TBILISI – Thousands of people took to the streets of the Georgian capital again to protest plans by the ruling party to introduce a law that domestic critics and Western countries have said will be used to crack down on independent voices in the South Caucasus nation.

The action on April 28 was a continuation of two weeks of rallies led by opposition parties and activist groups against the parliament’s advancement of a so-called “foreign agents” bill that critics say mirrors one used by the Kremlin to silence critics in Russia.

An estimated 10,000 people gathered in Republic Square in central Tbilisi into the night on April 28, with many singing Georgian and European Union anthems and holding EU banners.

Reports near midnight said that some protesters had broken through security lines near the parliament building, leading police to use tear gas and pepper spray to disperse crowds.

Witnesses said police were moving in heavier equipment around protest sites in Republic Square and near the parliament.

A bipartisan group of U.S. senators on April 26 warned in a letter to Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze that the nation’s plan to reintroduce a "Russian-style foreign agents law" could lead to a change in U.S. policy toward Tbilisi.

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U.S. Senators Warn Tbilisi That 'Foreign Agents' Law Could Disrupt Relations

In the letter -- obtained by Voice of America (VOA) -- the senators said they are “increasingly concerned that Georgia’s transatlantic aspirations are being undermined.”

EU officials have said that if Georgia adopts the bill as law, it would disrupt the nation’s membership hopes.

The ruling Georgian Dream party introduced the legislation in 2023 but was forced to withdraw it following mass protests. The party’s parliamentary group brought the law back with minor wording changes and passed its first reading on April 17.

The final reading of the bill is scheduled to be debated on May 17. Georgian President Salome Zurabishvili told the BBC she will veto it if it’s approved in its final reading.

Zurabishvili said her major concern is the fact that the bill is "exactly a copy of [Russian President Vladimir] Putin's law."

However, Zurabishvili said the ruling Georgian Dream party has enough lawmakers to override her if she does use her veto.

Mamuka Mdinaradze, leader of the parliamentary faction of Georgian Dream, earlier this month said the party planned to reintroduce the bill, which would oblige noncommercial organizations and media outlets that receive foreign funding and who are engaged in broadly defined "political" activities to report their activities to the authorities.

It would also introduce wide oversight powers by the authorities and potential criminal sanctions for undefined criminal offenses.

Former Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili, chairman of Georgia Dream, and other party leaders say the legislation is intended to increase transparency in the country’s political environment.

Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif discussed a new loan program with IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva on April 28, his office said. Sharif and Georgieva met on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Islamabad is seeking a new, larger long-term Extended Fund Facility (EFF) agreement with the fund after a current $3 billion standby arrangement expires this month. "Both sides also discussed Pakistan entering into another IMF program to ensure that the gains made in the past year are consolidated and its economic growth trajectory remains positive," Sharif's office said.

Iranian authorities have banned the controversial Egyptian television series Hashashin (Assassin) about the life of Hassan Sabah, citing historical “distortions,” state media reported on April 28. Mehdi Seifi, director of the SATRA regulatory authority, said that "the serial's narrative of Islamic history involves many distortions that seem to have been produced by a politically biased approach," IRNA reported. The 30-part series depicts Sabah and his group, which operated as a Shi'ite sect in the 11th century from mountain fortresses in northern and western Iran and were known for violent political assassinations. The series is being broadcast in Egypt and is gaining popularity throughout the Middle East. To read the original story by RFE/RL’s Radio Farda, click here.

The crackdown on independent media in Russian mounted over the weekend, with two journalists having alleged ties to the late Aleksei Navalny's Anti-Corruption Foundation and Western news outlets being arrested and charged with “extremism.”

Russian courts on April 27-28 ordered the detention of Konstantin Gabov in Moscow and Sergei Karelin in Murmansk on charges that they worked with the Navalny Live YouTube channel.

Both men denied the allegations against them.

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'I'm Not Going To Quit': Facing Prison, Soviet-Era Dissident Skobov Speaks Out Against War, Repression

Gabov was ordered into pretrial detention for two months after prosecutors accused him of taking part in the activities of an extremist organization, saying he had prepared videos and photographs for Navalny Live.

Navalny Live is run by supporters of Navalny, a vocal Kremlin critic who died in an Arctic prison in February under mysterious circumstances.

Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation, which broadcasts on YouTube from outside Russia, has been designated a "foreign agent" and an extremist group by Russian authorities, actions often used by the Kremlin to silence independent voices, especially since Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

Court video showed Gabov in a courtroom cage with his arms folded. Records indicated he has worked for foreign and domestic news outlets, including Reuters and Deutsche Welle, the German state broadcaster.

Separately, police in the northern city of Murmansk detained Karelin, 41, also on “extremism” charges after prosecutors alleged he cooperated with Navalny’s team and created videos for the YouTube channel.

Some reports said Karelin was detained on April 26.

Karelin, a video journalist and cameraman, had worked with AP and Deutsche Welle, among other outlets, according to court records.

The Kholod media group, which operates from outside Russia, on April 9 estimated that at least 53 people, and probably many more, had been arrested for their work related to the Navalny foundation.

On March 29, a Moscow court charged Russian journalist Antonina Favorskaya, a reporter for SOTAvision media, with participating in an extremist organization in connection with alleged posts to websites and social media platforms tied to the Navalny foundation.

According to investigators, she collected materials, filmed and edited videos, and created publications for Navalny’s foundation.

Favorskaya covered Navalny’s court hearings for years and filmed the last video showing the Kremlin critic alive on February 15 at a court hearing that he took part in over a video link from an Arctic prison. The next day, Navalny suddenly died in the prison.

Western leaders and rights groups have regularly condemned the arrests of journalists and the crackdown on independent voices in Russia.

European lawmakers on April 25 approved a resolution that called for the "immediate and unconditional release" of all political prisoners held in Russia, including journalists Alsu Kurmasheva of RFE/RL and Evan Gershkovich of The Wall Street Journal.

Russian officials threatened the West on April 28 with a "severe" response in the event that frozen Russian assets are confiscated, promising "endless" legal challenges and tit-for-tat measures. Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said Russia would never cede territories seized from Ukraine in exchange for the return of frozen assets. "Russian assets must remain untouched because otherwise there will be a severe response to Western thievery," Zakharova wrote on Telegram. In response to Russia's war in Ukraine, Washington and its allies prohibited transactions with Russia's central bank and Finance Ministry and blocked about $300 billion of sovereign Russian assets in the West, most of which are in European financial institutions.

A senior judge serving the South Waziristan district in Pakistan's northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province has been kidnapped by armed men.

Police official Faheem Khan said that about 15 men on motorcycles cut off the vehicle that Judge Shakirullah Marwat was riding in the Tank district of the restive province's Dera Ismail Khan region.

Khan said the assailants set fire to the vehicle and kidnapped Marwat.

No group has claimed responsibility for the incident.

Sherpao Maseed, who heads the lawyers association in the Tank district, told RFE/RL's Radio Mashaal that Marwat was abducted while heading home from work.

While police said the driver of the vehicle was not harmed, Maseed alleged that Marwat's driver and bodyguard were physically abused by the assailants.

Tank district police chief Abdul Salam Khalid told Radio Mashaal that an investigation and search operation are under way.

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Police and judicial services were restored in South Waziristan when Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas were merged with Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province in 2018. But due to insecurity, courts for South Waziristan and some other districts are located in neighboring areas.

Dozens of police and civilians have been killed in the province since late 2022, when the Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan, or Pakistani Taliban, unilaterally ended a cease-fire with the central government.

Residents have said that insecurity has recently worsened significantly in the Dera Ismail Khan region, particularly in the Tank district, as well as in other areas in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province's south.

A recent report by the provincial police's anti-terrorism department said that in the first three months of this year, 25 armed attacks have been recorded in Dera Ismail Khan, with 17 in the Tank district.

Recently elected Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari expressed concern over the security situation in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province during his speech to a joint session of parliament on April 18.

YEREVAN -- Armenians have blocked the Yerevan-Gyumri highway as protests continue against the government's plans to hand over several border areas to rival Azerbaijan as part of a peace deal.

Images of the protest action that shut down traffic from Armenia's capital to the country's northwestern border were posted on the morning of April 28 on the Tavush For The Fatherland Facebook page.

The Martuni-Vardenis highway, linking the two cities near Armenia's eastern border with Azerbaijan, was shut down overnight.

Earlier this month, residents of several Armenian communities in the northeastern Tavush Province launched protests against the government's plans to hand over territory close to Azerbaijan's Qazax region.

