Russia says its air defenses shot down six Ukrainian drones over two western and southern regions, the latest in a string of drone and missile attacks that have targeted Russian locations.

The Defense Ministry said one drone was brought down in the southern Krasnodar region around dawn on October 1, and five more were shot down over the western Smolensk region in the following hours.

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No casualties were reported and it was unclear if there was any damage on the ground. Ukraine, which has rarely claimed official responsibility for drone or missile attacks on Russian targets, had no comment.

Russia, meanwhile, launched nearly three dozen drones at targets across Ukraine overnight, and the Ukrainian military said more than half were downed by air defenses.

At least five people were injured in the attacks, mainly in Kherson, a southern region that Ukrainian troops partially recaptured from Russia last year.

One person was injured in the Cherkasy region as well, regional Governor Ihor Taburets said.

"Overnight, the enemy massively attacked our Cherkasy region with attack drones. Unfortunately, there were hits on industrial infrastructure in Uman," Taburets said in a post to Telegram. "As a result, fires broke out in warehouses; in particular, where grain was stored.”

The city of Kryviy Rih was also hit, damaging electricity and gas lines, according to local authorities.

In Washington, congressional lawmakers stripped out a package of new funding for Ukraine as they passed a last-minute, stopgap measure to keep the U.S. government open and operating.

Acting just hours before a midnight deadline when the federal government would have to shut down, lawmakers voted to send a temporary funding measure to President Joe Biden for his signature, which he did shortly after.

Support for continued funding for Ukraine has wide bipartisan support. But a growing number of House Republican lawmakers oppose such efforts, and the issue of a new $24 billion White House request was a key point of Republican opposition in the negotiations over funding the government.

Since Russia's full-scale invasion in February 2022, Congress has approved about $113 billion in weaponry, equipment, humanitarian aid, and economic assistance for Ukraine.

The stopgap measure lasts until November 17, by which time U.S. lawmakers will have to agree on another spending package or the U.S. government will shut down.

In a statement accompanying his signing of the legislation, Biden said he "expected" the Republican speaker of the House, Kevin McCarthy, to "keep his commitment to the people of Ukraine and secure passage of the support needed to help Ukraine at this critical moment."

The Senate's Democratic and Republican leaders, meanwhile, also signaled that the question of a new package of Ukraine aid would be revisited in the coming weeks.

"We support Ukraine's efforts to defend its sovereignty against [Russian President Vladimir] Putin's brazen aggression, and we join a strong bipartisan majority of our colleagues in this essential work," they said in a statement.

Britain's new defense secretary said London was considering stepping up its instruction of Ukrainian soldiers by sending British trainers to Ukraine itself.

In an interview published October 1 by The Telegraph, Grant Shapps said he had spoken with top military officers about moving "more training" into Ukraine and he called on British defense firms to set up manufacturing facilities inside the country.

More than 20,000 Ukrainian soldiers have received training from Britian since the start of 2022.

Britain might also play a more active naval role in the Black Sea, where Russia has targeted Ukrainian cargo ships, Schapps said.

Dmitry Medvedev, the bombastic former Russian president who is now a top official on the country's Security Council, said that British trainers would be legitimate military targets if they traveled to Ukraine to train Ukrainian troops.

London is "perfectly aware that they'll be eliminated mercilessly, and not as mercenaries this time around, but precisely as British NATO specialists," Medvedev wrote in a post on Telegram.

With reporting by Reuters

A United Nations mission has arrived in Nagorno-Karabakh following an Azerbaijani takeover of the mountain enclave that resulted in the exodus of the region's ethnic Armenian population. An Azerbaijani presidential spokesman said the mission arrived early on October 1 to assess the humanitarian needs in the region. It marks the first time in about 30 years that the UN has gained access to the region. Ethnic Armenians, who had controlled Nagorno-Karabakh for three decades, agreed to disarm and dissolve their government following an Azerbaijani offensive last week. Nearly all of Karabakh's estimated 120,000 residents have fled the territory for Armenia in recent days.

The Romanian Football Federation says its teams will refuse to compete against Russian youth teams in international competitions. According to a statement issued on September 30, the federation believes that it "must be in solidarity with the spirit of sanctions confirmed by European and national institutions." UEFA announced on September 27 that youth teams from Russia will be allowed to compete in European competitions, saying the youth "should not be punished for actions for which adults are solely responsible." The Ukrainian Football Association subsequently said its teams will boycott all competitions featuring Russian teams. To read the original story by RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service, click here.

Kosovo has called on Serbia to withdraw troops from its border region, vowing it was ready to protect its territorial integrity.

Serbia's president, meanwhile, denied Western reports of a military buildup, and complained about a "campaign of lies" against Serbia.

The Kosovar government statement, issued late on September 30, came amid spiraling tensions between the two countries a week after Kosovo's police battled around 30 heavily armed Serbs who stormed a Serbian Orthodox monastery in northern Kosovo.

Three attackers and one police officer were killed. A prominent Kosovar Serb politician admitted to organizing the attack.

"We call on [Serbian] President [Aleksandar] Vucic and the institutions of Serbia to immediately withdraw all troops from the border with Kosovo," Kosovo's government said. "The deployment of Serbian troops along the border with Kosovo is the next step by Serbia to threaten the territorial integrity of our country."

