Belarus on August 7 began military exercises near its border with Poland and Lithuania, a move that comes with tensions already heightened between Belarus and the two NATO members over Russian-linked Wagner mercenaries moving to Belarus after their short-lived mutiny in Russia. Both Poland and Lithuania have increased border security since thousands of Wagner fighters arrived in Russian-allied Belarus under a deal that ended their armed rebellion in late June and allowed them and their leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin, to avoid criminal charges. To read the original story by AP, click here.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s chief of staff said on August 7 that talks over the weekend in Saudi Arabia discussed no other peace initiative than the one put forth by Ukraine and that the participants agreed to hold another meeting within about six weeks.

"We will hold another meeting within a month, month-and-a-half and we will move toward [holding] a summit," Andriy Yermak told reporters at a briefing in Kyiv.

Officials from around 40 countries, including China, the United States, and European countries, took part in the talks.

Yermak, who headed the Ukrainian delegation, said all delegates at the talks had fully supported Ukrainian independence and territorial integrity.

Yermak promoted the Ukrainian peace formula at the talks. Zelenskiy himself has touted the set of 10 principles that Kyiv wants to serve as the basis for peace during recent visits to European and NATO-member countries.

Observers have said the most important points of the peace plan are those that demand respect for the UN Charter and the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Ukraine.

Russia's Foreign Ministry said the talks in Saudi Arabia didn't have "the slightest added value," because Moscow wasn’t invited. Without Russia's participation and without taking into account Moscow's interests, the meeting was pointless, a ministry statement said.

It repeated previous assurances that Russia was open to a diplomatic solution on its terms that ends the war and is ready to respond to serious proposals.

Mykhaylo Podolyak, an adviser to Zelenskiy, once again ruled out Moscow's previous demands, saying they would give Russia time to dig in deeper in the parts of Ukraine it has occupied.

"Any scenario of a cease-fire and freezing of the war in Ukraine in the current disposition will mean only one thing -- Russia's actual victory and Putin's personal triumph," Podolyak said on X, formerly known as Twitter.

He said earlier in an interview with RFE/RL that Russian forces must fully withdraw from the occupied areas and there would be no compromise on that.

"The most difficult thing is always the discussion of the issue that Russia should leave the territory of Ukraine," he said.

Hanna Hopko, who previously headed the committee on foreign policy in the Ukrainian parliament, said the talks in Saudi Arabia pointed to the "deepening of the isolation" of Russia. She said Ukraine needed this along with "tougher measures to counter Russian aggression," including more weapons, financial aid, and more pressure on Russia.

"Ukraine wants more support, and not only transatlantic support or in the Ramstein format, but at the level of the whole world," she said, referring to the contact group formed to coordinate Western military support for Ukraine.

Hopko told RFE/RL in an interview that China's participation at the talks was important.

"The longer the war lasts, the more China sees that Russia has no chance of winning," she said, adding that Russia was getting more and more isolated, and "China understands that Russia is losing."

The Chinese Foreign Ministry on August 7 issued a statement saying China would be an "objective and rational voice" at any international multilateral forums and "actively promote peace talks."

The statement came after the ministry said earlier that the international talks in Saudi Arabia had helped "to consolidate international consensus."

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi also spoke by phone with his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, telling him that China would uphold an independent and impartial position on Ukraine as it strives to find a political settlement to the issue.

Beijing and Moscow have maintained a close bilateral relationship in recent years as both countries' relations with the West have worsened.

With reporting by Reuters and AFP

The Basmanny district court in Moscow on August 7 sentenced writer Dmitry Glukhovsky to eight years in prison on a charge of discrediting the Russian military in his online posts condemning Moscow's unprovoked invasion of Ukraine. Glukhovsky's lawyer, Veronika Polyakova, called the court ruling politically motivated. After Russia launched its aggression against Ukraine in February 2022, Glukhovsky, who resides outside of Russia, harshly criticized Russian President Vladimir Putin and posted reports about the Russian armed forces' alleged atrocities against Ukrainian civilians. Russia then added the writer to its list of "foreign agents," and issued an arrest warrant for him. To read the original story by RFE/RL's Russian Service, click here.

