Armenia’s beleaguered prime minister has for the first time signaled a willingness to hold early parliamentary elections as opposition groups mount pressure for his resignation over the handling of a six-week war with Azerbaijan.

Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian on December 25 again rejected calls to step down but offered to negotiate with Armenia’s leading political groups about holding snap elections sometime in 2021.

"I invite the parliamentary and interested nonparliamentary forces to take part in consultations on 2021 snap parliamentary elections," the prime minister wrote on Facebook.

"I can give up the post of prime minister only if the people decide so," he said. "Should the people reaffirm their trust I am also ready to continue leading the Republic of Armenia in these difficult times. There is only one way to answer these questions: by holding pre-term parliamentary elections."

Pashinian, who swept to power amid nationwide protests in 2018, has come under fire since agreeing to a Moscow-brokered deal with Azerbaijan that took effect on November 10, ending six weeks of fierce fighting in and around the breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh that saw ethnic Armenian forces suffer battlefield defeat.

• RFE/RL

Scenes of grief and political upheaval across Armenia through three days of mourning for those killed during the recent conflict with Azerbaijan

A coalition uniting 16 opposition parties has been holding anti-government demonstrations in Yerevan and other parts of the country in a bid to force Pashinian to hand over power to an interim government.

Opposition forces want their joint candidate, Vazgen Manukian, to become transitional prime minister to oversee fresh elections.

In showing a willingness to hold early elections, Pashinian is trying to ease political tensions while ensuring he would be the one overseeing the electoral process, something the opposition rejects out of concern that a vote may be unfair.

Despite facing a united opposition front, Pashinian’s My Step bloc maintains an overwhelming majority in parliament.

In his message, Pashinian said the opposition campaign has failed to win popular support and that it is fizzling out on the streets.

The prime minister has for weeks dismissed the protests as a revolt by the country’s traditional "elites" who lost their "privileges" after he swept to power in 2018.

Under the Moscow-brokered cease-fire, a chunk of Nagorno-Karabakh and all seven districts around it were placed under Azerbaijani administration after almost 30 years of control by Armenians.

Nagorno-Karabakh is internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan, but the ethnic Armenians who make up most of the region's population reject Azerbaijani rule.

They had been governing their own affairs, with support from Armenia, since Azerbaijan's troops and Azeri civilians were pushed out of the region and seven adjacent districts in a war that ended in a cease-fire in 1994.

A mathematician at the center of a high-profile trial in Russia gave a final statement to a Moscow court on December 25 as police detained journalists and activists gathered outside.

Azat Miftakhov, a self-declared anarchist who says he was tortured in custody, thanked those who have supported him through the ordeal as he faces up to six years in prison on hooliganism charges when a verdict is announced on January 11.

SEE ALSO:

Russian Prosecutor Seeks Six Years For Mathematician On Charges He Denies

Outside the court, police detained almost 20 people who had come out to support the 25-year-old postgraduate mathematics student at Moscow State University.

Among those detained were journalists, including a correspondent from RFE/RL's Tatar-Bashkir service who had media accreditation to cover the trial.

After being released from detention, the RFE/RL journalist was charged with "participating in a gathering not authorized by authorities."

Miftakhov’s case has garnered interest in Russia and abroad since he was arrested in February 2019 and accused of helping to make an improvised bomb found in the city of Balashikha near Moscow.

The Public Monitoring Commission, a human rights group, has said that Miftakhov's body bore the signs of torture, which the student claimed were the result of investigators unsuccessfully attempting to force him to confess to the bomb-making charge. Others who were detained along with Miftakhov, but later released, have also claimed to have been beaten by the police.

Miftakhov was released shortly after the initial charge failed to hold, but he was rearrested immediately and charged with involvement in an arson attack on the ruling United Russia party's office in Moscow in January 2018.

A prominent Russian human rights organization, Memorial, has declared Miftakhov a political prisoner.

A series of demonstrations demanding Miftakhov's immediate release have been held in Moscow and other cities in Russia since his arrest.

To protest the treatment of Miftakhov and the overall human rights situation in Russia, a group of mathematicians this week called for a boycott of the International Congress of Mathematicians to be hosted in 2022 in Saint Petersburg.

A top Belarusian diplomat who had been appointed the first ambassador to the United States in nearly 12 years has died.