Under the border delimitation agreement announced on April 19, Baku will regain control of four formerly Azerbaijani populated villages and surrounding areas in the Tavush region.

The villages were part of Azerbaijan during the Soviet era but have been controlled by Armenia since the 1990s.

WATCH: Armenian protesters scuffled with the police near the border with Azerbaijan late on April 26. Emotions got heated in the village of Kirants as the protesters tried to stop an unmarked vehicle, believing that it was transporting Azerbaijani cartographers due to work on the demarcation agreed between the two countries on April 19.

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The agreement has been hailed by the United States and the European Union, as well as by Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian, who has been accused by opposition politicians of giving up territory with no guarantees.

In a call with Pashinian on April 28, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken reaffirmed Washington’s support “for progress between Armenia and Azerbaijan on a durable and dignified peace agreement,” the State Department said.

The statement said Blinken reiterated that the United States welcomed the two Caucasus nations’ agreement to use the 1991 Almaty Declaration as a basis for the demarcation of their borders.

“Blinken noted ongoing U.S. efforts to support Armenia’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, and for Prime Minister Pashinian’s vision for a prosperous, democratic, and independent future for Armenia,” it said.

The State Department said Blinken also spoke with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, praising the agreements between the two sides and urging Baku to “keep up the momentum with his Armenian counterpart.”

Residents of the Tavush region have expressed concern that the border demarcation will block their access to farmland and leave them surrounded by Azerbaijani territory.

The protests spread to Yerevan on April 27, where people carrying banners criticizing the government stormed a concert stage.

Armenia agreed to the handover as the initial step in defining the frontier between the two rival South Caucasus countries.

Armenia and Azerbaijan have fought two wars in the last three decades over the region of Nagorno-Karabakh, which had been a majority ethnic Armenian enclave since the Soviet collapse and is internationally recognized as Azerbaijani territory.

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Armenian Border Residents Protest As Yerevan, Baku Agree On Delimitation

The region initially came under the control of ethnic Armenian forces, backed by the Armenian military, in separatist fighting that ended in 1994.

In 2020, Azerbaijan took back parts of Nagorno-Karabakh along with seven surrounding districts that Armenian forces had claimed during the earlier conflict.

After Baku took full control over the region as the result of a one-day military operation in September last year, nearly 100,000 ethnic Armenians fled Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia.

The Iranian military on April 28 presented a new attack drone designed to fly into targets and explode, like the kind used by Russia in the war in Ukraine. According to the state Tasnim news agency, the new Iranian drone -- which has not yet been publicly named -- is similar to the Russian Zala Lancet drone, which was first produced in 2020. Tasnim published a video of the new drone in the report. Iran has made great progress in the production of drones in recent years, and Iranian-produced drones have been used extensively by Russian forces in Ukraine.

Ukraine’s top general warned on April 28 that the situation for Kyiv’s forces in the east has deteriorated, with Russia attacking “along the entire front line” and achieving “certain tactical successes,” forcing Ukrainian troops to pull back to new defensive positions.

Live Briefing: Russia's Invasion Of Ukraine

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“The situation at the front has worsened,” Colonel General Oleksandr Syrskiy wrote on Telegram.

“Trying to seize the strategic initiative and break through the front line, the enemy has concentrated the main efforts in several directions, creating a significant advantage in forces and assets,” he said.

Syrskiy said the most difficult conditions are in the Pokrovsk and Kurakhove districts, “where fierce battles continue.”

“The enemy deployed up to four brigades in these directions, is trying to develop an offensive west of Avdiyivka and Maryinka, making its way to Pokrovsk and Kurakhove,” he said.

He said Ukrainian commanders, seeking to “preserve the lives and health of our defenders,” moved back to better-defended positions.

“In general, the enemy achieved certain tactical successes in these directions but could not gain operational advantages,” he added.

Battlefield claims could not immediately be verified due to the heavy fighting in the areas.

In his nightly video address, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy urged the European Union and NATO to speed the process to allow quicker membership into the Western organizations for his country.

He also said Ukraine and the United States -- Kyiv’s most important ally -- were working on a bilateral security agreement.

"We are already working on a specific text. Our goal is to make this agreement the strongest of all," he said. "We are discussing the specific foundations of our security and cooperation…[and] also are working on fixing specific levels of support for this year and the next 10 years."

Washington didn’t immediately comment on Zelenskiy’s remarks.