Russia will launch its first lunar-landing spacecraft in 47 years on August 11 in a race with India to the south pole of the moon, a potential source of water to support a future human presence there. The launch from the Vostochny Cosmodrome, 5,550 kilometers east of Moscow, will take place four weeks after India sent up its Chandrayaan-3 lunar lander, due to touch down at the pole on August 23. Rough terrain makes a landing there difficult, but the south pole is a prized destination because scientists believe it may hold significant quantities of ice. To read the original story by Reuters, click here.

Russia's Federal Financial Monitoring Service added sociologist and political scientist Boris Kagarlitsky to the register of extremists and terrorists on August 7. Kagarlitsky has been in the pretrial detention center of the northwestern Russian city of Syktyvkar since the end of July on a charge of justifying terrorism. Kagarlitsky told RFE/RL that he considered the charge against him politically motivated. Kagarlitsky, 64, is also a well-known leftist publicist and a former Soviet dissident. Last year, he was added by the Justice Ministry to the list of so-called foreign agents. To read the original story by RFE/RL's Russian Service, click here.

Pakistani authorities have suspended an anti-polio drive in two volatile tribal districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province after several police officers refused to provide security to medical teams during the door-to-door vaccination campaign. Militants often attack police escorting polio teams. Two officers were killed in the latest attack in the southwestern Balochistan Province on August 1. The vaccination campaign will continue in the rest of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa as planned, officials said. Militants falsely claim that vaccination programs are part of a Western plot to sterilize Muslim children. Pakistan is one of only three countries where polio is still endemic, along with Afghanistan and Nigeria. To read the original story by RFE/RL's Radio Mashaal, click here.

Soheila Mohammadi, an Iranian Kurdish political prisoner held at Urmia central prison in northwestern Iran, has gone on hunger strike and sewn her lips shut, a human rights watchdog said.

The Norway-based Hengaw group, which monitors rights violations in Iran's Kurdish regions, said that Mohammadi began her hunger strike on August 5 in the women's section of Urmia prison.

Hengaw said she sewed her lips together "as a demonstration of protest against the mistreatment by prison officials in Urmia."

The report highlights that despite completing three years of her five-year term, Mohammadi continues to be deprived of parole opportunities and conditional release.

A source told Hengaw about the challenges she faced in the prison, noting the warden's unwillingness to even permit Mohammadi a meeting with the local prosecutor.

Reports from February indicate that she previously attempted suicide because of mounting pressure from the prison authorities and their continued efforts to deny her parole.

Mohammadi, who is also a mother, was taken into custody in Salmas during in fall 2020 by the Revolutionary Guards' intelligence division.

Following an extended period of interrogation, she was relocated to the Urmia prison women's ward. Accused of affiliating with the Party of Free Life of Kurdistan (PJAK), she was given a five-year sentence at Urmia's Revolutionary Court and has since remained incarcerated without a single day's leave.

The Kurdistan Human Rights Network has reported a growing number of arrests in the region.

According to the network's collected data from June, at least 70 Kurdish Iranian citizens in various cities and villages in the provinces of West Azerbaijan, Kurdistan, Kermanshah, and Khuzestan have been arrested on political charges by security and judicial institutions over the previous month.

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

Georgia has declared August 7 a day of mourning for the victims of last week's deadly landslide in the resort town of Shovi. The latest confirmed death toll is 18, while rescue teams continue to search for 17 people missing since the landslide occurred on August 3. Officials said earlier that more than 200 people were evacuated. Flags will fly at half-mast across the country on August 8 as well, to honor victims of the five-day 2008 Russian-Georgian War that ended with Moscow’s recognition of Georgia's breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Russia maintains thousands of troops in both regions now. To read the original story by RFE/RL's Georgian Service, click here.

The Bulgarian National Assembly on August 7 approved changes in the Criminal Code and the law on protection from domestic violence following a shocking case of abuse against an 18-year-old woman that sparked mass protests.

The deputies, gathered in an extraordinary session, adopted the changes by a vote of 144-58. They provide for the right to protection for people who have experienced violence in the context of an intimate relationship or for victims of violence who are neither married to their potential abuser nor are they in an actual relationship.

Eight lawmakers abstained.

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A Brutal Knife Attack Might Finally Be Changing Minds On Domestic Violence In Bulgaria

Thousands of people staged protest rallies in Sofia and other Bulgarian cities after a woman from the central city of Stara Zagora was beaten and cut multiple times with a knife by her boyfriend.

The incident was only made public on July 28 following the victim's family's frustration with the slow pace of the investigation.

