French President Emmanuel Macron says he believes a compromise has been found on the framework for negotiations on EU membership for North Macedonia.

Macron provided no details when he made the comment on June 30 at a news conference at the close of the NATO summit in Spain.

EU officials confirmed to RFE/RL that the proposal takes into account concerns expressed by both sides, potentially breaking a deadlock that has prevented the start of accession talks for more than two years.

Balkan countries are deeply frustrated about the impasse in their bids to join. Especially frustrating for North Macedonia is EU member Bulgaria’s veto on the start of negotiations because of a dispute with Skopje relating to history and language.

Albania is being held back because the EU has linked its progress to that of North Macedonia.

Last week, Bulgarian lawmakers conditionally approved dropping their opposition, raising the prospect of progress in the Western Balkans' quest for EU membership.

EU officials emphasized that, if the proposal cited by Macron is accepted, it would enable a major step forward in enlargement talks.

"This would pave the way for the immediate adoption (in the EU Council) of negotiating frameworks for North Macedonia and Albania and for the organization of intergovernmental conferences with both countries," one EU official said.

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Bulgarian Lawmakers Vote To Lift Veto On North Macedonia's EU Talks

If the French proposal is accepted, an intergovernmental conference can be expected to be organized in the coming days that would formally start the process of membership negotiations with North Macedonia and Albania, RFE/RL's Balkan Service reported.

European Council President Charles Michel, welcomed the French proposal, saying on Twitter it “addresses concerns expressed” and brings the Council closer than it’s ever been to adopting a framework for the talks.

“Now is the time to say yes,” he added.

EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell echoed those words.

“This is a moment to move forward in bringing the #WesternBalkans into the EU,” he said on Twitter, also welcoming the compromise proposal presented by Macron.

Skopje announced shortly after Macron's announcement that it had received a proposal from the French presidency of the EU on June 30, the last day that France holds the rotating position.

"This is the basis for opening a broad consultation process first in the government and coalition partners, and then with the president, parliament and opposition, as well as with the civil sector, experts and the entire public in the country," the government said.

It did not specify what the proposals were but said a decision would be made "as promised, jointly, on the merits, in accordance with the strategic interests of the country and all its citizens."

The government also thanked Macron and the French presidency of the EU for their efforts to overcome obstacles and preserve European credibility in the Balkans.

Albania and North Macedonia have had EU candidate status for years. The stalled accession process was raised last week by the leaders of the two countries before EU leaders formally accepted Ukraine and Moldova as candidates to join.

With reporting by Reuters

Russia summoned Britain's ambassador to Moscow to protest Prime Minister Boris Johnson's remarks about President Vladimir Putin and the remarks of another British official about top Russian government figures.

Russia told Ambassador Deborah Bronnert that it "firmly" opposed the “boorish statements” of the British leadership regarding Russia, its leader, official representatives of the authorities, as well as the Russian people, the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement on June 30.

"In polite society, it is customary to apologize for remarks of this kind," it said, scolding Britain for the "unacceptable insulting rhetoric."

Johnson said on June 29 in comments to German broadcaster ZDF that Russia’s military aggression against Ukraine was "a perfect example of toxic masculinity."

He said that, if Putin were a woman, “I really don't think he would've embarked on a crazy, macho war of invasion and violence in the way that he has.”

British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace also provoked Russia's ire after he accused the Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman of "every week, threatening to nuke everyone or doing something or another."

The Russian Foreign Ministry said it was "unacceptable" for British officials "to share deliberately false information, especially on alleged threats by Russians 'resorting to nuclear arms.'"

The Russian Embassy in London also protested the remarks in a note to the Foreign Office, the embassy said in a statement published on June 30.

“The note points out that such rhetoric is unacceptable and inappropriate both in form and content," the statement said.

It also emphasized that the British authorities’ words were perceived in Russia "as a manifestation of profound disrespect" for the country and its diplomatic traditions.

Based on reporting by Reuters and AFP

BISHKEK -- Kyrgyz President Sadyr Japarov has signed into law a controversial bill that legalizes casinos, which have been outlawed in the Central Asian nation for a decade.

According to the law endorsed by Japarov on June 30, only foreigners who are at least 21 years of age and have no health problems, will be allowed into the casinos.

The law also says that casinos cannot be set up in residential buildings, kindergartens, schools, universities, education and culture centers, medical institutions, and religious sites.

Many people in Kyrgyzstan oppose legalizing casinos, a move initiated by Japarov last year.

Several rallies protesting the reopening of casinos have been held in Bishkek and the country's second largest city, Osh, in recent days.

The protesters said the bill was approved without adequate public discussion and therefore should be withdrawn. They also raised concerns that even though casinos will be open to foreigners only, Kyrgyz citizens will end up being clients as well.

