and impose tougher sanctions on Russia to end its "senseless war" in Ukraine.

"The catastrophic unfolding events could be still stopped if the world treated the situation in Ukraine as if it were facing the same situation, if the powers that be did not play around with Russia but really pressed to end the war," he said in his late-night address.

Zelenskiy has become increasingly critical of the West in recent days as the European Union moves slowly toward a possible Russian oil embargo while Ukraine's military situation becomes increasingly difficult in the east.

The embargo requires unanimity among the bloc's 27 members, but Hungary opposes the move, arguing that its economy would be gravely hit.

Zelenskiy blasted the lack of agreement within the EU. "How many more weeks will the European Union try to agree on a sixth package?" he asked.

In Washington, the U.S. administration is preparing to to send advanced, long-range rocket systems to Ukraine, CNN reported, quoting multiple U.S. officials.

The officials said the White House was inclined to send the systems as part of a larger package of military and security assistance that could be announced as early as next week.

With reporting by Reuters, AP, AFP, CNN, and BBC

The United States has confiscated Iranian oil held on a Russian-operated ship near the Greek island of Evia in the Aegean Sea, according to news reports quoting Greek sources.

Following a "judicial intervention by U.S. authorities concerning the ship's cargo," the process is currently under way for the oil "to be handed over" at U.S. government expense, an unidentified official quoted on May 26 by the AP news agency said.

The vessel was temporarily seized by Greek authorities on April 15 when it anchored off the port of Karystos on Evia. At the time, it was flying a Russian flag and was carrying a crew of 19 Russians.

The Greek Coast Guard said it was seized due to suspicions it had breached EU sanctions imposed against Russia due to the war in Ukraine.

It was unclear whether the oil was confiscated because it was Iranian oil subject to U.S. sanctions or whether the action was due to the sanctions on the tanker, which recently changed its name from Pegas to Lana and which has been flying the Iranian flag since May 1.

A source at Greece's Shipping Ministry quoted by Reuters said the U.S. Department of Justice had "informed Greece that the cargo on the vessel is Iranian oil."

"The cargo has been transferred to another ship that was hired by the U.S.," the source added without providing further details.

The United States on May 25 imposed sanctions on what it described as a Russian-backed oil-smuggling and money-laundering network for Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps' Quds Force.

With reporting by AP and Reuters

Armenian's first satellite has reached Earth's orbit after launching aboard a SpaceX rocket, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian has announced.

Pashinian said the satellite, which was launched on May 25 from Cape Canaveral in the U.S. state of Florida, will have multiple uses.

"Photographs to be taken by the satellite will be used in Armenia for border control, emergency prevention and management, environmental protection, including climate-change monitoring, urban planning, road construction, geology, and other purposes," Pashinian told a weekly cabinet meeting in Yerevan on May 26.

SpaceX released photos of the launch of its Transporter-5 mission on Twitter.

The mission carried 59 payloads as part of what the company calls a small satellite "rideshare" program.

SpaceX has done three such missions so far this year and plans another in October, according to Spacenews.com.

Pashinian said the satellite launch was the result of "cooperation" between the state-run Armenian company Geocosmos and Satlantis, a Spanish company that specializes in the production of small satellites and cameras for them.

He did not reveal financial terms of the deal or provide a technical description of the satellite, but the Armenian government's press office released photographs of it.

Armenia first announced plans to launch a commercial satellite in 2012 after holding talks with Russia's Federal Space Agency.

A year later, a senior government official said Yerevan hoped to attract private investments in the project worth $250 million. The project never materialized.

Pashinian did not explain why his administration opted for a smaller-scale project and contracted Western rather than Russian companies to implement it.

With reporting by Spacenews.com

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has laid out the Biden administration’s China policy, which aims to lead the countries now jointly opposing Russia’s invasion of Ukraine into a broader coalition to counter what Washington sees as a more serious threat posed by Beijing.

In a speech in Washington on May 26, Blinken said that, while the U.S. sees Russia's war in Ukraine as the most immediate threat to international stability, the Biden administration believes China poses a greater danger.

“Even as President Putin’s war continues, we will remain focused on the most serious long-term challenge to the international order -- and that is the one posed by the People’s Republic of China,” Blinken said.

He made the case that the global response to Russian President Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine can serve as a template for dealing with China's efforts to shape a new and unpredictable world order.