Angry demonstrators called for an overhaul of legislation and improved protection measures for women, carrying banners that read "Not a single woman more.''

The 26-year-old suspect, identified in the media as Georgi Georgiev, was arrested after the attack, but a court in Stara Zagora later released him after rating the woman's injuries as "light."

He was rearrested on July 31 amid the public outrage and the prosecutor's office announced that it was "accelerating" the investigation.

Bulgarian police statistics show that 18 women were killed in the first three months of this year by their suspected partners. Women's rights activists say the number is much higher.

Javad Ruhi, a 35-year-old Iranian protester from the northern city of Amol whose death sentence was overturned by Iran's Supreme Court, remains in temporary detention more than 10 months after he was arrested as his case continues to be passed around regional Iranian courts.

Ruhi was arrested in the northern Iranian city of Nowshahr on December 11 for participating in ongoing nationwide protests sparked by the death of a young woman, Mahsa Amini, while in police custody in September after she was arrested for allegedly not wearing a hijab properly.

The regime's brutal crackdown on public demonstrators and dissent has seen thousands of people arrested, including journalists, lawyers, activists, digital rights defenders, and others voicing opposition to the government.

SEE ALSO:

Special Report: The Protests That Shook Iran's Clerical System

Some Iranian lawmakers have demanded an even harsher response, calling for heavy penalties, including death sentences, for protesters.

Ruhi was sentenced to death for "corruption on Earth," a charge punishable by death that is often leveled in cases allegedly involving espionage or attempts to overthrow the government and which the courts have taken to using in recent months against protesters.

In a pivotal move, however, the ruling was overturned by the country's Supreme Court in June.

Majid Kaveh, Ruhi's lawyer, said his client's only actions were dancing in the city square and throwing some hijabs on a fire.

The court indictment, which was obtained by RFE/RL's Radio Farda, appears to back up the claims.

However, two months later, Ruhi remains in detention while his case has been sent from one regional court to another.

Majid Kaveh, Ruhi's legal representative, expressed deep concern over what he said seems to be the "disregard for the Supreme Court ruling."

Kaveh told the Tehran-based Shargh newspaper on August 6 that the trajectory of the case remains unclear due to administrative issues.

Kaveh said that after being referred back to the provincial judiciary, the case took an unexpected turn following the dissolution of the specialized branch handling such cases in the Mazandaran provincial Revolutionary Court.

Ruhi's case was redirected to the Revolutionary Court of another city, Tonekabon, which subsequently passed the case to the Revolutionary Court of yet another city, Amol, which forwarded it to the Revolutionary Court in the northern Iranian city of Sari.

The case now awaits a decision from the Mazandaran Provincial Review Court.

The delay in legal proceedings has had a severe toll, Kaveh said. Ruhi has been in temporary detention for over 315 days in Nowshahr prison, leading to severe physical and psychological strain on him and his family.

Iran has recently executed at least seven anti-government protesters in hasty trials, triggering strong condemnation from human rights activists and numerous Western governments.

Human rights groups say the crackdown has left more than 500 people dead and hundreds more injured.

TASHKENT -- An Uzbek court has sentenced three police officers in a case linked to mass anti-government protests in the country’s Karakalpak Autonomous Republic last year.

The Central Asian nation's Supreme Court said over the weekend that two police officers were sentenced to seven years in prison each on torture charges. They were also barred from working in law enforcement structures for two years after serving the sentences.

A third police officer was sentenced to three years in prison after a court in the southwestern town of Kogon found him guilty of perjury and failing to come to the rescue. He was banned to work as a law enforcement officer for one year after serving the term.

All three pleaded not guilty and plan to appeal the sentences. The police officers' identities were not disclosed.

In late January, an Uzbek court sentenced 22 Karakalpak activists to prison terms on charges including undermining the constitutional order for taking part in the mass protests in Karakalpakstan in July last year.

In March, another 39 Karakalpak activists accused of taking part in the protests in Nukus were convicted and 28 of them were sentenced to prison terms of between five and 11 years, while 11 defendants were handed parole-like sentences.

Uzbek authorities say 21 people died in Karakalpakstan during the protests, which were sparked by the announcement of a planned change to the constitution that would have undermined the region's right to self-determination.

Meanwhile, the Austria-based Freedom for Eurasia human rights group said last month that at least 70 people were killed during the unrest.