Earlier, Ukraine reported that Russia had followed up on a massive strike against Ukrainian energy infrastructure with a fresh attack.

Authorities in the southern Mykolayiv region said that Russian suicide drones struck "heat-generating infrastructure" and severely damaged a hotel on the morning of April 28.

Images posted on the state emergency services' Telegram channel showed scattered debris and damage to a building and a children's playground. No casualties were reported.

Ukraine's Air Force said that it had destroyed a Russia-launched drone over Mykolayiv, as well as four others around the country.

The strike came after Russian forces heavily targeted Ukrainian energy infrastructure on the night of April 26-27, with Ukraine’s largest private energy company saying its four thermal power stations were hit.

In his previous video address on April 27, Zelenskiy said that the attacks on crucial infrastructure highlighted the need for the quick delivery of further air defense weapons from Western allies.

Zelenskiy said that sites supplying natural gas to EU countries were being specifically targeted by Russia.

"The main target was the energy sector, various facilities in the industry, both electricity and gas-transit facilities. In particular, gas facilities that are crucial to ensuring safe delivery to the European Union," he said.

Over the past month, Russia’s military has increased its targeting of Ukrainian power infrastructure, attacking thermal and hydropower stations and other energy infrastructure almost daily.

Ukrainian officials have said the country has lost about 80 percent of its thermal generation and about 35 percent of its hydropower capacity, prompting the government to introduce scheduled blackouts in several regions.

Russian gas and oil infrastructure has also come under attack, including an oil refinery in the southwestern Krasnodar region that was shut down on April 27 following a suspected Ukrainian drone strike.

Ukraine, which rarely comments on its targeting of Russian sites, has not claimed responsibility for the attack.

Tajikistan has advised its citizens to refrain from traveling to Russia amid increased pressures faced by Central Asians there following the deadly Crocus City Hall attack near Moscow last month.

The Tajik Foreign Ministry issued the "temporary" advisory on April 27, a day after Tajik officials expressed concerns about Tajiks being "unjustifiably" denied entry to Russia.

Human rights organizations and Tajik officials have reported rising levels of xenophobia against Central Asians in Russia following the terrorist attack on the Crocus City Hall concert venue that left 144 people dead and hundreds more injured.

Russian investigators say the assault -- Russia's worst terrorist attack in two decades -- was carried out by four men, all Tajik nationals. Other detainees are being held for aiding and abetting the attackers.

Russian authorities have arrested 11 Tajik citizens, the latest on April 27, and a Kyrgyzstan-born Russian citizen in connection with the attack.

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Another Tajik Detained In Russia Connection With Crocus Attack

An offshoot of the Islamic State extremist group, the Islamic State-Khorasan group active in Afghanistan and Central Asia, claimed responsibility for the attack. Tajikistan has also detained nine people suspected of having links to the attack.

Tajik Foreign Minister Sirojiddin Mukhriddin said on April 12 that "an ill-conceived information campaign" in Russia was creating "a negative perception" of Tajiks.

Muhriddin also condemned the treatment of the Tajik suspects held in connection with the attack amid allegations that the detainees were tortured in custody.

• TASS
• RFE/RL

Images taken as four Tajik men suspected of committing the Crocus City Hall shooting near Moscow were apprehended in western Russia on March 23 are starkly different from how the men appeared -- battered and bruised -- in court the following day.

Several Tajik suspects showed signs of abuse when they appeared in court in Moscow following the attack. The four accused gunmen had bruised and swollen faces and showed other signs of having been severely beaten. There were unconfirmed reports that one of them had his ear cut off during his arrest.

Russia is a popular destination for Tajik migrant laborers, who are often engaged in construction and agricultural work. More than 652,000 Tajiks traveled to Russia for work in 2023, according to Tajik labor officials.

Tajikistan is heavily dependent on remittances from Tajik migrant laborers, with about a third of its GDP coming from money sent home from abroad, mostly Russia.

Russia has cited labor shortages as a significant problem affecting all sectors of its economy.

At least five people were killed in a bus accident in southern Armenia, the Caucasus nation’s Interior Ministry said on April 27. A statement said nine others were injured in the accident. Armenian media said the bus drove off a ravine near the village of Khotanan in the Syunik region. The Armenian website news.am quoted the ministry as saying the bus was traveling from Yerevan to Iran and that the passengers were Iranian nationals. Other unconfirmed media reports said the bus had Iranian license plates. To read the original story by RFE/RL's Armenian Service, click here.