China has benefited greatly from the existing international order based on rules and institutions that have guided relations since the end of World War II, but it is now trying to subvert it under the leadership of President Xi Jinping and the Chinese Communist Party, Blinken said.

“China is the only country with both the intent to reshape the international order -- and, increasingly, the economic, diplomatic, military, and technological power to do it," he said.

It is undermining rather than reinforcing and revitalizing the laws, agreements, principles, and institutions that enabled its success, according to the top U.S. diplomat.

Blinken laid out a three-pillar approach for the administration to marshal its resources and allies to push back on China's assertiveness around the world.

Investment in domestic U.S. infrastructure and technology along with a stepped-up diplomatic outreach to potentially vulnerable countries are among the key elements of the policy, Blinken said.

He made clear that the U.S. is not seeking to change China's political system, but will "shape the strategic environment around Beijing to advance our vision for an open and inclusive international system.”

There was no immediate reaction to the speech from the Chinese Embassy in Washington.

Blinken emphasized that China, the No. 2 world economy after the U.S., plays a crucial role in global economics and in solutions to problems such as climate change and the COVID-19 pandemic.

This means that the United States and China have no choice but to deal with each other, making it "one of the most complex and consequential relationships of any that we have in the world today."

The speech followed President Joe Biden’s visits to South Korea and Japan during which Biden raised eyebrows when he said that the United States would act militarily to help Taiwan defend itself in the event of an invasion by China.

Blinken restated that Washington has not changed its “One China” policy, which recognizes Beijing but allows for unofficial links with and arms sales to Taipei.

“We oppose any unilateral changes to the status quo from either side," he said, adding that “we do not support Taiwan independence.”

With reporting by AP

The U.S. ambassador to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) has condemned the "sheer barbarity, sadistic cruelty, and lawlessness" of Russia’s war in Ukraine.

Ambassador Michael Carpenter also warned in a speech to the OSCE Permanent Council in Vienna on May 26 against allowing Russia to achieve “success” in Ukraine.

If it did, he said there would be "more horrific reports from filtration camps, more forcibly displaced people, more summary executions, more torture, more rape, and more looting. There would be many more damaged or destroyed cultural objects, hospitals, schools, and apartment buildings. More death and destruction,” Carpenter said, according to a copy of his speech posted on the U.S. mission’s website.

Carpenter called on OSCE member countries to provide Ukraine with “the support it needs right now to defend itself against [Russian President Vladimir] Putin’s revanchist delusions.”

The U.S. envoy scathingly criticized Russia for conducting a “scorched earth campaign” that he said was not only an attack on Ukraine, but also an attack on the principles of the UN Charter, the Helsinki Final Act, and the Geneva Conventions, and “on the most basic norms of human decency.”

Carpenter said that, while Russia will be able to object to his statement, many people who have suffered in Ukraine at the hands of Russian troops are not able to raise a “point of order” to protest as he anticipated Russian representatives at the council would do.

Citing several examples of violence against civilians, saying the “stark and ugly truth is that until Ukraine wins this war, Russia will never give up on using the most brutal methods to conquer Ukraine.”

With reporting by AP

Police in Belarus have detained the parents of well-known opera singer and opposition activist Marharyta Lyauchuk and searched the home of the former wife of noted opposition blogger and singer Andrey Pavuk.

Lyauchuk, who is currently in self-imposed exile in Lithuania, told RFE/RL that her parents were detained on May 26 in Stradzech, the village where they live in the western Brest region.

According to Lyauchuk, a neighbor who was present when officers searched her parents' house told her that they were handcuffed and taken away by law enforcement officers.

Pro-government Telegram channels said the pair were detained for "disobeying police." In July last year, Belarusian authorities launched a criminal case against Lyauchuk, accusing her of "desecrating the country's national flag." The charge stemmed from a video placed on Lyauchuk's YouTube channel.

Separately, the home of Pavuk's former wife was searched by police on May 26.

Volha Pavuk, who is also currently out of the country, told RFE/RL that her neighbors in the southeastern town of Aktsyabrski informed her about the search. Officers told the neighbors that it was conducted due to "a criminal case launched against Andrey Pavuk."

Pavuk, his former wife, and their children left the country in the wake of anti-government protests questioning the official results of an August 2020 presidential vote that handed a sixth consecutive term in office to strongman Alyaksandr Lukashenka.

Pavuk was charged in absentia with publicly insulting a prosecutor and disclosing the personal data of a prosecutor’s aide. He denies the charges.