Lawmakers approved the bill on June 22 after voting was disrupted four times due to the refusal of many lawmakers to take part in the proceedings.

Casinos were banned in Kyrgyzstan in 2012. Since then, numerous underground casinos have been uncovered by law enforcement in Bishkek, Osh, and other towns and cities.

Japarov has insisted that the move to legalize casinos will help tackle the economic hardships the former Soviet republic has faced for decades.

The Norway-based watchdog Iran Human Rights says it has found evidence that 10 people convicted of various charges had their punishments meted out in a mass execution on June 29 at the Rajai-Shahr prison in the city of Karaj.

In a statement dated June 30, the group said eight of those executed had been convicted of murder, while the ninth had been convicted of sodomy and the tenth of rape.

Farhad Meisamy, a civil activist who has been in the same prison for more than four years, wrote in a note earlier this month that "about 200 executions are carried out in this prison every year."

As of June 28, 239 executions had been recorded in Iran this year, including more than three a day over the past month, according to Iran Human Rights, a pace that puts Iran within reach of the 517 executions it carried out in 2017.

"There is no evidence of any dramatic changes [in crime rates] that would explain this," Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, the director of the rights watchdog told RFE/RL by telephone.

Furthermore, he added, Iranian authorities are aware that capital punishment is not an effective deterrent to violent crimes or drug offenses, "so the aim is not to fight crime or deter crime."

Amiry-Moghaddam noted that the wave of executions recorded in May, when 50 prisoners were put to death, coincided with the start of mass protests over rising food prices in southwestern Iran.

Some human rights sources, including the Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA), have previously stated that more than 85 percent of executions in Iran are carried out "in secret and without official and public information."

With writing and reporting by Ardeshir Tayebi

The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry has strongly condemned the decision of Syria to recognize the eastern Ukrainian regions of Luhansk and Donetsk as independent.

A ministry statement on June 30 said the decision was "an unfriendly act against Ukraine, an encroachment on its sovereignty and territorial integrity, a gross violation of Ukrainian law, the UN Charter, and the fundamental norms and principles of international law."

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy cut relations with Syria on June 29 over the decision, which the ministry said was an attempt by the Syrian regime “to give pseudo-subjectivity to the Russian occupation administrations in Donetsk and Luhansk at the behest of its Kremlin curators.”

Parts of Luhansk and Donetsk came under Russia-backed separatists' control after Moscow illegally annexed Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula in 2014.

Ukraine is also initiating the process of imposing a trade embargo on Syria, as well as imposing other sanctions on Syrian legal entities and individuals, the Foreign Ministry statement said.

Ukraine closed its embassy in Damascus in 2016 and in 2018 ordered the Syrian Embassy in Kyiv to close “in connection with the crimes of the regime of Bashar al-Assad against the Syrian people."

Syria, a close ally of Russia and a beneficiary of Russian military assistance in its civil war, is the first state other than Russia to recognize the two separatist regions.

The rector of Russia's presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANKHiGS), Vladimir Mau, has been detained on embezzlement charges.

The Interior Ministry's Main Directorate for Moscow said on June 30 that Mau's arrest was linked to a high-profile fraud case launched last year against former Deputy Education Minister Marina Rakova and the director of the RANKHiGS's Institute of Social Studies, Sergei Zuyev.

Russian authorities said at the time that Rakova was suspected of embezzling 50 million rubles ($950,000) from the ministry.

Mau's pretrial restrictions will be decided by a court in Moscow within 48 hours.

Based on reporting by Interfax and TASS

The International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague has issued arrest warrants for three people wanted on suspicion of committing war crimes during the 2008 Russia-Georgia War.

The court said on June 30 that the arrest warrants were issued for Lieutenant General Mikhail Mindzayev, Gamlet Guchmazov, and David Sanakoyev, who served in the separatist government of Georgia's breakaway region of South Ossetia.

The statement said that its judges ruled six days earlier that there were “reasonable grounds to believe that each of these three suspects bears responsibility for war crimes.”

"There are reasonable grounds to believe that civilians perceived to be ethnically Georgian were arrested in the South Ossetian part of Georgia, and subsequently detained, mistreated, and kept in harsh detention conditions in a detention center in Tskhinvali, before being used as a bargaining tool by Russia and the South Ossetian de facto authorities, and used for an exchange of prisoners and detainees," the statement said.

"As a result of the exchange, the detainees were forced to leave South Ossetia."

The court launched an investigation in 2016 into the war that claimed hundreds of lives and left thousands of people displaced.

Last year, the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg concluded that “grave human rights abuses” occurred in South Ossetia, which is currently controlled by Russia.

Mindzayev and Guchmazov served as top officials of the breakaway South Ossetia's separatist government's de facto Interior Ministry, while Sanakoyev was the region's de facto presidential representative for human rights.