Russian media on April 27 reported that an arrest warrant was issued for another suspect in the criminal case involving Deputy Defense Minister Timur Ivanov. Interfax and TASS said a Moscow court ordered that Anton Filatov, a former subordinate, be taken into custody. Interfax said Filatov is charged with "embezzlement or misappropriation of property in an especially large amount." He faces up to 10 years in prison. The court on April 24 sent Ivanov, 49, to pretrial detention until June 23 after charging him with receiving a large bribe. Ivanov denied guilt. Ivanov had been the subject of an investigation published in December 2022 by the late opposition politician Aleksei Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation.

Kazakhstan said it is postponing the planned 2025 Games of the Future tournament and other major events to save money amid costs related to massive flooding. “In connection with the unprecedented flooding, Kazakh President Qasym-Zhomart Toqaev has ordered the [postponement] of major events in order to save financial resources to eliminate the consequences of destruction and provide assistance to affected citizens," the Sports and Tourism Ministry said on April 27. The Games of the Future, described as a "large-scale event at the junction of sports, science, and technology," will be moved to 2026, officials said. To read the original story by RFE/RL's Kazakh Service, click here.

Moscow journalist Konstantin Gabov has been arrested on charges of participating in the Navalny Live YouTube channel, the Basmanny District Court press service reported on April 27. The court said Gabov is a producer for the Reuters news service, which didn’t immediately report on the incident. The case comes amid a crackdown on media and Kremlin critics that has intensified since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Other figures linked to the Navalny Live YouTube channel have been arrested and charged with crimes. Aleksei Navalny, a longtime Kremlin critic, died in February in a Russian penal colony under mysterious circumstances. To read the original story by Current Time, click here.

TBILISI -- A bipartisan group of 14 U.S. senators warned in a letter to Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze that the Caucasus nation’s plan to reintroduce a "Russian-style foreign agents law" could lead to a change in U.S. policy toward Tbilisi.

In the letter -- sent on April 26 and obtained by Voice of America (VOA) -- the senators said they are “increasingly concerned that Georgia’s transatlantic aspirations are being undermined.”

The letter came after the U.S. Helsinki Commission called on the ruling Georgian Dream party to withdraw the "foreign agent" bill and urged Tbilisi “to divert from this destructive path."

SEE ALSO:

Exiled Journalist Warns Georgia's 'Foreign Agents' Law Is 'First Step On Road To Repression'

Western governments and rights groups have condemned Georgia's controversial "foreign agents" bill, which many say is a replica of a similar Russian law used to muzzle dissent in that country.

Thousands of Georgians have taken to the streets to protest the bill after the ruling party gave an initial green light to it, despite an outbreak of scuffles in parliament.

The legislation also sparked mass protests when first introduced last year -- causing the government to withdraw the bill.

Mamuka Mdinaradze, leader of the parliamentary faction of Georgian Dream, this month said the party planned to reintroduce the bill, which would oblige noncommercial organizations and media outlets that receive foreign funding and who are engaged in broadly defined "political" activities to report their activities to the authorities.

It would also introduce wide oversight powers by the authorities and potential criminal sanctions for undefined criminal offenses.

Georgian Dream has said the new bill is identical to the one withdrawn last year, except for one change: The term "foreign agent" would be replaced by the words "an organization pursuing the interests of a foreign power."

The U.S. senators in their letter rejected Georgian government claims that the law is equivalent to a U.S. law that requires U.S. citizens to register as foreign agents if they represent the interests of a foreign party in the United States.

"We must also make it clear that the reintroduced foreign agents’ law does not mirror any U.S. law and would be used to silence the civil society and media that play a significant role in advancing Georgia’s democratic institutions," they wrote in the letter.

Former Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili, chairman of Georgia Dream, on April 27 insisted that the senators' letter was "based on misconceptions."

Garibashvili told reporters that it was crucial to maintain communications with "European and American partners" so that "those misunderstandings are eliminated."

Georgian Dream officials have insisted the legislation is aimed at bringing transparency in a time of high tensions.

"Our country, unfortunately, is still facing challenges. The main challenge is foreign occupation of 20 percent of our country. Russian troops stand on the occupied territory, although there are also other risks in the country," Garibashvili said.