Lyauchuk and Andrey Pavuk have held several joint singing sessions that were critical of Lukashenka and his government and placed them on YouTube.

Both have been added to the Belarusian Interior Ministry’s registry of wanted persons.

Russian bailiffs have reportedly seized more than 7.7 billion rubles ($123.2 million) from Alphabet's Google that it had been ordered to pay as part of a fine calculated on the basis of its turnover.

Russian news agencies said on May 26 that Google's name disappeared from the registry of debtors of the Russian Federal Bailiffs' Service (FSSP), concluding that it means the fine had been paid off.

Neither Google nor the FSSP have commented on the issue.

Google's Russian arm said last week that it planned to file for bankruptcy after authorities seized its bank account, making it impossible to pay staff and vendors. Free services such as the company's search engine and YouTube have continued operating.

The decision to fine Google was made by a Moscow court in December for what the court said was the repeated failure to delete content that Russia deems illegal.

The fine was then said to be calculated as a percentage of Google's annual earnings, the first revenue-based fine of its kind in Russia.

President Vladimir Putin has accused social media platforms and other tech giants of flouting the country's Internet laws and has initiated a push to force foreign firms to open offices in Russia and store Russians' personal data on its territory.

Many critics say the move is an attempt by Russian authorities to exert tighter control over the Internet and quell dissent.

Last month, a court in Moscow impounded property and froze bank accounts of Google's Russian arm as a guarantee against a possible court decision regarding a lawsuit filed against Google by a subsidiary of Gazprom-Media holding.

Based on reporting by TASS, Interfax, and Reuters

NUR-SULTAN – Former Kazakh Health Minister Elzhan Birtanov, who was removed from the post in 2020 amid a surge in coronavirus cases, has gone on trial on embezzlement charges.

The trial started on May 26 in the Saryarqa district court of Nur-Sultan. Birtanov and his co-defendant, former Deputy Health Minister Olzhas Abishev, pleaded not guilty.

The two are suspected of embezzling about 500 million tenges ($1.2 million) that had been allocated by the government for the digitization of the Health Ministry.

After he fired Birtanov in June 2020, President Qasym-Zhomart Toqaev criticized him for what he called his failure to tackle the spread of the coronavirus in the country.

Toqaev also ordered the establishment of a special commission to investigate his activities as health minister, a post Birtanov had held since 2017.

Hundreds of residents took to the streets of Abadan, the capital of the southwestern Iranian province of Khuzestan, late on May 25, chanting slogans against the Iranian authorities.

The protest came following the May 23 collapse of an unfinished building in Abadan that killed at least 19 people and injured nearly 40, according to official figures.

Rescuers are still searching for dozens of people who are believed to be trapped beneath the collapsed building.

An emergency official interviewed earlier this week on state television suggested that some 50 people may have been inside the building at the time of the collapse. However, it wasn't clear if that figure included those already pulled from the rubble.

Many in the city are angered by the incident, blaming city officials for the deadly accident.

An angry crowd at the site chased and beat Abadan Mayor Hossein Hamidpour immediately after the collapse, according to the semiofficial ILNA news agency and online videos.

Critics say the building work was poorly constructed due to efforts to save on costs.

Videos posted online on May 25 showed crowds mourning those killed while beating their chests.

Some chanted that the 1979 revolution was a mistake, while others said, “Death to incompetent authorities.”

The head of Khuzestan Province's judiciary has ordered a probe into the accident.

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi has offered his condolences and appealed to local authorities to investigate the case. Iran’s vice president in charge of economic affairs, Mohsen Rezaei, and Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi visited the site.

With reporting by AP and dpa

Russia's Foreign Ministry has warned it will expel a U.S. journalist or media outlet if the YouTube streaming platform blocks any more of its press briefings.

Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on May 26 at a roundtable discussion devoted to "the role of Internet platforms in Russia's standoff with the West" that several of her briefings had been blocked by YouTube.

"What we did [after the briefings were blocked] was this -- we simply came and said, 'If you block another briefing, one journalist or one American media outlet will go home.' That's it.... If another briefing is blocked, we will name a certain name or a certain media outlet that will go away home," Zakharova said.

She did not specify when or which of her briefings were blocked on YouTube.

It is the second warning to foreign journalists in as many days by Zakharova.

The day before, Zakharova told reporters that Moscow is preparing measures to use against "unfriendly actions" by English-language media toward Russian media. She did not specify what those actions were.