Mindzayev and Guchmazov face charges of unlawful confinement, torture and inhuman treatment, outrages against personal dignity, hostage-taking, and the unlawful transfer of civilians both during and after the five-day war that erupted on August 8, 2008.

Sanakoyev, meanwhile, faces charges of hostage-taking and the unlawful transfer of civilians.

Russia recognized South Ossetia and Georgia’s other breakaway region, Abkhazia, as independent countries after the 2008 war and has maintained thousands of troops in both regions since then.

With reporting by AFP and AP

Poland says it has completed a steel wall stretching along the border with Belarus to stop the flow of illegal migrants after tens of thousands, mostly from the Middle East, tried to enter the EU-member state from the Belarusian territory last year.

Polish Interior Minister Mariusz Kaminski said on June 30 that the construction of the 5.5 meter-high, 186 kilometer-long steel wall will "separate us from the bleak dictatorship of (Belarusian ruler Alyaksandr) Lukashenka," whom the West blames for funneling the influx of migrants.

Poland and other European Union states say Lukashenka orchestrated the migrant crisis along with his ally, Russian President Vladimir Putin, in retaliation for sanctions imposed on him and his regime for a brutal crackdown on dissent after mass protests over a disputed August 2020 presidential election handed Lukashenka a sixth term in power.

Poland had set up a no-access zone at the border, which expires on June 30, banning nonresidents, including migrants, aid workers, and media from the area. The emergency order will not be renewed.

At least 12 people died at the Polish-Belarusian border, where migrants and refugees faced harsh, freezing conditions during the winter.

Hossein Shanbehzadeh, a literary editor and Twitter activist, says an Iranian court has denied the appeal of his prison sentence for insulting Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khameni.

Shanbehzadeh wrote on June 30 that his six-year prison sentence has been upheld for being convicted of "insulting the sanctities and the leader of the Islamic republic."

Shanbehzadeh -- who was sentenced on September 12 -- posted the appellate court's verdict, which says he will have to serve 3 and 1/2 years of the sentence.

In a note to his friends and online followers, Shanbehzadeh said the most important thing to him is having freedom of expression, which he said he never gave up in writing online. He urged people to "not give up and to be free," adding that "the government has destroyed my life and future."

Shanbehzadeh concluded his note saying: "Hopefully one day we will all be free [and] no prison [will be] greater than ignorance and oppression."

There has been an increased crackdown on online activists in Iran in recent weeks.

On June 29, Vida Rabbani, a journalist and online activist, announced on Twitter that she had been sentenced to five years in prison with some of the time suspended.

The crackdown comes as pensioners and other labor groups have been protesting about the poor economic situation in the country, blaming the government for spiraling inflation, high unemployment, and failing to deliver on pledges to increase wages and improve living conditions.

The government's response to the protests has been arrests, violence, and the repression of participants.

With writing and reporting by Ardeshir Tayebi

A well-known Bashkir activist who fled Russia fearing persecution over his activities raising awareness about problems faced by Muslims in the country has been held in a deportation center in Greece for almost two months, where authorities tell him they may deport him back to Russia.

After fleeing Russia in 2014, Tahir Minnebayev eventually settled in Ukraine, where he stayed until late February this year when he, his wife, and their four children had to leave the country for Germany after Russia launched its ongoing unprovoked invasion of its western neighbor.

Minnebayev told RFE/RL on June 30 that he was detained in Greece in May without any explanation while he was collecting humanitarian aid for children in Ukraine.

Minnebayev said that, after his initial campaign in April to collect aid in Germany for Ukrainian children was successful, he decided to organize more collections and traveled to Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Slovenia, Italy, Greece, and Turkey on aid missions.

"When I was going to leave Greece for Turkey on a ferry, Greek border guards detained me," the 40-year-old activist said.

"I don't know why I was detained. All my papers are in order."

Along with his valid travel documents and a valid German visa that allows him to travel across Schengen zone member-states, including Greece, Minnebayev says he also has a document confirming that he is under the protection of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. However, Greek authorities ignored that document, Minnebayev says.

"I tried to explain them that I may face imprisonment or even death in Russia. They then told me to file a political asylum request in Greece, but I already filed such a request in Germany, where my wife and little children are now. They then said they will deport me to Russia if I do not officially ask for political asylum in Greece," Minnebayev said.

According to Minnebayev, he asked the Ukrainian Embassy in Greece for legal assistance given he was in the country collecting humanitarian aid for Ukrainian children. However, he says, Ukrainian diplomats told him that they cannot provide him with any legal assistance as he is not a Ukrainian citizen.

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi said in a meeting with Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin that he wants to expand bilateral trade with Moscow and make it independent of the Western financial exchange system.

Raisi -- who met with Putin on the sidelines of the sixth summit of the Caspian Sea's littoral states in Turkmenistan on June 29 -- added that an independent financial system would make it "impossible for any country to exert influence or pressure on it."