The violence forced President Shavkat Mirziyoev to make a rare about-face and scrap the proposal.

Mirziyoev accused "foreign forces" of being behind the unrest, without further explanation, before backing away from the proposed changes.

Karakalpaks are a Central Asian Turkic-speaking people. Their region used to be an autonomous area within Kazakhstan before becoming autonomous within the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic in 1930 and then part of Uzbekistan in 1936.

The European Union has called for an independent investigation into the violence.

An appeals court in the Russian city of Nizhny Novgorod on August 7 upheld the life sentence imposed on Ilnaz Galyaviyev, who had been convicted of an armed attack on a school in Kazan in which nine people, including seven children, were killed.

"The sentence handed down by the Supreme Court of Tatarstan is upheld, and the appeals are dismissed," the judge said.

The Kazan school shooting occurred on May 11, 2021. Galyaviyev, who was 19 at the time, set off an explosion in the school before opening fire on students at School No. 175 in Kazan of which he was a former graduate. Besides the nine people killed, 23 others were wounded.

A motive for the attack was not disclosed.

Galyaviyev was found to be mentally ill after a psychiatric evaluation, though he had previously not been diagnosed with any disorder.

Galaviyev's appeals lawyer stated that the lower court had not taken into account Galyaviev's mental state at the time of the crime and during the proceedings, and that the intent to cause damage to the school has not been proven.

The lawyer asked to cancel the verdict and send the case for a new trial.

Meanwhile, the public prosecutor asked to reject the complaint of the defense and supported the claim of one of the victims for damages for 1 million rubles ($10,427).

Galyaviyev did not attend the hearing and his lawyer was present by video conference.

On April 13, the Tatarstan Supreme Court found Galyaviyev guilty and sentenced him to life imprisonment. In addition to a life sentence, Galyaviev was fined 200,000 rubles ($2,085).

The shooting was the deadliest school attack in post-Soviet Russia after the deadly 2004 Beslan siege, which left hundreds dead.

The Russian Interior Ministry has added Ukrainian journalist Yanina Sokolova, who is well-known for her criticism of Russia's ongoing unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, to its wanted list on an unspecified charge. Sokolova's name appeared on the ministry's wanted list on August 7. In March, she was added to Russia's list of terrorists and activists. Sokolova is an anchor of the Rendezvous program on Ukraine's Fifth television channel and is the owner of a popular YouTube channel. Sokolova, a cancer survivor, is also known as an activist supporting cancer patients through her Ya, Nina project. To read the original story by RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service, click here.

Officials say that two civilians were killed in a suicide car bombing that targeted a security patrol in North Waziristan, a district in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province of northwest Pakistan bordering Afghanistan. A security official told RFE/RL on condition of anonymity that the attackers' explosives-laden car collided with a vehicle of the security forces, triggering a blast. The official said the vehicle of the security forces was bulletproof and the soldiers were not harmed in the attack. Two passersby -- a husband and wife -- were killed in the attack. To read the original story by RFE/RL's Radio Mashaal, click here.

A memorial in central Kazakhstan honoring Akhmat Kadyrov, the late Kremlin-backed leader of Russia's North Caucasus region of Chechnya, has reportedly been vandalized. The 1ADAT opposition Chechen Telegram channel published two videos on August 7 purporting to show several unidentified people painting the word "traitor" on both sides of the memorial in the town of Kishi Saran and using a sledgehammer to smash a commemorative plaque at the site of the Kazakh house where Kadyrov was born in 1951 during the deportation of Chechens. Kadyrov, the father of Chechnya's current pro-Kremlin authoritarian leader Ramzan Kadyrov, was killed in an attack in May 2004 in Grozny. To read the original story by RFE/RL's Caucasus.Realities, click here.

A Belarusian sprinter who appealed for international help to avoid being forced home prematurely from the Tokyo Olympics has obtained the right to represent Poland -- where she defected with her husband in 2021 -- at international tournaments after receiving citizenship.

The Belarusian Foundation for Sport Solidarity said on August 7 that World Athletics had approved the participation of Krystsina Tsimanouskaya, also known as Kryscina Cimanouska, in the World Athletics Championships in Budapest this month.

The Crisis In Belarus

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

Tsimanouskaya obtained Polish citizenship in August 2022.