After Russia launched its unprovoked invasion of Ukraine on February 24, the European Union suspended the broadcasting activities of some Russian state-backed media, including RT, a leading Russian broadcaster abroad, over questions on the impartiality of its coverage of the war.

Iran's Defense Ministry says an "accident" in the Parchin area near Tehran occurred at one of its research units, killing one person and injuring another.

Parchin, some 60 kilometers southeast of Tehran, is a military base where the UN's nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), has previously said it suspected Iran conducted tests related to nuclear detonations more than a decade ago.

"On Wednesday evening, in an accident that took place in one of the research units of the Defense Ministry in the Parchin area, engineer Ehsan Ghad Beigi was martyred and one of his colleagues injured," the ministry said.

It did not elaborate on the cause of the accident or provide any further details, saying an investigation was under way.

Iran in 2015 allowed the IAEA to take environmental samples at Parchin to make an assessment of "possible military dimensions" of its nuclear program.

Iran says its nuclear program is solely for peaceful purposes, but it is now enriching uranium to up to 60 percent purity -- its highest level ever and a short technical step from weapons-grade levels of 90 percent.

In June 2020, an explosion caused by a tank leak occurred in the Parchin area at a gas storage facility.

Western concerns over the Iranian atomic program led to sanctions and eventually to Tehran's 2015 nuclear deal with world powers.

U.S. President Donald Trump in 2018 withdrew from the accord and reimposed harsh economic sanctions. Talks to revive the agreement resumed in Vienna last year but have lately stalled.

U.S. special envoy for Iran Robert Malley said on May 25 that the prospects of reviving the 2015 deal were "tenuous" at best, telling a Senate committee that it is more likely than not that talks will fail.

With reporting by Reuters, AFP, and AP

British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss is expected to warn against the "appeasement" of Russian President Vladimir Putin in a speech during a visit to Bosnia-Herzegovina on May 26 and tell Western allies and partners there must be no "backsliding" in support for Ukraine.

"Russia's aggression cannot be appeased. It must be met with strength," Truss will say, according to excerpts of the speech to be delivered to Bosnian armed forces at Sarajevo's Army Hall.

Truss will use the speech to rally allies to deliver more weapons and targeted sanctions against Moscow and argue "we must all learn the lessons of history" in standing up to Putin, ensuring he loses in Ukraine.

"We must not allow a prolonged and increasingly painful conflict to develop in Ukraine.... We must be relentless in ensuring Ukraine prevails through military aid and sanctions. We can't take our foot off the accelerator now," she will say.

Britain's top diplomat will also use the speech to reaffirm her country's commitment to peace and stability in the Western Balkans "in the face of Russian malign influence."

Truss is expected to take a step toward this by announcing during the speech her aim to mobilize $100 million of U.K.-backed investment in the Western Balkans by 2025 through an investment partnerships agenda.

"Bosnia and Herzegovina's future lies in sovereignty and self-determination, in greater partnership with NATO and countries like the U.K.," Truss will say.

Russia launched its unprovoked invasion of Ukraine on February 24.

Moldova's foreign minister says the detention of former President Igor Dodon on suspicion of treason and corruption is about Moldova's fight against corruption and "unrelated to geopolitical events."

Foreign Minister Nicu Popescu said on May 26 that the arrest of Dodon, whose home was searched earlier this week, is related only to the election of a government that has pledged to root out corruption.

"The fight against corruption starts from the top, from combating corruption among the political class among the oligarchs," Popescu said in an interview with RFE/RL.

Popescu said there was evidence in the form of a video that is available online purporting to show Dodon, a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, receiving a bag of money from an oligarch.

The case against Dodon is not the only one that has been launched, Popescu said. There have been several indictments, and Moldova is seeking the extradition of "several oligarchs...who have stolen a lot of money from Moldova and have escaped to other countries," he said.

He also responded to comments by Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Andrei Rudenko, who said on May 25 that Moscow would not like to see Moldovan authorities begin "settling scores with their former political rivals."

Popescu said Moldovan authorities are "subject to a political mandate from our population, and we don't find these statements as being relevant, useful, [or] correct."

The Kremlin and the Russian government have both warned that Moscow is closely monitoring Dodon's case and whether his rights are being respected.

Moldovan prosecutors have asked that Dodon be placed in pretrial detention for 30 days.