Iran has been under intense economic pressure from the West and the United States for years over its nuclear program. Russia has likewise been hit hard by international sanctions because of its February invasion of Ukraine.

Amid the hardships, Raisi announced there has been an increase in trade and economic relations between the two countries in recent months and said Iran seeks engagement with Russia within the framework of a "strategic relationship."

During the meeting, Putin stressed the security cooperation between Moscow and Tehran.

"We are in constant contact on political and security matters, including in critical areas of Syria," said Putin.

Russia and Iran have solid ties and are key allies of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in it's decade-long civil war.

Moscow is also a signatory to the landmark 2015 nuclear agreement between Iran and five world powers under which Tehran was granted sanctions relief in exchange for curbs on its nuclear program.

With writing and reporting by Ardeshir Tayebi

President Joe Biden says the United States and its allies will continue to support Ukraine in its war against Russia for "as long as it takes" to make sure it is victorious.

"We are going to stick with Ukraine, and all of the alliance are going to stick with Ukraine, as long as it takes to make sure they are not defeated by Russia," Biden told a news conference at the end of a NATO summit in Madrid on June 30.

"Ukraine has already dealt a severe blow to Russia," Biden said, adding that he did not "know how it's going to end, but it will not end with a Russian defeat of Ukraine."

Biden said that as part of its commitment to Ukraine, the United States plans to announce more than $800 million more" for air defense, artillery, counter battery systems and other weaponry. He did not say when the announcement will come.

Iran says it is ready for more indirect talks with the United States to overcome the last hurdles to revive the 2015 nuclear deal with world powers.

Iran's ambassador to the United Nation told the UN Security Council on June 30 that the Iranian negotiating team was "ready to engage constructively again to conclude and reach agreement.”

Majid Takht Ravanchi said the ball was in the U.S. court, and if the United States "acts realistically and shows its serious intention to implement its obligations, the agreement is not out of reach.”

Ravanchi’s remarks came a day after indirect negotiations between Iran and the the United States ended in Qatar after failing to make significant progress. Ravanchi described the Qatar talks as “serious and positive” and said Tehran would contact the European Union coordinators “for the next stage of talks.”

Iran's Foreign Ministry said earlier that it was still possible to overcome differences and reach an agreement to salvage the pact.

Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian tweeted on June 30 that, despite a failure to reach an agreement in two days of talks that ended on June 29, "we are ready to reach a good, robust and lasting deal."

The three European countries that signed the deal urged Tehran to seize an offer that is on the table to revive it.

Britain, Germany, and France told the UN Security Council that negotiations to restore the pact “have resulted in a viable deal being on the table since early March" and they regretted that Iran “has refused to seize this diplomatic opportunity and continued its nuclear escalation."

They called on Iran to "stop and reverse its nuclear escalation, return to full cooperation with the [International Atomic Energy Agency] and seize without further delay the offer on the table, which would benefit the Iranian people and nation."

The Security Council met to discuss the latest report by Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on the implementation of a council resolution that enshrines the nuclear deal.

During the most recent talks in Doha, EU envoys bounced between negotiating teams from Washington and Tehran as they sought a breakthrough that would kickstart broader talks that broke down in March.

Since then, Iran has shut off the surveillance cameras of international inspectors at its nuclear facilities and now has enough high-enriched uranium to potentially make at least one nuclear bomb if it chose to do so.

Each side blamed the other for the lack of progress in Doha, with Washington saying Iran continues to raise issues "wholly unrelated" to the deal, while Tehran says the Washington's insistence on excluding any guarantee for Iran's economic benefits was the main impediment.

European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell last week traveled to Tehran in a push to resuscitate negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program. EU countries have been forced to find oil suppliers other than Russia as they seek to lower their reliance on Russian energy amid the war in Ukraine.

Under the 2015 nuclear deal, Iran agreed to limits on its controversial nuclear program in exchange for relief from punitive sanctions imposed by the West. But the arrangement began to fall apart in 2018 when then-President Donald Trump pulled the United States out of the deal.

Washington subsequently reimposed crippling sanctions on Tehran, while the Iranian government backed away from some of the commitments laid out in the deal.

Iran has been engaged for more than a year in negotiations in Vienna with Britain, Germany, France, Russia, and China directly -- and the United States indirectly -- to revive the deal.

Negotiators were reportedly close to a new agreement in March, but the talks abruptly stalled in April, with Tehran and Washington blaming each other for failing to take the necessary political decisions to settle remaining issues.

One of them is Tehran's insistence that Washington remove the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps from its list of designated foreign terrorist organizations.

With reporting by Reuters and AP

Iranian journalist Vida Rabbani says she has been sentenced to five years in prison, with two of the years being suspended.