The United States has publicly accused Serbia of massing forces along the border.

U.S. national-security adviser Jake Sullivan spoke with Kosovar Prime Minister Albin Kurti on September 29, and expressed concern about Serbian military mobilizations near the Kosovo border, the White House said in a statement.

In a video posted to Instagram on October 1, Vucic denied the U.S. and other Western reports of a buildup.

"A campaign of lies...has been launched against our Serbia," Vucic said. "They have lied a lot about the presence of our military forces.... In fact, they are bothered that Serbia has what they describe as sophisticated weapons."

NATO, which still has 4,500 troops in Kosovo, has ordered more troops to the area "to address the current situation."

With reporting by AP

U.S. lawmakers have passed a last-minute, temporary spending bill to keep the U.S. government open, averting a disruptive shutdown but also removing any new support for Ukraine. A coalition of Democratic and Republican lawmakers backed the legislation late on September 30, sending it for President Joe Biden's approval just before a midnight deadline. Opposition to more Ukraine support is growing among House Republicans. Still, congressional leaders vowed to revisit the issue in the coming weeks. Biden has requested another $24 billion for Ukraine, on top of the $133 billion in weaponry and humanitarian aid sent since Russia's February 2022 invasion.

The president of Slovakia says she will give a mandate to form a new government to the winner of the country's parliamentary elections, signaling former Prime Minister Robert Fico and his SMER-SSD can begin putting together a coalition government in the central European country.

With reporting by Reuters and AP

The European's Union's foreign policy chief visited the embattled Ukrainian port city of Odesa on the Black Sea on September 30, lamenting that is has been in the news not because of its beauty and historical significance but because it has been targeted by Russian missile and drone attacks.

“Odesa is a beautiful historic city. It should be in the headlines for its vibrant culture & spirit. Instead, it marks the news as frequent target of Putin’s war,” Josef Borrell said on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.

“I’ve been witnessing the consequences of this war, how Ukraine and Odesa are paying a high price for it,” he said in a video posted on X. “This is a good example of how Russia is trying to destroy Ukraine,” he added, pointing to damaged walls inside the Cathedral of the Transfiguration.

As he toured the cathedral, Borrell called the Russian assault on the city "barbaric."

Odesa's old quarter and the historic Cathedral of the Transfiguration were badly damaged by a Russian bombardment in July. Harbor infrastructure that is key to Ukraine's grain exports has also been hit in recent attacks.

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'A City Of Dreams': Russian-Born Artist Describes Life Under Bombardment In Ukraine's Odesa

Borrell noted that a year has passed since Russia's illegal annexation of the Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhya, and Kherson regions. He also mentioned the illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014.

The top EU diplomat promised that Europe would not abandon Ukraine in its grinding war to recapture those areas, saying further military, economic, political, and diplomatic support is needed.

He also said his visit to Odesa was meant to highlight how the EU is supporting Ukraine in multiple ways in hopes for a “just peace that preserves the territorial integrity and independence of Ukraine.”

Borrell again reproached President Vladimir Putin for ending the UN-brokered agreement that allowed the safe transit of Ukrainian grain exports across the Black Sea.

SEE ALSO:

Live Briefing: Russia Invades Ukraine

The deal was seen as essential to addressing global food insecurity and containing grain prices. Borrell noted that Ukraine had once been the largest supplier of grain to the UN's World Food Program.

Borrell's trip was not announced in advance for security reasons. No details were given on what else was on his agenda.

With reporting by dpa

An adviser to Kyrgyz President Sadyr Japarov has expressed support for changing the post-Soviet Central Asian republic's flag so it appears less like "a sunflower." The adviser, Cholpon Abykeev, said "There is no need to make a tragedy out of changing the flag, considering its flaws." The speaker of Kyrgyzstan's parliament this week opened public debate on a bill to "improve" the flag, which shows a yellow sun with a yurt-like opening against a red backdrop. The current design was adopted in March 1992, one day after Kyrgyzstan joined the United Nations along with seven other former Soviet states. To read the original story by RFE/RL's Kyrgyz Service, click here.

An interdistrict court in Astana has rejected a complaint by an unregistered movement called Atazhurt protesting the Kazakh Justice Ministry's refusal to grant it registration, according to the group's local representative.

Kapar Ahatuly said the special court concluded on September 29 that the complaint was groundless based on the presence of deceased people on Atazhurt's petition for registration as well as an Excel formatting mistake.

Ahatuly dismissed the accusation that the list of at least 700 petitioners might include any dead people.

Contacted by RFE/RL's Kazakh Service, the Justice Ministry declined to comment.

Atazhurt was started by Serikzhan Bilash, an ethnic Kazakh from Xinjiang who moved to Kazakhstan in 2000 and received citizenship in 2011, and later helped highlight alleged mass abuses against Uyghurs in western China.

Kazakh officials have bristled at China's treatment of ethnic Kazakhs and Uyghurs but have avoided joining international condemnations of Beijing for the alleged mass roundups and brutality.

China is a major trade partner with Kazakhstan and a significant investor in Kazakh projects.

Bilash led the Atazhurt Eriktileri (Volunteers of the Fatherland) group, which in 2018-19 staged several gatherings of ethnic Kazakhs from Xinjiang who have resettled in Kazakhstan and asked for help securing the release of their relatives and friends from reeducation camps in Xinjiang.