Anti-Russian sentiment can often be strong in Georgia. Russian troops still control around one-fifth of Georgian territory, most of it taken during a lightning war in 2008 that was ostensibly about breakaway efforts in two northeastern regions, Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

The final reading of the bill is scheduled to be debated on May 17. Georgian President Salome Zurabishvili told the BBC that she will veto it if it’s approved in its final reading.

Zurabishvili said that her major concern is the fact that the bill in question is "exactly a copy of [Russian President Vladimir] Putin's law."

However, Zurabishvili said the ruling Georgian Dream party has enough lawmakers to override her if she does use her veto.

The European Union's ambassador to Georgia has criticized the introduction of the bill, saying it's "incompatible" with the values of the bloc Tbilisi is looking to join.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) also assailed moves to introduce the law.

Georgia has been vocal in its drive to join the EU, which extended candidate status to Tbilisi late last year after the government recalled the first attempt at introducing the law following public protests.

EU officials have said that if Georgia adopts the bill as law, it would disrupt the nation’s membership hopes.

The EU and NATO are keen to maintain relations with Georgia and move it further away from Russian influence, but recent moves have caused concern in Western capitals.

Most opinion polls in Georgia indicate strong support from the public for closer ties with Western institutions.

With reporting by the Voice of America

Scuffles were reported on April 26 between police and residents of a village in Armenia that is due to be handed over to Azerbaijan as part of a border demarcation deal between Yerevan and Baku. Reports said protesters tried to stop a vehicle in Kirants on April 26, one of the border communities impacted by the upcoming move, believing they were Azerbaijani officials sent to work on the demarcation deal agreed on April 19. Protests were also reported in Yerevan on April 27. Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian has faced criticism at home after agreeing to cede several border areas to neighbor and longtime rival Azerbaijan as part of a peace deal. Both the United States and European Union have hailed the agreement. To read the original story from the RFE/RL’s Armenian Service, click here.

A Russian court on April 27 ordered a journalist for the Russian edition of Forbes magazine, Sergei Mingazov, to be placed under house arrest. Mingazov was detained by police in the Far Eastern city of Khabarovsk on April 26 on charges of spreading false information about the Russian military. His lawyer, Konstantin Bubon, said his client was detained because of social media posts he made about the Ukrainian city of Bucha, where more than 400 bodies of civilians were found, many bearing signs of torture, after Russian forces pulled out in April 2022. He faces up to 10 years in prison if convicted. To read the full story by RFE/RL's Russian Service, click here.

Ukraine said Russia had launched a massive attack overnight targeting energy installations, while a Russian oil refinery said it had suspended operations following a drone strike.

Live Briefing: Russia's Invasion Of Ukraine

RFE/RL's Live Briefing gives you all of the latest developments on Russia's full-scale invasion, Kyiv's counteroffensive, Western military aid, global reaction, and the plight of civilians. For all of RFE/RL's coverage of the war in Ukraine, click here.

DTEK, Ukraine’s largest private energy company, said its four thermal power stations had been hit.

"The enemy again massively shelled the Ukrainian energy facilities," DTEK said in a statement. "The company's equipment was seriously damaged. At this very moment, energy workers are trying to eliminate the consequences of the attack."

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy again appealed for quick delivery of further air defense weapons from Western allies after the attacks on crucial infrastructure.

"Terror should always lose, and anyone who helps us stand against Russian terror is a true defender of life," he said.

In his nightly video address, Zelenskiy said Russia’s attack on Ukraine’s energy sector had particularly targeted sites that supply gas to EU countries.

"The main target was the energy sector, various facilities in the industry, both electricity and gas transit facilities. In particular, gas facilities that are crucial to ensuring safe delivery to the European Union," he said.

Energy Minister Herman Halushchenko said the Russian strikes targeted the Dnipropetrovsk region in central Ukraine and the western regions of Lviv and Ivano-Frankivsk.

Halushchenko said one energy worker had been injured. DTEK also said there were casualties but provided no other details.

In Kharkiv, Ukraine's second-largest city, a psychiatric hospital was damaged and one person was wounded in a Russian missile strike, officials said.

Oleh Synyehubov, the head of the Kharkiv regional military administration, said a 53-year-old woman was injured in what he described as a strike by a Russian cruise missile.

Synyehubov said at the time of the attack about 60 patients and five staff had been in the building.