Rabbani wrote on Twitter that she had been charged with "insulting sacred things, disturbing public order, inciting violent behavior, and conspiracy to commit a crime against national security."

Rabbani says she is banned from engaging in professional activities for five years, including on social media. She says she is also not allowed to engage in political activity or participate in "gatherings."

She was arrested several times in recent years, including last year for managing a popular room on the Clubhouse social media network, and said the Intelligence Ministry had threatened her and other room managers with five years in prison if they continued their activities.

An audio-based, social-media application, Clubhouse has become a major platform for dialogue among Iranians who join virtual chat rooms to hear from analysts, journalists, and dissidents. Many also joined Clubhouse virtual rooms during last year's presidential campaign to follow debates and listen to analysis.

With writing and reporting by Ardeshir Tayebi

A court in Moscow has replaced the one-year parole-like sentence handed to Lyusya Shtein, a member of the Pussy Riot protest group and a Moscow municipal lawmaker, to actual prison time, saying she violated the terms of her punishment when she fled the country.

The Presnensky district court on June 30 approved the request made by the Federal Penitentiary Service (FSIN) to change the sentence Shtein was handed in August 2021. She was sentenced for publicly calling for the violation of coronavirus safety precautions because she urged people to participate in unsanctioned rallies to support jailed opposition politician Aleksei Navalny.

The court ruled that Shtein must spend 31 days in prison, which is the remaining part of her term.

In mid-May, the Interior Ministry said it had added Shtein to its registry of wanted persons because she left the country in April, violating her sentence.

Several of Navalny's supporters and associates have been convicted on similar charges and were handed restricted freedom sentences. Many subsequently fled Russia and had their parole-like sentences replaced with actual prison terms.

With reporting by Interfax

A former Canadian government IT worker has admitted to taking part in a hacking spree with a Russian cybercrime group.

Media reports quoted U.S. court documents on June 29 as saying that Sebastien Vachon-Desjardins agreed to plead guilty in a Florida court last month, admitting that he was affiliated with the NetWalker ransomware crew that has attacked organizations, businesses, official entities, schools, and hospitals in Canada, the United States, and other countries.

The NetWalker group, with some 100 members, operated a ransomware-as-a-service criminal business, offering its malicious software and an extortion website to hacker affiliates.

Analysts say the leaders of the group, who are still at large, communicate in Russian online and ensure that their malware does not infect Russian computer systems, or those of former Soviet republics.

Vachon-Desjardins was arrested by Canadian police in January 2021. Police seized dozens of computers and storage devices, 719 Bitcoin worth approximately $27 million, and 790,000 Canadian dollars ($613,500) in cash during his arrest.

He was extradited to Florida in March after being sentenced to seven years in prison in Canada on charges of mischief in relation to computer data, extortion, unauthorized use of a computer, and participating in a criminal organization.

According to Florida court documents, Vachon-Desjardins pleaded guilty to one count of conspiring to commit computer fraud and one count of transmitting a demand in relation to damaging a protected computer.

Vachon-Desjardins agreed to forfeit about $21.5 million from the proceeds of the crimes, along with 27.65 Bitcoins, and cooperate with other investigations as part of a plea agreement where he accepted that he "was one of the most prolific NetWalker ransomware affiliates."

He will be sentenced at a later date and could face 10 years in prison, the court documents said.

With reporting by the BBC and CBC

The chairman of the attorneys chamber in Russia's Republic of Udmurtia, Dmitry Talantov, has been sent to pretrial detention over his criticism of the Kremlin for its ongoing unprovoked invasion of Ukraine.

The Cheryomushki district court in Moscow ruled on June 29 that Talantov must stay in pretrial detention until at least August 21.

Talantov was detained in the Udmurt capital, Izhevsk, on June 28 and transferred to Moscow after he criticized the government and military forces over a deadly strike on a shopping mall in the Ukrainian city of Kremenchuk.

Talantov has been accused of distributing false information about the Russian armed forces. Earlier in April, Talantov also harshly criticized Russian military forces for killing civilians in the Ukrainian towns and cities of Irpin, Bucha, and Mariupol.

Talantov's lawyers asked the court to choose milder pretrial restrictions for their client, but the court rejected the request, saying Talantov, as an experienced lawyer, would be able to influence the investigation while outside of custody.

Talantov is the lawyer for Ivan Safronov, a prominent former Russian journalist who is on trial in Moscow on a high treason charge widely considered to be politically motivated.

At least 18 people died in the missile strike in Kremenchuk, which leaders from the Group of Seven (G7) nations called a "war crime."

Russia has denied it targeted the mall, saying it launched a "high-precision strike" on a nearby munitions depot and that subsequent explosions from the attack sparked the blaze at the shopping center.

Ukraine says its forces have forced Russian troops off Snake Island in the Black Sea, a claim Russia denied, with Moscow saying it withdrew its forces as a "gesture of goodwill" to show the country isn't impeding efforts to allow the export of agricultural products.