Kazakh authorities in March 2019 arrested Bilash and charged him with inciting ethnic hatred. They held him in custody for five months before fining and releasing him.

Bilash later fled Kazakhstan.

Kazakh officials reject accusations that they withhold registrations for political reasons.

The death toll has risen to at least 59 from an explosion at a religious gathering in Pakistan's southwestern province of Balochistan, after officials said more critically ill victims died in the hospital overnight.

Dozens more were injured in the attack that took place on September 29, when one or more suicide bombers are believed to have targeted a procession celebrating the birth of Prophet Muhammad in the Mastung district, some 60 kilometers from the provincial capital, Quetta.

It was one of the deadliest attacks on civilians in Pakistan in months and prompted officials to declare a state of emergency at Quetta area hospitals.

Police on September 30 filed a report to launch an investigation, saying they had sent DNA from the suicide bomber to be analyzed.

Pakistani Interior Minister Sarfaraz Bugti told reporters in Quetta that India's intelligence agency, the Research & Analysis Wing (RAW), was involved in the suicide attack but provided no details or evidence to support the claim.

Pakistani officials have long claimed that India sponsors violent groups in Pakistan. India has consistently denied the claims.

On the same day as the attack in Balochistan, at least five people were killed in explosions that targeted a mosque and a police station in the restive northwestern Khyber Pakhtuknkhwa Province bordering Afghanistan, according to police and media reports.

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A suicide bombing and separate blast ripped through two religious ceremonies in Pakistan on September 29, killing at least 56 people and injuring more than 60 amid events marking the birthday of the Prophet Muhammad, police and health officials said.

The UN Security Council's members issued a statement in which they "condemned in the strongest terms the heinous and cowardly suicide terrorist attacks in Pakistan today that targeted a religious procession in Mastung, Balochistan Province, to commemorate 12 Rabi-ul-Awaal, the birthday of Prophet Muhammad, and a mosque in the Hangu district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province."

They "underlined the need to hold perpetrators, organizers, financiers, and sponsors of these reprehensible acts of terrorism accountable and bring them to justice."

Pakistani caretaker Prime Minister Anwar ul-Haq Kakar and President Arif Alvi along with cabinet ministers and other officials and religious leaders condemned the killings.

No group has claimed responsibility.

Dr. Rashid Mohammad Shahi, the head of the Mastung Health Department, told RFE/RL that more than 50 people were wounded in the Mastung incident at a celebration of what is known as Mawlid al-Nabi, during which Muslims usually hold gatherings and distribute free meals to the poor.

Balochistan, Pakistan's largest province that borders both Afghanistan and Iran, is regularly targeted by Islamist militants, sectarian groups, and nationalist separatists.

The most prominent militant group in the region, the outlawed Balochistan Liberation Army, or BLA, routinely takes credit for attacks on Pakistani security forces.

The BLC claims that ethnic Baluchis face extortion and discrimination by Pakistani authorities, a charge that Islamabad rejects.

With reporting by AP and Reuters

President Vladimir Putin and his lockstep deputy chairman of the federal Security Council Dmitry Medvedev issued separate statements on September 30 aimed at whitewashing the unrecognized annexation one year ago of four partially occupied regions of Ukraine and seemingly threatening another land grab.

Putin said in an address released overnight that residents of the four Ukrainian regions that Moscow illegally annexed in September 2022 “made their choice -- to be with their Fatherland.”

One year ago, Moscow unilaterally declared Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhya, and Kherson to be part of Russia.

The United Nations continues to recognize all four regions -- along with Crimea, which was occupied and annexed in 2014 -- as Ukrainian territory.

Throughout its 19-month-old defense against Russia's full-scale invasion that began in February 2022, Kyiv has insisted that it will claw back all of its territory, including Crimea.

In his anniversary remarks, Putin claimed that the referendum under occupation and the rest of the process was “in full accordance with international norms."

Then, former Russian Prime Minister and ex-President Dmitry Medvedev vowed to continue the invasion and even hinted that Russia could try to annex more of Ukraine.

Medvedev, who is now the deputy chairman of Russia's Security Council, invoked the Kremlin's talking points to justify the invasion of Ukraine and said the "special military operation" -- Moscow's term for the invasion -- "will continue."

"Victory will be ours," he added, according to AFP. "And there will be more new regions within Russia."

Russian officials routinely use the term "new regions" in reference to the illegally annexed Ukrainian regions.

Russian authorities held voting in occupied parts of Ukraine earlier this month in an effort to tighten their grip on the territories in a vote Kyiv and the West have condemned as "fake" and a "propaganda exercise."

The voting for Russian-installed legislatures in the illegally occupied parts of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhya began on September 8 and concluded on September 10, coinciding with local elections in Russia.

Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry condemned the Russian-orchestrated voting, saying the "sham elections in the temporarily occupied territories" will have "no legal consequences and will not bring any changes in the international status of Ukrainian territories seized by Russian military forces."

Ukraine has recently reported advances in its counteroffensive to drive Russian forces out of the occupied territories.

With reporting by AFP and AP

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has announced the creation of an industrial alliance to increase weapons manufacturing and develop a more modern defense industry as Russia's ongoing 19-month-long invasion grinds on.