In early August 2021, Tsimanouskaya took refuge in the Polish Embassy in Tokyo as Belarusian team officials tried to force her onto a flight back to Minsk after she criticized them. Two days later, she boarded a plane to Europe, reaching Warsaw via a stopover in Vienna.

Poland then granted the sprinter and her husband, who fled to Poland via Ukraine, humanitarian visas.

The 26-year-old athlete's plight became a major story from the Tokyo Olympics and refocused international attention on repression in Belarus a year after protests erupted when strongman Alyaksandr Lukashenka claimed victory in a disputed presidential election in August 2020.

Several protesters have been killed and thousands arrested during mass demonstrations demanding Lukashenka's resignation. There have also been credible reports of torture during a widening security crackdown.

In 2021, Lukashenka's son Viktar took over leadership of the Belarusian National Olympic Committee from his father in a move that the International Olympic Committee (IOC) refused to recognize.

Also in August 2021, a coach of the Vitsyaz handball club in Minsk, Kanstantsin Yakauleu, fled to Ukraine weeks after he served 15 days in jail for taking part in an unsanctioned anti-government rally.

Belarusian heptathlete Yana Maksimava and her Olympic-medalist husband, Andrey Krauchanka, also announced at the time that they had decided to stay in Germany with their child due to the ongoing crackdown in Belarus.

Self-exiled Belarusian opposition members presented an alternative "new national passport" at a conference in Poland over the weekend. Valer Kavaleuski of the group, called the United Interim Cabinet of Belarus, told a conference in Warsaw on August 6 that talks with the European Union are under way to recognize the passport. Kavaleuski added that the idea to come up with a new passport appeared after thousands of Belarusians who fled the nation following an unprecedented crackdown in 2020 after a disputed presidential poll faced problems with renewing expired travel documents abroad. There was no immediate comment from the EU. To read the original story by RFE/RL's Belarusian Service, click here.

Tajik activist Amriddin Holmurodov, who was detained in February 2022 in Slovakia, faces extradition to his home country, where he may be subjected to torture and violence, human rights activists say.

Amriddin Holmurodov, 37, who was detained while crossing the Ukrainian-Slovak border, is still in a pretrial detention center in Kosice, Slovakia's second-largest city. Holmurodov's relatives say that, if extradited, he is going to be punished for his sharp criticism of Tajik authorities on social media.

Dozens of Tajik opposition supporters and social media activists living in European countries have been put on an international wanted list by Tajik authorities on charges of "terrorism" and "extremism."

According to Holmurodov's relatives, who preferred to remain anonymous, the Ismoili Somoni district court in Dushanbe ordered his arrest five years ago.

Holmurodov is facing criminal charges under three articles of the Tajik Criminal Code: inciting social, racial, national, regional, religious hatred; public calls for violent change of the constitutional order of Tajikistan; and membership in a criminal organization, his relatives said.

If found guilty, he faces more than 10 years in prison in Tajikistan. Tajik officials have not commented on the case.

Last week, a group of Lithuania-based Tajik activists organized a demonstration in Holmurodov's support outside the European Union’s office in Vilnius.

Abdusattor Boboev head of the Committee for the Protection of Political Hostages and Prisoners in Tajikistan, told RFE/RL on August 6 that the EU representatives met with four protesters, and that they handed the diplomats a letter to the government of Slovakia and the EU.

“In our letter, we called on the Slovak president and the EU leadership to release the activist and not extradite him to Tajikistan, where Holmurodov may be subjected to torture and violence," said Boboev.

Amriddin Holmurodov has reportedly lived in Ukraine for the past few years and has a residence permit in that country. Days after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, he tried to enter Slovakia, where he was arrested at the border.

Amriddin Holmurodova reportedly criticized Tajik authorities on the social network Odnoklassniki under the pseudonym "Muhammadjon Umarov."

A Ukraine-linked hacker group said on Telegram on August 7 that it had hacked the website of Moscow's municipal property registration bureau (MosgorBTI) overnight, saying "the information about state officials, politicians, military, and special services officers who support the Ukraine war had been handed to Ukraine's defense forces." The MosgorBTI's website has yet to comment on the statement. The group, known as “sudo RM-RF,” called itself "IT experts working for peace in Ukraine." The group was mentioned in reports on cyberattacks at RuTube in 2022 and Russia's state-controlled Skolkovo foundation in May. To read the original story by RFE/RL's Russian Service, click here.