"KABOOM! No Russian troops on the Snake Island anymore. Our Armed Forces did a great job," Andriy Yermak, the head of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy's office, wrote on Twitter, along with a a photo showing plumes of smoke rising from several parts of the a small but strategic outpost that was captured by Russia in the early days of its invasion.

The Russian Defense Ministry confirmed its troops had left the island, which it had been using as an outpost to supply anti-ship and antiaircraft missiles as well as radar systems to its forces, saying the withdrawal came after soldiers stationed there had carried out all of the duties they were tasked with.

Control of Snake Island, located about 40 kilometers from Ukraine’s coast, had enabled Russia to threaten the sea lanes leading to and from Odesa, Ukraine’s main port for shipping grain to the world.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson hailed the retaking of the island as "evidence of the amazing ability of the Ukrainians to fight back to overcome adversity and to repel the Russians."

"In the end, it will prove impossible for Putin to hold down a country that will not accept his rule," Johnson told a news conference at the NATO summit in Madrid.

The island became a symbol of resistance for Ukraine when border guards stationed on it refused Russian demands to surrender or die.

In response, one border guard sent a message to the Russian flagship, the Moskva: "Russian warship, go f*** yourself."

The Russian ship then bombed the island. It is not clear how many died in the attack, but the soldier who sent the message survived.

The Moskva, the command-and-control ship for Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, later sunk after what Kyiv says was a Ukrainian attack.

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has issued interim measures instructing Russia to hold off on carrying out any capital punishment against two Britons who surrendered after they fought alongside Ukrainian troops in eastern Ukraine.

Aiden Aslin and Shaun Pinner, along with Moroccan national Saaudun Brahim, were sentenced to death on June 9 for "mercenary activities" by what Russia-backed separatists called the Supreme Court of the Donetsk People’s Republic.

"The European Court decided to indicate to the Russian government...should...ensure that the death penalty imposed on the applicants is not carried out," the judgment, issued on June 30, said.

It also called on Russian authorities to ensure the rights of the two prisoners were respected since they were part of Ukraine's armed forces, lived in Ukraine, and considered the country to be their home.

Aslin's family has said he and Pinner were living in Ukraine when the war broke out in February and "as members of Ukrainian armed forces, should be treated with respect just like any other prisoners of war."

Britain, the United Nations, Ukraine, and Germany have condemned the death sentences.

The court had previously granted similar interim measures for Brahim. His father has said that his son is also a Ukrainian citizen and his rights as a prisoner of war should be respected.

A merchant ship with 7,000 tons of grain has left the Russian-occupied Ukrainian city of Berdyansk, the first such shipment from the port since Moscow launched its invasion of Ukraine in late February.

Evgeny Balitsky, the head of the Moscow-appointed administration in the Zaporizhzhya region, said on Telegram on June 30 that the ship is headed for "friendly countries."

He did not specify which countries were considered "friendly," nor did he give any details on the origins of the grain.

Ukraine has accused Russia of stealing its grain during the invasion and blockading its ports to keep grain from leaving the country, which has helped contribute to a global food shortage.

Moscow has denied taking Ukrainian grain, but satellite images and GPS data have been used to back up the allegations that Russia has been transporting grain out of Ukraine through the Crimean port of Sevastopol. Russia illegally annexed Crimea in 2014.

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Satellite Images Show Russia Shipping Grain From Occupied Ukraine To Syria

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Grain is one of Ukraine's main industries. Exports totaled $12.2 billion last year and accounted for nearly one-fifth of the country's exports. Ukraine's Black Sea ports, including Berdyansk, handled about 6 million tons of grains and other crops each month before the war.

Russia and Ukraine together, meanwhile, account for nearly one-third of the world's wheat supply.

Many areas of southern Ukraine have been placed under the control of Russia-appointed officials since Moscow launched its war against Ukraine on February 24. Some of those areas are now being forcefully integrated into Russia's economy.

In the weeks following the invasion, many Western countries and the European Union slapped crippling sanctions on Russia, which in turn created a list of "unfriendly" foreign state and territories.

Ukraine says its forces have forced Russian troops off Snake Island in the Black Sea, a claim Russia denied with Moscow calling it a withdrawal of its forces as a "gesture of goodwill" to show the country isn't impeding efforts to allow the export of agricultural products.

The report came on June 30 as fighting raged in Lysychansk and as a Moscow-appointed official in the Zaporizhzhya region said a shipment of grain had left the Ukrainian port city of Berdyansk, which is under Russian control.

Control of Snake Island, located about 40 kilometers from Ukraine’s coast, had enabled Russia to threaten the sea lanes leading to and from Odesa, Ukraine’s main port for shipping grain to the world.