Photos from the scene showed a huge crater on the grounds of the facility and patients taking shelter in corridors.

Ukrainian air defenses shot down 21 of 34 Russian missiles fired in an overnight attack, the commander of the Ukrainian Air Force said on April 27.

Mykola Oleschuk said Ukrainian fighter planes, air defense missile units, mobile fire groups, and means of radio-electronic warfare were involved in repelling the Russian missile strikes.

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Over the past month, Russia’s military has increased its targeting of Ukrainian power infrastructure, attacking thermal and hydropower stations and other energy infrastructure almost daily.

Ukrainian officials have said the country has lost about 80 percent of its thermal generation and about 35 percent of its hydropower capacity, prompting the government to introduce scheduled blackouts in several regions.

In Russia, meanwhile, an oil refinery in Russia's Krasnodar region has suspended operations after a suspected drone attack early on April 27, local officials said.

"The work of the plant has been partially suspended. Exactly 10 UAVs (drones) flew into the plant. There was a strong fire. There may be hidden damage," Eduard Trudnev, the security director of Slavyansk ECO Group, which operates the plant, was quoted as saying.

A post on the Telegram messaging app showed what appeared to be a large explosion at the Slavyansk oil refinery.

Ukraine, which rarely comments on its targeting of Russian sites, said nothing publicly on the drone strikes.

Ukrainian officials on April 27 reported that Russia had reinforced its troops around the eastern Ukrainian town of Ocheretyne in an effort to take the embattled settlement, but Kyiv insisted that its forces were holding off the Kremlin’s offensive there.

A spokesman for Ukraine’s eastern command said government forces had the situation "under control" and that Ukrainian troops had managed to shell areas taken by Russian forces, blocking their advance ahead of a planned effort to “kick them out.”

Battlefield claims on both sides cannot immediately be verified.

In Chasiv Yar -- another town under direct Russian assault -- Ukrainian officials said the Kremlin’s forces had not entered the municipality, which had a prewar population of about 12,500.

Zelenskiy said in an interview on April 21 that Russia wants to occupy Chasiv Yar in the Donetsk region before May 9, the day that Russia celebrates as Victory Day to mark the defeat of Germany in World War II.

With reporting by Reuters

Iran’s foreign minister said the crew of a seized Portuguese-flagged ship linked to Israel have been granted consular access and are expected to be freed, Iranian media reported on April 27. Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps seized the container vessel MSC Aries with a crew of 25 in the Strait of Hormuz on April 13, days after Tehran vowed to retaliate for a suspected Israeli strike on its consulate in Damascus. Iran had said it could close the crucial shipping route. Recent attacks on merchant shipping in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden by Yemen's Iran-aligned Huthis, claiming solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza during Israel's war with Hamas, have affected global shipping.

Associates of Aleksei Navalny, who died in February in a Russian penal colony, say a concert has been scheduled in his memory in Berlin on June 4, which would have been the opposition politician’s 48th birthday. Navalny’s associates announced the event on Telegram on April 26, saying they want to ensure that the name Navalny and his ideas continue to be heard. They said Russian President Vladimir Putin will not be able to defeat Navalny as long as he is remembered. Among the artists scheduled to perform are rapper Noize MC and the Russian hip-hop duo Aigel. To read the full story by RFE/RL's Russian Service, click here.

Peter Magyar, an aspiring challenger to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, renewed his calls for change on April 26 as he led a protest of several thousand people demanding a more robust child protection system and the resignation of Orban's government. Magyar led the demonstration outside the Interior Ministry as demonstrators criticized it for failing to prevent the sexual abuse of children in state-run institutions. In his comments to the crowd the 43-year-old Magyar took aim at Orban's portrayal of himself as a defender of families and traditional values and called for genuine reforms to address child welfare.

A group known as Cyberpartisans claims it has infiltrated the network of Belarus’s main security agency and accessed the personnel files of thousands of employees.

Cyberpartisans said on April 26 that the official website of the Belarusian KGB has not been working for more than two months because of its activities.

The group said on Telegram that its hackers penetrated the KGB system in the fall of 2023 and “pumped out all the available information.”

As proof that it breached the agency’s network, Cyberpartisans posted a list of administrators and the website's database and server logs on Telegram.

Belarusian KGB authorities have not commented on the claim, but the agency’s website opened with a page that said the site was “under construction.”