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Zelenskiy made the announcement at an event in Kyiv, billed as the Defense Industries Forum, which he said included industry representatives from the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Turkey, Sweden, and the Czech Republic.

"We have developed an appropriate basic declaration as the basis of the alliance, which can be joined by manufacturers of weapons and military equipment around the world who share our intention to provide protection against aggression in the risky conditions of today," Zelenskiy told attendees on September 30.

Zelenskiy said later that he believes that Ukraine will become one of the world's key producers of weapons and defense systems.

"This is not just an ambition or a prospect, it is a potential that has begun to be realized," he said. "We are working to start producing the systems we need in Ukraine."

Someday Ukraine will see its "maximum armed power" through its manufacturers and its new cooperation with the world and will be able to say that its beginning "was laid right now," he said.

The Kyiv event followed unannounced visits by NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg and the British, French, and Slovak defense ministers.

Russia's ongoing full-scale invasion of Ukraine has met with fierce Ukrainian resistance since it was launched 19 months ago, but also with massive contributions of weapons from NATO and other states declaring support for Ukrainian sovereignty and territorial integrity.

"Our priority is the development of defense production using modern technologies, including the production of shells, missiles, and drones in Ukraine, in cooperation with global leaders in this field," Zelenskiy said on social media.

He added that his country is "ready to offer special conditions to companies willing to develop defense production together with our country."

Zelenskiy said the declaration had already been signed by 13 companies "which are ready to build a new arsenal for defense together with Ukraine."

NATO's Stoltenberg, British Defense Minister Grant Shapps, and French Defense Minister Sebastien Lecornu arrived in Kyiv on unannounced visits ahead of the forum.

On September 30, Zelenskiy also welcomed Slovak Defense Minister Martin Sklenar to Kyiv.

Sklenar's visit coincides with snap elections in Slovakia that pit a soured pro-Western alliance against a populist ex-prime minister who has vowed to stop supplying weapons to Ukraine in what could be a blow to NATO and Western unity to counter the Russian invasion.

Ukraine's war-tested officials were reportedly planning to meet with representatives of more than 160 companies from 26 countries at the defense forum in Kyiv.

Romania's National Defense Ministry said on September 30 that an army surveillance system had detected a "possible unauthorized entry into national airspace" overnight around Galati, although authorities said they were still looking for fragments of any possible intrusion. Romania has implemented local take-cover alerts in response to a surge in Russian drone attacks on ports across the border in Ukraine's southern Danube region since Moscow walked away in July from a UN-backed deal to allow Ukrainian Black Sea grain exports despite the war. Fragments have landed three times this month in NATO member Romania, Ukraine's primary alternative export route. To read the original story by RFE/RL's Romanian Service, click here.

The bipartisan leadership of the U.S. Senate's Foreign Relations Committee has led the introduction of a call by 27 senators for the immediate release by Russian authorities of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, who they say has been "wrongfully detained in Russia for merely doing his job."

In the draft resolution introduced this week, U.S. Senators Ben Cardin (Democrat-Maryland) and Jim Risch (Republican-Idaho), who are the chairman and ranking member of the influential committee, also demand the release of another American, former U.S. Marine Paul Whelan.

"Evan and Paul cannot be left behind, and as Chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, I will continue to sound the alarm about this grave injustice and do everything in my power to safely bring them home to their families," Cardin said in the text.

Gershkovich, 31, was detained six months ago and accused of espionage.

Whelan is serving a 16-year espionage sentence in a notorious Russian penal colony in Mordovia.

U.S. officials have called the charges against both men baseless and their detentions "wrongful."

Gershkovich was detained in late March in the Urals city of Yekaterinburg, and few details are available as materials for the case have been classified. Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) said at the time of the arrest that it had opened an espionage case against Gershkovich for collecting what it said were state secrets about the military industrial complex.

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

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

Gershkovich is the first American journalist detained in Russia on espionage charges since the end of the Cold War.

Arrested in 2018 in Russia, Whelan was convicted of spying charges in 2020. Both he and the U.S. government have denied the 53-year-old is a spy.

U.S. Ambassador to Russia Lynne Tracy has said the plight of U.S. citizens “wrongfully” held in Russia “remains a top priority for me.”

Armenia says more than 100,000 people have fled Nagorno-Karabakh since Azerbaijan's seizure of that breakaway territory a little over a week ago, while Yerevan has appealed to a UN court to stop Baku from allegedly targeting ethnic Armenians there.

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian's office told journalists early on September 30 that authorities had registered 81,827 of the 100,437 people who had left Nagorno-Karabakh so far -- the latter representing more than three-quarters of the higher estimates of the territory's entire population.

The update came hours after Armenia said it had filed a suit with the UN International Court of Justice (ICJ) to prevent the targeting of ethnic Armenians amid signs of a roundup by Baku amid the massive exodus a week after Azerbaijan seized Nagorno-Karabakh in a lightning offensive.

Armenian officials and outsiders have expressed fears of ethnic cleansing and international calls have escalated for help to avoid a humanitarian disaster.

Azerbaijan, meanwhile, has urged ethnic Armenians to stay and has invited UN agencies to send a mission "to become acquainted with the current humanitarian activities being carried out by Azerbaijan in the region."