The island became symbol of resistance for Ukraine when border guards stationed on it refused Russian demands that they surrender or die and its return is seen as a major victory.

"KABOOM! No Russian troops on the Snake Island anymore. Our Armed Forces did a great job," Andriy Yermak, the head of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy's office, wrote on Twitter along with a a photo showing plumes of smoke rising from several parts of the small outpost that was captured by Russia in the early days of its invasion.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said the return of Snake Island to Ukrainian control significantly changes the situation in the Black Sea.

Zelenskiy said in a video address late on June 30 that the development does not guarantee security or that Russia will not return, but it significantly limits Russia's actions.

"Undoubtedly, the main word today is snake," he said, thanking Ukraine's intelligence service, soldiers, and pilots for their role in freeing the island and again vowing to take back territory that Russian forces occupy.

"Step by step, we will push them out of our sea, out of our land, out of our sky," he said in the video message.

The Russian Defense Ministry confirmed its troops had left the island, which it had been using as an outpost to supply anti-ship and antiaircraft missiles as well as radar systems to its forces, saying the withdrawal came after soldiers stationed there had carried out all of the duties they were tasked with.

It also called the move a "gesture of goodwill" to show Russian isn't impeding efforts to allow the export of agricultural products on a day when Yevgeny Balitsky, the head of the Moscow-appointed administration in the Zaporizhzhya region, said on Telegram that a merchant ship with 7,000 tons of grain had left Berdyansk for "friendly countries." He did not elaborate.

Mason Clark, an analyst at the Institute for the Study of War, said Ukraine’s expulsion of Russian forces from Snake Island is a significant accomplishment for Kyiv and an important defeat for Russia.

He noted that Russia has not lifted a blockade on Ukraine's Black Sea ports while its Black Sea Fleet and land-based anti-ship systems in Crimea and the Kherson region can still threaten ships sailing to Odesa.

"If Putin’s spin that the Russian retreat was a 'goodwill gesture' were real, he would lift the blockade and guarantee the safety of neutral ships to and from Odesa," Clark said. "If he does not, then the world must confront the reality that Putin is still holding an important part of the world’s food supply hostage.”

Meanwhile, Lysychansk continued to be targeted by heavy Russian artillery fire, with regional officials saying the last major Ukrainian holdout in the east was subjected to "enormous" bombardment, while Russian forces also shelled civilian settlements in the Dnipropetrovsk region.

The head of the military administration of the Luhansk region, Serhiy Hayday, said Lysychansk "is constantly being shelled" by Russian forces attempting to encircle the strategic hilltop city -- a key battleground in Moscow's attempt to conquer Ukraine's industrial heartland known as the Donbas.

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After weeks of fighting that killed hundreds of civilians and turned the city into rubble, Moscow took control of neighboring Syevyerodonetsk and is now setting its sights on Lysychansk.

"The fighting is continuing at the outskirts of the city. The Russian Army is trying to attack constantly," Hayday told Ukrainian television, later posting the video on his Telegram channel.

"Now there is a peak of fighting. The frequency of shelling is enormous," Hayday said, adding that there are still about 15,000 civilians remaining in the city, which had a prewar population of nearly 100,000.

The Russians "brought in large numbers of vehicles, an enormous number of people. Shelling and attacks do not stop," Hayday said.

Britain's Defense Ministry said in its daily intelligence bulletin on June 30 that the fighting in Lysychansk is likely focused around the city's oil refinery, some 10 kilometers southwest of the center, adding that Ukrainian forces continue to hold their positions in the city following their withdrawal from Syevyerodonetsk.

In the Dnipropetrovsk region, Russian forces shelled the villages of Zelenodolsk and Velyka Kostromka, the head of the regional military administration, Valentyn Reznichenko, said.

"The enemy continues to terrorize the towns and villages of the Kryvyi Rih district.... In Zelenodolsk, the enemy destroyed a warehouse containing 40 tons of grain. The explosion caused a fire," Reznichenko wrote on Telegram.

A push by Ukraine's Western allies to send weapons to Ukraine got a boost on June 30 when the United States said it would provide a further $800 million in weapons and military aid.

Speaking after a NATO summit in Madrid, U.S. President Joe Biden said the war would not end with Russia defeating Ukraine, adding, "We are going to support Ukraine for as long as it takes."

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

Ukraine cut diplomatic ties with Syria on June 29 after Damascus recognized the independence of the eastern regions of Luhansk and Donetsk.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy announced the decision on June 29 in a video posted on Telegram.

"There will no longer be relations between Ukraine and Syria," Zelenskiy said, adding that the sanctions pressure against Syria "will be even greater."

Donetsk and Luhansk, commonly known as the Donbas, currently are at the center of the fighting in the war Moscow launched in February shortly after recognizing their separatist-controlled districts as independent.