Prosecutors on May 24 searched Dodon's home and confiscated luxury goods, foreign currency, receipts, and other documents.

He was later arrested for 72 hours as part of a judicial investigation into suspected treason, corruption, illicit enrichment, and illegal party financing.

"Anti-corruption prosecutors have filed their request that Dodon be detained for 30 days and the court is due to assess their request," Mariana Cherpec, a spokeswoman for the Prosecutor-General's Office, said on May 25.

Dodon was president from 2016 to 2020, when he lost to pro-Western Maia Sandu, a U.S.-educated former World Bank official.

Dodon, 47, has denied all the accusations against him and blamed Sandu for wanting to distract people from the country's economic woes.

In Chisinau, dozens of members and sympathizers of Dodon's Party of Socialists took to the streets on May 25, calling for his release and accusing the authorities of political persecution.

Sandwiched between Ukraine and EU and NATO-member Romania, Moldova, one of Europe's poorest countries, has accepted hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian refugees.

Chisinau has firmly backed Kyiv since Russia invaded Ukraine. Russia maintains more than 1,000 troops in Moldova's breakaway region of Transdniester.

Moldova formally applied for European Union membership in March after Russia's unprovoked invasion.

With reporting AFP and AP

The military situation in eastern Ukraine is even worse than people say it is, Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba has said as Russian forces continue to thrust ahead in the Donbas.

Kuleba made the statement during a live question-and-answer session with Twitter users in which he also said the country needs heavy weapons now to effectively fight Russia and said peace talks with Moscow were not really taking place.

Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Malyar told a press briefing that battles in the east had reached "maximum intensity," with Russian forces storming positions simultaneously.

"We have an extremely difficult and long stage of fighting ahead of us," she said.

Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi, who had a phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin on May 26, said during the call he felt not even a glimmer of hope for peace.

Draghi told a news conference that he did, however, feel a readiness on Putin's part to try to find a solution to the international food crisis.

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According to the Kremlin, Putin told Draghi that Russia "is ready to make a significant contribution to overcoming the food crisis through the export of grain and fertilizer on the condition that politically motivated restrictions imposed by the West are lifted."

Britain immediately accused Russia of "trying to hold the world to ransom," insisting there would be no sanctions relief.

Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said Putin had "essentially weaponized hunger and lack of food among the poorest people around the world."

Speaking during a visit to Sarajevo, she said any appeasement "will simply make Putin stronger in the longer term."

The White House said there were no talks being held about relaxing sanctions on Russia in order to get grain exports.

Ukraine is one of the world’s largest exporters of wheat, corn, and sunflower oil, but Russian forces are currently blocking Ukraine's Black Sea ports, endangering world food supplies.

The international community has been calling on Russia to unblock the ports and allow the export of Ukrainian grain.

The Russian Defense Ministry has proposed a corridor to allow foreign ships to leave Black Sea ports and another to allow vessels to leave Mariupol on the Sea of Azov.

Kuleba said his country was ready to agree on safe corridors in principle but was not sure if it could trust Russia.

The question is how to ensure that "Russia will not violate the agreement on the safe passage and its military vessels will not sneak into the harbor and attack Odesa," he said.

Russian forces briefly reached the last highway out of two key cities which they have been attempting to encircle as Western leaders reiterated that Putin will not win the war.

Russian forces shelled 40 towns in the easternmost pocket still held by Kyiv in the Donbas, Ukraine's military said on May 26.

Russians were advancing on the key twin cities of Syevyerodonetsk and Lysychansk, which lie on either side of the Siverskiy Donets River, with the fighting reaching the limits of Syevyerodonetsk.

Serhiy Hayday, the governor of the Luhansk region, acknowledged that Ukrainian forces were retreating, but said the last road out of Lysychansk and Syevyerodonetsk remained outside of Russian control.

"The Russian Army has thrown all its forces into the fight to capture the Luhansk region. There is heavy fighting on the outskirts of Syevyerodonetsk in one direction. They are simply destroying the city," Hayday said.

Hayday said in an interview posted on social media, that "some 50" Russian soldiers had reached the highway linking Lysychansk to Ukrainian-held Bakhmut, and "managed to gain a foothold for some time" before being "thrown back."

Hayday said Ukrainian forces "are slowly retreating to more fortified positions," and indicated that further Ukrainian withdrawals would follow as "we need to win the war, not the battle."