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The Azerbaijani Defense Ministry said on September 30 that its forces were taking "retaliatory measures" after one of its soldiers was killed by an Armenian Army sniper on the border between the two countries.

Armenia denied the accusation, saying the claim "does not correspond to reality."

UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said late on September 29 that the United Nations will send a mission this weekend to Nagorno-Karabakh, which is internationally recognized as Azerbaijani territory but was controlled by ethnic Armenians with Yerevan's support for decades since the waning years of the Soviet Union.

Dujarric said the UN mission will mainly assess humanitarian needs in a region to which it had not had access "in about 30 years."

"The government of Azerbaijan and the UN have agreed on a mission to the region. The mission will take place over the weekend," Dujarric told reporters.

Both sides have expressed hope that a more durable peace agreement between the longtime Caucasus archfoes might be reached ahead of a possible meeting between Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian in connection with European-wide meetings in Granada, Spain next week.

But Azerbaijani authorities have detained several key figures from the ethnic Armenian leadership of Nagorno-Karabakh, which Armenians refer to as Artsakh.

The Artsakh leadership has already announced that it would cease to exercise authority over the territory by the end of this year, a bitter pill for Armenians who have made control of Nagorno-Karabakh a national priority.

European and other Western governments meanwhile have been responding to Armenia's calls for assistance to help it deal with the influx of refugees. The office of Italy's prime minister said in a statement that Armenia has asked the EU for temporary shelters and medical supplies, adding that Rome is working to promote stabilization in the region.

European Commission spokesman Peter Stano said "urgent, continuous, unhindered humanitarian support" is needed to support the people who are still in Nagorno-Karabakh as well as those who have left.

The EU supports the work of the Red Cross, he said, saying that the European Commission announced an additional 5 million euros in humanitarian aid to help those displaced from Nagorno-Karabakh and those in vulnerable situations in the region. He also said it is important that the UN mission be able to enter the area in the next few days.

With reporting by AFP

Six unions representing public administration employees, including in health care, internal affairs, and justice, protested on September 29 in Bosnia-Herzegovina demanding a salary increase from the government of the Republika Srpska entity.

The unions said the government violated an agreement reached in June last year under which they say nearly 55,000 public administration employees were supposed to receive an average monthly salary increase of about 130 marks ($69) this year.

The protesters now say that is not enough and they are demanding a raise of 160 marks ($84) by the end of the year, as well as the payment of outstanding contributions, overtime, and the signing of special collective agreements with the government of Republika Srpska.

"I think it is at least inappropriate public administration employees employed by the government of Republika Srpska were forced to take these requests out on the streets, especially doctors, nurses, policemen,” Bozo Maric, one of the trade union leaders, told RFE/RL ahead of the protest. “The agreement was reached in an earlier period and the funds have been planned in the budget. We are asking why it is not being fulfilled and where the money went."

Several hundred trade union activists took part in the protest in Mladen Stojanovic Park in Banja Luka, and then headed to the Republika Srpska government building, where they blew whistles and shouted "thieves."

They carried banners calling for an end to discrimination in the judiciary and claiming that salaries in health care drove numerous workers in that sector out of the country to seek work in Western countries. “They will not return from the West," one banner said.

The protest continued across Krajina Square past the National Assembly building and the Palace of the President of Republika Srpska.

The government told RFE/RL before the demonstration that the agreement with unions has been fully respected and that there is no money for additional salary increases. However, government officials invited the union leaders to hold talks and negotiate.

The average net salary in August in Republika Srpska was 1,286 marks ($694) per month, according to the entity’s Institute of Statistics. There is no available data on the average salary for public administration employees.

The unions announced plans to stage a more massive protest should the government fail to fulfill their demands by the time the budget for the next year is adopted.

With reporting by Ermin Zatega of RFE/RL's Balkan Service

Slovaks have begun voting in parliamentary elections that are being closely fought between former leftist Prime Minister Robert Fico, who has pledged to end military aid for neighboring Ukraine, and pro-Western liberals. Final polls showed the two parties in a dead heat, with the winner expected to get the first chance to form a new government to replace a caretaker administration running the country of 5.5 million since May. A government led by Fico would mean Slovakia joining Hungary as EU countries challenging the bloc's consensus on support for Ukraine, just as the bloc looks to keep unity in opposing Russia's invasion. To see the original story by Reuters, click here.

Ukrainian forces repelled attacks by Russian troops in the Donetsk and Zaporizhzhya regions, fighting 24 combat clashes on the front, the General Staff said on September 30.

Clashes took place in areas near Avdiyivka, Mariynka, and in the Zaporizhzhya region, the General Staff said in its evening message, which said Ukrainian forces continued their offensive operations near Bakhmut, "inflicting losses in manpower and equipment on the occupying troops [and] exhausting the enemy along the entire front line."

Live Briefing: Russia's Invasion Of Ukraine

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According to the message, Ukrainian aviation made 14 strikes on areas where Russian personnel, weapons, and military equipment were concentrated. They also carried out eight strikes on anti-aircraft missile systems, and used missiles to hit six Russian anti-aircraft systems and nine artillery pieces.

RFE/RL cannot independently confirm accounts by either Ukraine or Russia in areas of heavy combat.