Parts of Luhansk and Donetsk came under Russia-backed separatists' control after Russia illegally annexed Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula in 2014.

Leonid Pasechnik, the Luhansk separatist leader, thanked Syria and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad for what he called the “courageous and responsible political gesture” of recognizing Luhansk as an independent and sovereign country, according to TASS.

Syria, a close ally of Russia and a beneficiary of Russian military assistance in its civil war, is the first state other than Russia to recognize the two separatist regions.

Syria has previously sided with Russia in territorial disputes. It agreed in 2018 to recognize Abkhazia and a second breakaway Georgian region, South Ossetia, as independent countries. That move prompted Tbilisi to cut diplomatic ties with Damascus.

With reporting by AFP, AP, and TASS

A Ukrainian-born associate of former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani has been sentenced to one year and eight months in prison for fraud and campaign finance crimes.

Lev Parnas, 50, was also ordered to pay $2.3 million in restitution.

Prosecutors in New York City had sought a six-year sentence. Parnas asked for leniency based on his cooperation with a probe into President Donald Trump's efforts to get Ukrainian officials to investigate President Joe Biden’s son.

Addressing the court before the sentence was announced, Parnas sobbed and apologized to people who had lost money investing in his business ventures.

“A lot that you heard is true, your honor,” Parnas told the judge. “I have not been a good person my whole life. I’ve made mistakes. And I admit it.”

The criminal case against Parnas was not directly related to his work for Giuliani as he lobbied Ukrainian officials in the run-up to the U.S. presidential election in 2016 to investigate Biden's son, who served on the board of a Kyiv-based natural gas company.

Instead, it focused on donations Parnas illegally made to a number of U.S. politicians using money from Russian businessman Andrei Muravyov while lying about the source of the money. U.S. law bars foreign individuals from contributing to political campaigns.

Parnas in March pleaded guilty to a separate charge involving an insurance startup that he conned people into investing in and then used much of the money for campaign contributions.

Igor Fruman, a business associate of Parnas who also worked for Giuliani, was sentenced earlier this year to one year in prison for campaign finance law violations. The Soviet-born Fruman also expressed remorse for his crimes.

Giuliani, who served as a personal lawyer to Trump, has said he knew nothing about the crimes and has not been charged.

With reporting by AP, AFP, and Reuters

Ukraine's Defense Ministry has announced a prisoner exchange involving 144 Ukrainian soldiers, including scores of defenders of the Azovstal steelworks in the southern port city of Mariupol.

"This is the largest exchange since the start of the full-scale Russian invasion. Of the 144 freed, 95 are Azovstal defenders. Among them, 43 servicemen of the Azov Regiment," the main intelligence directorate of the Defense Ministry said on June 29 on Telegram.

It did not specify when and where the swap took place or how many Russian prisoners were part of the exchange.

The head of a Russia-backed separatist group in Ukraine’s Donetsk region also reported a prisoner exchange with Kyiv, saying the number of fighters exchanged was 144 on each side.

Denis Pushilin said 144 Russia-backed separatists and Russian soldiers would return home as part of the exchange.

"We handed over to Kyiv the same number of prisoners from Ukrainian armed units. Most of whom were wounded,” Pushilin said on Telegram.

There had been concerns over the fate of Ukrainian soldiers taken prisoner by Russian forces after they abandoned the Azovstal steel complex in Mariupol.

Some prominent Russian lawmakers last month said there should be no exchange of members of the Azov Regiment, which Russia considers a neo-Nazi organization.

Russia said some 2,500 Ukrainian soldiers had been taken into custody when it took over the steel plant. Pushilin said at the time he thought the prisoners would face a “tribunal.”

Ukrainian officials and relatives of the soldiers had urged Moscow to treat the men as prisoners of war, and Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshuk said that Kyiv would fight for their return.

Moscow and Kyiv have exchanged prisoners several times since Russia invaded on February 24.

With reporting by AFP and Reuters

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy says he has accepted an invitation to attend the autumn G20 summit in Bali, but his participation will depend on which leaders are also attending, a thinly veiled reference to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Following talks with Indonesian President Joko Widodo in Kyiv on June 29, Zelenskiy said Ukraine's participation "will depend on the security situation in the country and on the composition of the summit's participants."

Indonesia, which holds the G20's rotating presidency this year, has come under pressure from several Western nations not to invite Putin over the war he launched in February against Ukraine.

Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi says Widodo told him Putin's presence at the summit on the tropical island in November has been ruled out, but Putin's adviser, Yury Ushakov, said Draghi does not decide issues related to the G20 summit.

Widodo will travel to Moscow on June 30, where he'll meet Putin.

As have many other developing nations, Indonesia has been neutral in the issue of Russia's ongoing unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, which was launched on February 24.

G20 nations make up about 80 percent of world's total economic output.

With reporting by AFP and dpa