Four people, including two police officers, have been killed and at least 11 others injured when several buildings collapsed in the Iranian capital, Tehran, local media reported on August 7. The police officers were securing the planned demolition on August 6 of "unauthorized buildings" in the city's southwest, ISNA news agency said that day, reporting at least three deaths in the incident. Rescue operations were under way to find others who may be trapped under the rubble, ISNA and the Tasnim news agency reported. To read the original story by AFP, click here.

Guards in a maximum-security penal colony in Kazakhstan's northwestern city of Oral brutally beat dozens of inmates "for no reason" last week, relatives told RFE/RL. The administration of Correctional Colony No. 28 said to RFE/RL that "special measures had been taken to discipline violators of the penitentiary's internal order" on August 3. The Western Kazakhstan regional health authorities confirmed to RFE/RL that 47 inmates were injured, of whom 11 were hospitalized in the city's medical facilities. Human rights watchdogs have raised the issue of guards’ brutality in the Central Asian nation's penitentiaries for years. To read the original story by RFE/RL's Kazakh Service, click here.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said he requested long-range missiles from the United States during a phone call on August 7 with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

The request came as five people were killed in a Russian missile attack on the city of Pokrovsk in Ukraine's Donetsk region and after Ukrainian officials said that at least three people had been killed in the latest Russian assaults that targeted the Dnipropetrovsk, Kharkiv, and Kherson regions.

Ukraine has previously requested Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) from the United States and other Western partners. Washington thus far has refrained from providing the weapons for fear Kyiv may use them to target military objects inside Russia.

The ATACMs could strike Russian arms depots and other equipment up to 300 kilometers away, weakening Moscow's ability to supply its troops at the front lines. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said the missiles would be used to reduce Russia's ability to target cities.

"I thanked the U.S. for all the assistance provided and stressed the need to enhance Ukraine's long-range capabilities by providing ATACMS," Kuleba said on X, formerly known as Twitter.

A State Department spokesman issued a statement after the call that made no mention of Ukraine's request for ATACMS. The statement from spokesman Matthew Miller's office said Blinken "reiterated the United States' staunch and ongoing support of Ukraine's defense against Russia's aggression and reaffirmed continued support of a strong Ukrainian military and accountable defense institutions."

It also said Blinken and Kuleba discussed developments in Ukraine's counteroffensive and the talks held over the weekend in Saudi Arabia about reaching a "durable peace in Ukraine."

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said the attack on Pokrovsk involved two missiles that hit a residential building. "Unfortunately, there are victims. Rescuers and all necessary services are at the scene. Rescue operations continue," he said.

Pavlo Kyrylenko, the governor of Donetsk, said one person was killed and seven wounded.

Kyiv earlier described the situation over the past week as “extremely difficult and tense” both in the east and south of the country.

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.

Kherson Governor Oleksandr Prokudin said on Telegram that a woman was killed and a man sustained head injuries when Russian shelling hit a residential area in the central part of the city. The shelling began around the midnight, officials said.

At least two rescue workers suffered heatstroke as they tried to evacuate residents and put out a fire at a nine-story building that was hit by the latest Russian strikes. (See video below.)

Ukrainian forces recaptured Kherson and parts of Kherson Province in the country’s south in November, several months after they were occupied by Russia.

But Russian troops continue to shell the city and surrounding areas from across the Dnieper River. A doctor was killed and a nurse was wounded in Russian shelling of a Kherson hospital earlier this month.

Two people were reported killed when Russian troops hit the border areas of the northeastern Kharkiv region on August 7, officials said. No further details were immediately available.

Russian forces targeted the Dnipropetrovsk region overnight, using rockets and heavy artillery, regional officials said. There were no immediate reports of casualties.

Emergency workers put out a fire that broke out in the aftermath of a missile strike in the Synelnyk district, said Serhiy Lysak, the head of the regional military administration.

Russian assaults continued in the morning, with the Myryvsk area coming under heavy artillery shelling, Lysak added.

New air-raid alerts went off around noon on August 7 in at least nine provinces, including Sumy, Poltava, and Zaporizhzhya, alerting residents to the danger of new Russian strikes.

According to Ukraine’s General Staff, about 50 combat clashes took place across the country over the past day. Kyiv described the situation over the past week as “extremely difficult and tense” both in the east and the south of the country.

"The enemy has chosen the east as its main direction. The offensive there has been going on since January in several directions," Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Malyar said on August 7. She said that "the east was the epicenter of hostilities all last week."