Russian forces, meanwhile, carried out 71 air strikes and 17 attacks from rocket salvo systems on the positions of Ukrainian troops and populated areas, the message said.

The regional military administration in Kherson said Russian forces dropped explosives on residential areas the region, injuring a 48-year-old man in the village of Kozatske.

Russia reported a drone attack in the southern region of Bryansk. The region's governor said one person was injured in the attack, which also damaged windows and the roof of an administrative building.

The governor, Aleksandr Bogomaz, said on Telegram that the incident occurred in the town of Trubchevsk. Bogomaz earlier reported that a village in the region had been shelled by Ukrainian forces, damaging three homes.

Earlier on September 30, a huge fire erupted at an oil pipeline in the western Ukrainian region of Ivano-Frankivsk.

"Nine people were injured," regional Governor Svitlana Onyshchuk said. "According to preliminary information, two children and three adults are in critical condition, with numerous burns," she added.

The blaze caused an oil spill spanning 100 square meters before it was extinguished. Footage shared on social media showed thick clouds of black smoke billowing out over a village, while firefighters worked to tackle the blaze.

The cause of the fire was not immediately clear, but local media outlets reported there had been a powerful explosion.

Moscow and Kyiv said earlier they had shot down dozens of airborne attacks over their respective territories overnight as the furious pace of nighttime air assaults continued.

Russia's Defense Ministry said its forces had intercepted all nine missiles that it claimed Ukraine fired into its western Belgorod region.

It said the attack was with Uragan multiple-launch rocket systems.

In Ukraine, air alert sirens blared in cities and towns across the southern and eastern parts of the country around 1:30 a.m. local time on September 30, followed by explosions far from the front lines including in the central region of Vinnytsya.

At least one explosion was also reported in Kramatorsk, where the Ukrainian military's rear base is located for the frontline eastern region of Donetsk.

A spokeswoman for Ukraine's Southern Defense Forces said on Ukrainian television that Russia had launched more than 20 kamikaze drones apparently bound for southern and central Ukraine overnight but that around 20 of them were destroyed.

Spokeswoman Natalya Humenyuk said many of the attacks appeared to target areas south of the Black Sea port of Odesa and that "the enemy's priority is still the Danube, in particular, the port infrastructure."

Authorities in Vinnytsya, a central Ukrainian city used extensively for humanitarian shipments since the start of the 19-month-old invasion, ordered an evacuation from the area around an infrastructure site that they said had been struck in the Russian attack.

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Regional Governor Serhiy Borzov and the head of the local administration in the Vinnytsya-area town of Kalynivka confirmed the incident but did not provide details.

Humenyuk, the Southern Defense Forces spokeswoman, said the fire in Vinnytsya had been put out and the situation was no longer critical there.

With reporting by Reuters

The Bulgarian government adopted plans on September 29 for the green transition of three coal regions in the country, but the decision met with protests by Bulgarian miners and other energy sector workers who blocked key roads.

The approval of the plans for the transition of the three regions is a condition for the European Commission to allocate 1.2 billion euros ($1.27 billion). The money would be used for the green transformation of the regions, which is intended to create new jobs for coal industry workers.

The plans must include a timetable for reducing the capacities of coal power plants in order to be approved by the European Commission.

But miners and energy workers do not want the coal power plants and mines to close, saying that they would lose their jobs. The protesters want the government to guarantee that coal power plants and mines would continue to operate without setting any dates for their shutdown.

Despite the demonstrations, which drew hundreds of people onto the streets to block roads in the coal-mining regions of Stara Zagora, Pernik, and Kustendil, the government approved the plans and said it would send them to the European Commission on September 30.

Bulgaria is already late in submitting the territorial plans for the transition of the three coal regions and lost almost 100 million euros ($106 million) for 2022 from the EU and risks losing another 800 million euro ($850 million) for 2023.

Prime Minister Nikolay Denkov said the end of September was the deadline for the government to approve and submit the plans so that the country does not lose the funding for 2023.

Denkov said that the government would not close coal power plants in Bulgaria before 2038 and that this would be clearly stated in the plans that would be sent to the European Commission.

He said that the plans would not specify dates for closing coal power plants but added that “gradually some of them will drop out of the energy system because it will not be economically possible for them to function anymore.”

“That is why it is extremely important to create mechanisms by which people who have the necessary qualifications can find employment in the same region,” Denkov added.

The government also agreed to pay compensations of 36 months' salary for energy sector workers who decide to quit.

Denkov called on the protesters to stop the demonstrations, saying that their demands have been fulfilled.

The Bulgarian government said last month that it had finished the draft territorial plans for the transition and vowed to send them to the European Commission by the end of September.

But it faced protests by miners and energy workers who were not satisfied with the plans.

The government held negotiations earlier in September with the trade unions that represent the protesting miners and energy workers and agreed on the creation of a state enterprise in which all those currently working for the state-owned mines and coal power plants would be reassigned.

Bulgaria is the only EU country that has not submitted its plans for what the European Commission formally calls the Just Transition Mechanism.

The country previously was among the last to submit its Recovery and Resilience Plan -- another European mechanism that provides funding for a transition to renewable energy. But this funding is now blocked following a parliament decision in December 2022 demanding that the government renegotiate Bulgaria’s commitment to reduce carbon emissions from coal power plants by 40 percent by 2026.