The head of the local military-civil administration in Syevyerodonetsk said the city had been under "constant fire" for the past week-and-a-half, and 90 percent of housing had been damaged by the fighting.

Oleksandr Stryuk, speaking to Ukraine's NV radio station, said some 12,000-13,000 people are still thought to be in the city that had a pre-war population of 100,000 -- many of them sheltering in basements.

The fall of the two cities would leave the whole of the Luhansk region under Russian control, one of the Kremlin's goals in its war.

A senior U.S. Defense Department official said at a briefing on May 26 that Russian forces had made incremental progress in the northeastern Donbas region.

The strategy of encircling the whole Donbas region hasn’t worked, the official said, so the Russians have started trying to pinch off the far eastern elements of the Ukrainian forces between Syevyerodonetsk and Popasna. It is still an effort to encircle Ukrainian forces and cut them off but on a smaller scale, the official said.

The official also provided an accounting of the equipment losses of the Russian forces in the war thus far, saying they were "not insignificant."

The losses include almost 1,000 tanks, 350 artillery pieces, almost three dozen fighter aircraft, and more than 50 helicopters. But the official said the Russian military still has a lot of capability left.

Despite its current momentum, Russia cannot win, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz told the World Economic Forum in Davos on May 26.

Scholz said that three months of war, "the capture of the whole of Ukraine seems further away now than at the beginning of the war."

"Putin must not win his war, and I am convinced he will not win," Scholz said.

With reporting by Reuters, AP, AFP, CNN, and the BBC

Two members of the U.S. House of Representatives say bipartisan support for Ukraine remains strong in Congress, which last week passed another massive aid package for the country -- $40 billion worth of weapons and other aid to help the country in its fight against Russia.

Representative Michael McCaul (Republican-Texas) said members were aware of the horrific circumstances caused by the war and when they visit countries such as Romania, Poland, and Moldova, which have taken in millions of people who have fled the war, they always return "in a very bipartisan manner."

McCaul, top Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and Representative Gregory Meeks (Democrat-New York), the committee's chairman, spoke in an interview on May 25 at RFE/RL's headquarters in Prague.

The visit followed passage of the $40 billion bill to send military, economic, and food aid to Ukraine that President Joe Biden signed into law last week. It came two months after the passage of a $13.6 billion aid bill for Ukraine and passed the House overwhelmingly by a vote of 368-57.

But all no votes came from Republicans, fueling warnings about isolationist tendencies in the current election year.

McCaul denied that the vote revealed any fractures in the bipartisanship that Congress has shown for Ukraine. Some members had concerns about the size of the package, whose original price tag was $33 billion, he said. Others objected to the short amount of time they had to read it before voting.

"I think most of the no's on that bill were based on process and not substance," McCaul said. "So there's still very, very strong bipartisan support for Ukraine against the horrors of what Mr. Putin is doing."

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Ukraine Can Rely On Republican Lawmakers, Says Ranking Member McCaul

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McCaul said the people of Ukraine can rely on the U.S. Congress and even after the midterm elections in November there will still be enough votes among Democrats and Republicans to reach a majority.

"I think Ukraine's earned that," he said, adding that by many accounts Ukraine is "actually winning this war against what we though was a major world power."

Meeks said the $40 billion aid bill was passed to ensure that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and the people of Ukraine have the military protection they need to save their country.

He said the United States was now working "in a in a fashion that is unprecedented" to move weapons as quickly as possible and coordinating closely with allies to ship the equipment that the Ukrainians have requested. He noted that the package included between $4 billion and $5 billion for humanitarian concerns.

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Chair Of U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee Hopes For 'Different' Russia After Ukraine War

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Both lawmakers expressed concern about Ukrainian ports being blockaded by Russian forces.

Meeks said the situation was discussed during the congressmen's visit to Moldova, which is concerned about the situation along with other countries of the world.

“We're talking about the possibility of starvation in various other parts of the world, particularly on the continent of Africa and other underdeveloped areas,” Meeks said. “We're talking about the inclusion of inflation all over the world, the cost of food and bread.”

He said that’s why it’s important to give Ukraine what it needs to help it open those ports as the United States approaches problems caused by the war not thinking solely about itself but “the entirety of an interconnected world.”

The U.S. special envoy for Iran, Robert Malley, says that the prospects of reviving the 2015 Iran nuclear deal are "tenuous" at best, telling a Senate committee that it is more likely than not that talks will fail.