Malyar also said that Russian forces "want to regain the territories they lost in the Kharkiv region.”

In Russia, officials claimed that a Ukrainian drone was shot down southwest of Moscow overnight, amid a surge in drone attacks targeting the capital.

The drone was shot down by the anti-defense system in the Ferzikovsky district of the Kaluga region, less than 200 kilometers southwest of Moscow, regional Governor Vladislav Shapsha said.

The incident "affected neither people nor infrastructure," he wrote on Telegram on August 7.

Ukrainian drone attacks have increased in recent weeks, mostly targeting Moscow as well as the illegally annexed Crimean Peninsula.

Meanwhile, the head of the Ukrainian presidential office, Andriy Yermak, wrote on Telegram that 22 prisoners of war were returned to Ukraine from Russian captivity on August 7.

Some 2,600 Ukrainian solders have been released from captivity in prisoner exchanges that have taken place periodically between Russia and Ukraine since the conflict began in February 2022.

There was no immediate comment from Russia about the latest prisoner exchange. In most cases, the warring parties hand over about the same number of prisoners as the other side.

In other developments, a conference hosted by Saudi Arabia to discuss a peace plan for Ukraine was successful because it showed the willingness of the international community to work toward ending the war, a German government spokesperson said on August 7.

"Germany will also continue to engage actively including in this process," the spokesperson said in Berlin.

With reporting by Reuters

Iran on August 7 began registering candidates for parliamentary elections in March, which will be the first since nationwide protests rocked the country last year. Iran has held regular presidential and parliamentary elections since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. A clerical body vets candidates, disqualifying any seen as disloyal to the Islamic republic. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has the final say on all major policies. To read the original story by AP, click here.

Iran's foreign minister visited Japan on August 7 for the first time since 2019 to meet his counterpart, officials said, with a meeting with Prime Minister Fumio Kishida also reportedly on the agenda. The purpose of the rare visit by Hossein Amir-Abdollahian to a G7 member country was not announced, but reports said Japan would press Iran to stop supplying Russia with arms. Amir-Abdollahian will meet with Japanese Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi, the Japanese Foreign Ministry said in a statement. To read the original story by AFP, click here.

A year ahead of Russia's presidential election, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has told The New York Times that President Vladimir Putin “will be reelected next year with more than 90 percent of the vote.”

Putin, who has been in power either as prime minister or president since the end of 1999, has largely dismantled the elements of democracy and freedom that took root following the collapse of the Soviet Union three decades ago and has dragged Russia into the unprovoked invasion of Ukraine -- Europe's largest conflict since World War II.

In an interview on August 6, Peskov also made the apparently surprising remark that the Russian presidential poll “is not really democracy, it is costly bureaucracy.”

Putin, who has employed the most severe repression of Russia's political opposition since Soviet times, is expected to easily win reelection.

He has jailed opponents, subjugated the judicial system, and crushed freedom of the press, turning elections largely into farces with ballot-stuffing and voting result manipulation common features.

However, the Kremlin has continued to insist that Russian elections are fair and free. Following the publication of The New York Times article on August 6, Peskov claimed he was misquoted by the U.S. news outlet.

In an interview with the RBK news agency later in the day, Peskov tried to reframe his comments, saying that Russia “theoretically” didn’t need to hold presidential elections because “it’s obvious that Putin will be reelected.”

It is unclear who will seek to challenge Putin in an environment where almost any criticism of the Russian leader leads to harassment and investigations.

Russia last week extended the jail sentence of Russia’s most popular opposition leader, Aleksei Navalny, to 19 years, meaning his prison term would end in 2040.

Navalny, who investigated corruption in the highest echelons of the Russian government, was convicted of extremism charges that he calls nonsense.

He is just one of several opposition leaders who have been sentenced to lengthy jail terms on trumped-up charges since Putin launched an invasion of Ukraine 17 months ago.

Asked whether Russia will seek more Ukrainian territory beyond the four partially occupied provinces Russia illegally annexed in September, Peskov said, "No," adding, “We just want to control all the land we have now written into our constitution as ours.”

But he said no peace deal was possible now. “There are currently no grounds for an agreement,” Peskov said.

“We will continue the operation for the foreseeable future,” he said, using the same term as Putin, who called the invasion of Ukraine "a special military operation," avoiding the word "war."