The European Union aims to be climate-neutral by 2050 -- an economy with net-zero greenhouse gas emissions. The bloc has allocated billions of euros in funding for its member states to fulfill this objective.

The International Paralympic Committee (IPC) voted on September 29 to allow Russian para-athletes to compete as individual and neutral athletes at the Paris 2024 Paralympics. The decision came hours after the IPC voted against a full ban on the Russian athletes. They will be allowed to take part in the Paralympics scheduled for August 28- September 8, 2024, without national flags, colors or emblems. After Russia launched its ongoing unprovoked invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the IPC banned Russian athletes from taking part in the Paralympics.

NATO on September 29 said it would beef up its KFOR peacekeeping Kosovo force amid rising tensions in the predominantly ethnic-Serb north. "Yesterday the North Atlantic Council authorized additional forces to address the current situation," the alliance said in a statement on September 29. It did not say how many more troops it would send to Kosovo. Four people were killed on September 24 in an attack at a 14th-century Orthodox monastery in north Kosovo when some 30 gunmen stormed the monastery, sparking a gunbattle with Kosovar police. In May, violence erupted when Kosovar authorities tried to install mayors in some Serb-majority towns. Dozens of KFOR peacekeepers and some ethnic Serb protesters were injured.

Switzerland's federal prosecutor has filed an indictment against the imprisoned daughter of Uzbekistan's former president, accusing her of taking bribes and running an elaborate criminal organization known as "The Office."

Gulnara Karimova, the eldest daughter of Islam Karimov, who ruled Uzbekistan from 1991 until his death in 2016, is accused of leading the operation, which allegedly channeled hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of bribes from telecoms companies.

Switzerland’s Office of the Attorney General (OAG) said on September 28 that money was funneled through bank accounts in several countries before being transferred to banks in Switzerland.

According to the statement, Karimova's network began its operations in Switzerland in 2005 “in order to conceal the capital originating from its criminal dealings in Swiss bank accounts and safes and by purchasing real estate.”

"‘The Office conducted its criminal activities as a professional business, complying with mandatory regulations and observing a strict allocation of tasks, while also resorting to violence and intimidation," the prosecutors' statement said.

In 2012, Switzerland said it froze around 800 million Swiss francs ($871.3 million) in connection with criminal proceedings against Karimova, a pop diva and businesswoman who had a public falling out with her late father and is currently in an Uzbek prison on embezzlement and criminal conspiracy charges.

The Uzbek Justice Ministry said earlier that it was working with authorities in Switzerland, the United States, France, Russia, and several other nations on the return of Karimova assets that it said were "earned through criminal activities."

In 2020, the Swiss government said a nonbinding framework agreement signed between Switzerland and Uzbekistan meant any returned assets "shall be used for the benefit of the people of Uzbekistan."

Once seen as a possible successor to her father, Karimova was placed under house arrest in Tashkent in 2014 while her father was still alive and running the country. Karimov died in 2016 and Shavkat Mirziyoev succeeded him soon afterward.

Criminal investigators in Switzerland, the United States, Sweden, and the Netherlands have linked Karimova to a massive, yearslong bribery scheme that revolved mainly around foreign telecommunications companies gaining access to the Uzbek market.

In December 2017, a Tashkent court sentenced Karimova to a 10-year prison term, but the sentence was later commuted to house arrest for five years. She was detained in March 2019 for allegedly violating the terms of her house arrest.

In February 2020, Karimova sent a letter to Mirziyoev offering to return $686 million to the country's treasury in exchange for the dismissal of the court case against her at home.

But a month later, she received an additional 13-year sentence after being found guilty of extortion, money laundering, and other crimes.

With reporting by Reuters and AP

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and five Central Asian nations' leaders have discussed cooperation and ties as Berlin looks to gain influence in the region that has been traditionally a sphere of dominance for Russia.

Scholz greeted presidents Qasym-Zhomart Toqaev of Kazakhstan, Sadyr Japarov of Kyrgyzstan, Emomali Rahmon of Tajikistan, Shavkat Mirziyoev of Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan's former president and current chairman of the People's Council, Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov, in the German capital, on September 29.

The gathering comes amid efforts to counter Russian influence on the Central Asian states during the Kremlin's full-scale invasion of Ukraine launched in February last year.

Scholz and Toqaev held talks a day earlier, at which the German chancellor praised Kazakhstan's efforts to stop the circumvention of sanctions against Russia imposed by the West over its aggression against Ukraine.

Since the unprecedented sanctions were implemented, exports from the five Central Asian states to Russia have significantly increased, sparking concerns that some Western companies are using these former Soviet republics to evade the measures taken against Moscow.

As the summit started on September 29, a group of about a dozen Central Asian rights activists rallied in front of the German chancellor's office, demanding the immediate release of political prisoners in region amid signs of backsliding on free speech.

Rahmon's car was pelted with eggs, at least one of which splattered on the window and car seat where the president was sitting as the vehicle stopped near the Chancellery.

On September 28, Human Rights Watch (HRW) issued a statement calling on Scholz to focus on human rights in the five tightly controlled Central Asian nations during the summit.