"As of today the odds of a successful negotiation are lower than the odds of failure and that is because of excessive Iranian demands to which we will not succumb," Malley told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on May 25.

Malley, who has led more than a year of indirect talks with Iran, said the United States still supports a return to the 2015 nuclear accord and is ready to lift sanctions if it secures an agreement.

But if the currently stalled talks to revive it fail, the United States is "ready to continue to enforce and further tighten" sanctions and "respond strongly to any Iranian escalation, working in concert with Israel and our regional partners."

While saying that "all options are on the table," Malley made clear that President Joe Biden does not support military action, saying "by far the best option is a diplomatic one."

He also said the United States would reject demands that go beyond the scope of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), as the original deal between Iran and six major powers is formally known.

One of Iran's demands is the removal of the U.S. designation of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist organization, a step Biden has rejected.

The Biden administration has been working to revive the JCPOA since taking office last year. Then-U.S. President Donald Trump withdrew from the deal in 2018 and imposed sweeping unilateral sanctions, including on Iran's oil.

Malley said that Trump's "maximum pressure" approach had failed, and Iran had stepped up its nuclear program since the United States pulled out of the deal.

Senator Bob Menendez (Democrat-New Jersey) noted that Secretary of State Antony Blinken had warned in January that only "a few weeks" were left before Iran's program would advance to the point that the JCPOA was no longer beneficial.

"We continue to wait and hope. But hope is not a national security strategy," said Menendez, who opposed the original agreement and said he did not understand why the Biden administration is still willing to negotiate.

Other opponents of JCPOA argue that Iran's progress toward the ability to weaponize what it says is a civilian nuclear program means it's too late for any accord to block Iran from becoming a nuclear power.

The International Atomic Energy Agency said last week that Iran had amassed about 40 kilograms of uranium enriched to 60 percent purity, which is a short, technical step away from weapons-grade levels.

"I think we must prepare for the increasingly obvious reality we face in 2022 -- a return to the 2015 nuclear deal is not around the corner, and I believe it is not in the U.S. strategic interests," Menendez said.

"We need to tackle what comes next," he added.

Despite past U.S. statements that the time to resurrect the deal was running out, Malley said Washington would keep trying to revive it.

The technical assessments remain "that the nonproliferation benefits of the deal are worth the sanctions relief that we would provide," he said.

He also offered strong criticism of Iran's crackdown on recent protests against austerity measures.

"I don't think this is a strong regime that is basking in being able to circumvent sanctions," Malley said. "It is a regime under duress and that's because of its own mismanagement and our sanctions."

The Treasury Department on May 25 announced that it was broadening the sanctions to include a network backed by the IRGC Quds Force and Russian officials that it said had shipped hundreds of millions of dollars of oil in defiance of U.S. sanctions.

The oil-smuggling network "has acted as a critical element of Iran's oil revenue generation, as well as its support for proxy militant groups that continue to perpetuate conflict and suffering throughout the region," the Treasury Department said in a news release.

The United States will "continue to strictly enforce sanctions on Iran's illicit oil trade," even while it continues to seek a return to full implementation of the JCPOA, the Treasury said.

With reporting by Reuters, AFP, and AP

A Moscow journalist who protested Russia's invasion of Ukraine by interrupting a live news broadcast on Russian state television in March has been awarded the Vaclav Havel International Prize For Creative Dissent.

In a ceremony in Norwegian capital on May 25, Marina Ovsyannikova received the award, given annually at the Oslo Freedom Forum to honor "those who, with bravery and ingenuity, unmask the lies of dictatorship, and who put forth work that exemplifies tremendous courage and creativity."

Ovsyannikova, 43, burst onto the set of the Vremya news program on Russia's Channel One on March 14 while holding a poster reading in part "Stop the war. Don't believe propaganda. They are lying to you" in Russian. She also shouted in Russian: "Stop the war. No to war."

SEE ALSO:

Anti-War Protester Who Disrupted Russian News Program Charged With 'Discrediting' Army

While it triggered a wave of support worldwide, the Kremlin condemned her action. She has been charged with "discrediting" the armed forces.

Since her protest, Ovsyannikova left Russia for Germany and was hired in April as a freelance correspondent for Die Welt.

NOTE: This article has been amended to correct the name of the prize and the institution that awarded it.

DUSHANBE -- Tajik journalist Ulfatkhonim Mamadshoeva and her husband, Kholbash Kholbashov, have been shown on state-run television "confessing" to organizing deadly unrests in the Gorno-Badakhshan region, despite saying days earlier that she had nothing to do with the protests.