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Cyberpartisans Hack Belarusian Fertilizer Plant, Demand Release Of Political Prisoners

Group coordinator Yuliana Shametavets told the Associated Press that the attack was in response to comments by the agency’s chief, Ivan Tertel, who accused the group this week of plotting attacks on the country's critical infrastructure, including a nuclear power plant.

“The KGB is carrying out the largest political repressions in the history of the country and must answer for it,” said Shametavets, speaking from New York. “We work to save the lives of Belarusians, and not to destroy them, like the repressive Belarusian special services do.”

Shametavets said once the group succeeded in hacking the KGB’s network it was able to download personal files of more than 8,600 KGB employees.

The action is the second claimed by the group in as many weeks. The Cyberpartisans claimed last week to have hacked into the computers and security systems of the Hrodna Azot plant in the region of Homel, a major state-run producer of nitrogen compounds and fertilizers.

The group claimed that it took control of all internal e-mail accounts of as well as hundreds of computers, servers, the security system, and security cameras in the plant’s buildings.

It said it would undo its work in exchange for the release of workers who were arrested during protests against the disputed 2020 presidential election.

Cyberpartisans is a decentralized community of anonymous hackers that first appeared in September 2020.

It has previously hacked into the resources of Belarusian state institutions and law enforcement agencies and publicized classified information in response to state repression against protesters. The group says its activity is part of the struggle against the authoritarian rule of Alyaksandr Lukashenka.

Lukashenka, 69, has tightened his grip on the country since the August 2020 election by arresting -- sometimes violently -- tens of thousands of people. Fearing for their safety, most opposition members have fled the country.

With reporting by AP

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev on April 26 rejected criticism over the arrests of journalists and said the fact that people had access to the Internet meant press freedom was assured. "We must protect our media landscape from external negative influences just like any other country, and everyone must comply with the laws," Aliyev told a joint news conference with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz during a visit to Berlin. Asked to respond to allegations that journalists' rights are being violated, Aliyev said it would be unfair to criticize Azerbaijan, which has hundreds of media organizations and no censorship. To read the full story on RFE/RL's Azerbaijani Service, click here.

A British man has been charged over alleged hostile state activity intended to benefit Russia, including by allegedly recruiting others for an arson attack on a Ukrainian-linked commercial property in London. UK Foreign Minister David Cameron voiced deep concern about the allegations, and the British Foreign Ministry later said it had summoned Russia's ambassador to London to express its concern about "Russian orchestrated malign activity on UK soil."

A Kurdish-language teacher in the Iranian city of Sanandaj has been sentenced to 11 years in prison for her cultural activities and support for the Women, Life, Freedom protests that have roiled the country since the death of Mahsa Amini in September 2022.

Soma Pourmohammadi, who is involved with the socio-cultural association Nojin, told RFE/RL’s Radio Farda that the first sentence handed down by Branch 1 of the Sanandaj Islamic Revolutionary Court was for a term of 10 years due to her association's activities, saying that it "disrupts national security."

In a second, related case, she said she received an additional one-year suspended sentence linked to her participation in the Women Life Freedom movement, again for "disrupting national security."

Pourmohammadi denied the accusations and criticized the Iranian judiciary and said she has little hope of receiving a reduced sentence on appeal.

During a recounting of her interrogation process, Pourmohammadi said she was blindfolded, forced to face a wall, and physically dragged and thrown outside in cold weather.

She was also forced to speak Persian despite her commitment to using only Kurdish, her mother tongue.

Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian-Kurdish woman, died while in police custody for an alleged hijab infraction in 2022.

Human rights groups say that since Amini’s death, authorities have launched an intense crackdown in provinces with significant Kurdish populations, including Kurdistan, Kermanshah, and West Azerbaijan.

Nojin, which has been officially licensed since 2009, focuses on the education and empowerment of women through the teaching of Kurdish and on raising cultural and social awareness in Kurdistan.

Despite its legal status, its members, including Pourmohammadi, frequently face state scrutiny and intimidation.

Pourmohammadi’s case, activists say, reflects a broader pattern of cultural suppression in Iran, particularly against ethnic minorities and their linguistic rights.

Pourmohammadi's sentencing coincides with increased actions against members of the Nojin association, including other educators who have faced similar charges.

Written by Ardeshir Tayebi based on an original story in Persian by RFE/RL's Radio Farda