"Germany plays a strong role on Central Asia, as a leading trade and investment partner and a key political motor behind the European Union’s Central Asia strategy. It should use this position to make clear that upholding fundamental human rights standards and respecting rule of law are essential to any long-term partnership between Europe and these authoritarian states," the HRW statement said.

Last week, U.S. President Joe Biden held talks with presidents of the five Central Asian nations in New York amid the United Nations General Assembly.

With reporting by dpa and regionalHeute.de

Swedish prosecutors have asked a court to sentence a Russian-Swedish citizen, Sergei Skvortsov, to up to five years in prison on a charge of passing Western technology to Russia. Skvortsov, who was arrested in November last year in a dramatic dawn raid on his suburban home, went on trial in Stockholm on September 4. The 60-year-old dual national has lived in Sweden since the 1990s, where he has run import-export companies. He pleaded not guilty to the charge of "unlawful intelligence activities" against the United States and Sweden. To read the original story by RFE/RL's Russian Service, click here.

The White House has urged Serbia to pull back what it said is a large military deployment from its border with Kosovo amid rising tensions after deadly clashes this week in a Kosovar village.

"We are calling on Serbia to withdraw those forces from the border," White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters on September 29, adding that the build-up was a "very destabilizing development."

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has spoken with Serbian officials, and national-security adviser Jake Sullivan has spoken with Kosovar officials, Kirby said.

"We are monitoring a large Serbian military deployment along the border that includes unprecedented staging of advanced Serbian artillery, tanks, and mechanized infantry units. We believe that this is a very destabilizing development," Kirby said in a conference call.

He also said there would be an increase in the peacekeeping force known as KFOR in northern Kosovo. There currently are about 600 U.S. forces participating in the force, he said.

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said he had spoken on the phone with Blinken, and they “agreed that de-escalation is needed" along with a greater role for KFOR.

Milan Radoicic, the top official of the main ethnic-Serb political party in Kosovo, admitted earlier to organizing and participating in the events that sparked the most recent clash with police, which occurred at an Orthodox monastery in Kosovo and left four people dead.

In a statement read by his lawyer on September 29 in Belgrade, Radoicic said that he “personally made all the logistical preparations,” adding that the Serbian government had no knowledge of what was happening.

Radoicic described his actions as a way to “encourage Serbs” from the region to resist what he called “the terror of [Kosovo Prime Minister Albin] Kurti's regime.”

The admission comes days after Kosovo accused the ethnic-Serb politician of organizing and participating in the attack in Banjska on September 24, in which three attackers were killed, along with a Kosovar police officer.

Pristina has said that at least six of the suspected attackers who escaped were in Serbia and demanded Belgrade hand them over to Kosovar authorities.

Kosovar Interior Minister Xhelal Svecla told RFE/RL in an interview that Radoicic didn't act alone and said he had been "continuously supported by Vucic" and the government of Serbia. He claimed it was Vucic and his "extremist ideas related to the whole region" that were the real culprit behind the attack on the monastery.

He also said Kosovo will continue to investigate in an effort to identify all those involved in the attack and will ask Serbia to surrender all participants who managed to escape to surrender to Kosovo's justice system.

He added that the investigation thus far has shown that "over 80 terrorists" were involved in the attack and confirmed that the probe is looking into possible Russian involvement.

More than 20 cars filled with ammunition and other materials were found, and in one of them there were Russian materials, as well as two engines for use in difficult terrain manufactured by Russia that had been donated to the Serbian Army, he told RFE/RL. There is also intelligence information about the involvement of elements that are directly linked to Russia, he said.

Svecla said in an interview on September 28 with the Associated Press that Russian weapons, other equipment, and documents suggesting Russian involvement had been found.

SEE ALSO:

Who Was Behind The Deadly Attack At The Orthodox Monastery In Kosovo?

Vucic, who has denied claims that Serbia was involved in the clashes saying the gunmen were local Kosovo Serbs “who no longer want to withstand the terror” of Kosovo's ethnic Albanian authorities, told Serbian state television that Radoicic would be questioned by the Serbian authorities about the matter.

“He will certainly respond to the invitation of the competent authorities of Serbia, I am convinced that he will be heard,” Vucic said.

“He considers himself a fighter for freedom, he has never given up on his comrades and he will never give up, but there are things and questions that he will have to answer,” he added.

Radoicic is a construction tycoon as well as a top official of the main ethnic Serb political party in Kosovo, Serbian List, funded mainly by Belgrade. He was hit with sanctions by the United States and Britain in 2021 for allegedly being part of an organized crime group.

Kosovo has accused Serbia of direct involvement in the clashes, which Belgrade denies.

Xhelal Svecla told the Associated Press in a September 28 interview that investigators were looking at evidence linking Russia, an ally of Serbia, to the armed assault.

Russian weapons, other equipment and documents suggesting Russian involvement were discovered after the daylong gunbattle, he said.

Svecla also alleged that the insurgents had come from Serbia and that they were trained in camps in Serbia.

“We found some documents which lead us to a suspicion that there were individuals coming from Russia too,” he added.

“For the equipment, we have evidence, but for the people we still have only suspicion.”

The monastery attack further raised tensions in the region at a time when European Union and U.S. officials have been pushing for a deal that would normalize ties between Serbia and Kosovo.

With reporting by AP, AFP and Reuters