Late on May 24, Mamadshoeva and Kholbashov were shown on the Tojikiston television channel saying that they, along with opposition politician Alim Sherzamonov, and an informal regional leader, Mahmadboqir Mahmadboqirov, had planned and organized the protests, which the authorities in the Central Asian country have called "terrorist actions."

It was not clear whether the statement was made under duress, but on May 17, a day before she was arrested, the 65-year-old Mamadshoeva, who is also a rights activist, told RFE/RL that she had nothing to do with the anti-government protests in the region's capital, Khorugh, and the Rushon district.

Authorities say in the footage showing the so-called "confessions" that an unspecified Western country was involved in organizing the unrest.

Mahmadboqirov was killed on May 22 in Khorugh. His relatives say law enforcement officers killed him, while the authorities insist he was killed "when criminal groups were settling scores."

Sherzamonov told RFE/RL that he had nothing to do with the planning of any riots in Gorno-Badakhshan, and that he suspects Mamadshoeva and Kholbashov were forced to make the statement on television.

Tajik authorities have said 10 people were killed and 27 injured during the clashes between protesters and police. Residents of the Rushon district, however, have told RFE/RL that 21 dead bodies had been found at the sites where the clashes took place.

SEE ALSO:

Influential Gorno-Badakhshan Figure Killed In Tajikistan's Restive Region

Deep tensions between the government and residents of the restive region have simmered ever since a five-year civil war broke out shortly after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.

Still, protests are rare in the tightly controlled state of 9.5 million, where President Emomali Rahmon has ruled for nearly three decades.

Mahmadboqirov and other influential leaders in the region fought against the government during that conflict but were integrated into state structures as part of a peace deal that Russia helped broker.

The latest protests were initially sparked in mid-May by anger over the lack of an investigation into the 2021 death of an activist while in police custody and the refusal by regional authorities to consider the resignation of regional Governor Alisher Mirzonabot and Rizo Nazarzoda, the mayor of Khorugh.

The rallies intensified after one of the protesters, 29-year-old local resident Zamir Nazrishoev, was killed by police on May 16, prompting the authorities to launch what they called an "counterterrorist operation."

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What's Behind The Continuing Violence In Gorno-Badakhshan?

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The escalating violence in the region has sparked a call for restraint from UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, Western diplomatic missions in Tajikistan, and human rights groups.

Gordo-Badakhshan, a linguistically and ethnically distinct region, has been home to rebels who opposed government forces during the conflict in the 1990s.

While it occupies almost half of the entire country, its population is a mere 250,000. The region is difficult to travel around because of the mountainous terrain, while its economy is wracked by unemployment, difficult living conditions, and high food prices.

MINSK -- A trial date has been set for RFE/RL freelance correspondent Andrey Kuznechyk, whose relatives and colleagues have not been informed about charges he faces since his arrest last year in Belarus.

The Belarusian Association of Journalists said on May 25 that Kuznechyk's trial will be held behind closed doors in the eastern city of Mahilyou on June 8.

Kuznechyk was initially sentenced to 10 days in jail on November 26, 2021, on hooliganism charges that he denies.

On December 6, when his sentence ended, he was not released and was handed another 10-day jail term, also on a hooliganism charge.

After serving that jail term, Kuznechyk was again not released and instead was charged with an unspecified crime.

The Crisis In Belarus

Read our ongoing coverage as Belarusian strongman Alyaksandr Lukashenka continues his brutal crackdown on NGOs, activists, and independent media following the August 2020 presidential election, widely seen as fraudulent.

Kuznechyk's relatives told RFE/RL at the time that the journalist continued to maintain his innocence.

RFE/RL President Jamie Fly has said the extension of Kuznechyk's sentence "on absurdly fabricated charges" should be considered a crime in itself.

"Andrey's state-sponsored kidnapping continues, all in furtherance of the Lukashenka regime's efforts to block independent information from reaching the Belarusian people. Andrey should be allowed to return to his family immediately," Fly said in a statement on December 6, referring to authoritarian ruler Alyaksandr Lukashenka.

On December 23, Fly again condemned the Belarusian government's actions against free media and stated that Kuznechyk was among "hostages taken by this lawless regime, not criminals. Factual reporting is not an 'extremist' activity, and journalism is not a crime."