Deputy Foreign Minister Aleh Krauchanka died suddenly on December 25, Foreign Ministry spokesman Anatol Hlaz told journalists. He did not provide a cause of death for the 49-year-old.

Krauchanka had not yet taken up his post in Washington and was still in Belarus when he died, he said.

The career diplomat was one of the top officials dealing with relations with the United States, having served as charge d’affaires to Washington and head of the Foreign Ministry’s Americas department for nearly a decade before being appointed as deputy foreign minister in 2017.

Krauchanka was appointed ambassador to the United States in July amid signs of a rapprochement between Minsk and Washington.

Crisis In Belarus

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

But that nascent warming of relations has since cooled due to a brutal crackdown on protesters in the wake of the contested August reelection of Belarus strongman Alyaksandr Lukashenka.

The United States, the European Union, and several other countries have refused to acknowledge Lukashenka as the winner of the vote and imposed sanctions on Lukashenka and his allies, citing election irregularities and the police crackdown.

The United States recalled its ambassador to Minsk in 2008 when Lukashenka ordered a reduction of U.S. diplomatic staff in the country after Washington imposed sanctions in response to human rights abuses and a political crackdown around the 2006 Belarusian presidential election.

Both countries' embassies have been represented at the charges d'affaires level, but the two sides in 2019 agreed to exchange ambassadors for the first time since 2008.

Earlier this month, the U.S. Senate approved Julie Fisher, deputy assistant secretary for Western Europe and the European Union, as the new U.S. ambassador to Belarus.

The Supreme Court of Uzbekistan on December 25 began to consider a criminal case against eight people accused of negligence and safety violations in a major dam burst earlier this year.

The earth-filled dam at Sardoba Reservoir in eastern Uzbekistan collapsed in May, causing flooding in both Uzbekistan and neighboring Kazakhstan that killed six people and forced the evacuation of 70,000 residents.

The Sardoba Reservoir was completed in 2017, after seven years of construction work that began under the supervision of current President Shavkat Mirziyoyev, who was prime minister at the time.

The case before the Supreme Court involves eight contractors, including the head of the Tupalang canals, Bakhshullo Asadov. He and contractors from Uzbekistan’s national rail company are accused of forgery, negligence, and violating construction laws.

RFE/RL’s Uzbek Service reported that for unclear reasons the trial is being held behind closed doors. Under the law, all criminal proceedings must be open to the public unless the case involves state secrets or a sexual crime.

The trial against the contractors, which began on December 21, was separated from another part of the criminal procedure.

In October, the head of the Anti-Corruption Agency said that 17 people are accused of crimes related to the dam burst.

The Catholic archbishop of Minsk is in Belarus for Christmas after authorities lifted a four-month ban on his entry to the country amid massive anti-government protests.

Archbishop Tadeusz Kondrusiewicz, the leader Belarusian Catholics, was denied entry on August 31 as he returned from a trip to neighboring Poland.

Crisis In Belarus

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

The 74-year-old spiritual leader was barred from his homeland after he criticized the crackdown on protests against the contested reelection of strongman Alyaksandr Lukashenka.

The archbishop was allowed to return after an envoy from the Vatican met Lukashenka last week in Minsk.

“When I crossed the border, I knelt down and prayed, I kissed this land," Kondrusiewicz said in comments on December 24, adding that "the Fatherland cannot be thrown out of the heart."

“This is my land. I grew up here, I want to be here, I want to serve here. And I have never opposed Belarus, I have always defended the interests of Belarus and I will continue to do so,” the metropolitan said.

Kondrusiewicz was able to lead Christmas Eve mass at Minsk’s main Cathedral.

Catholicism is the second largest religious denomination in Belarus, after Eastern Orthodoxy.

With reporting by RFE/RL's Belarus Service and Catholic.by

A Russian court has sentenced a flamboyant Russian professor who killed and dismembered his student lover to 12 1/2 years in prison after convicting him of her murder.

Oleg Sokolov, 64, who was once awarded France’s Order of Legion d'Honneur for his research into military leader Napoleon Bonaparte, was detained in St. Petersburg in November 2019 after being pulled out of the Moika River with a backpack containing the severed body parts of a woman.

Investigators later found the woman’s head in his apartment.

Sokolov later admitted to killing and dismembering his lover, 24-year-old postgraduate student Anastasia Yeshchenko.

State prosecutors had requested a 15-year sentence for Sokolov.

Sokolov, who regularly dressed in Napoleon-era costumes and took part in battle reenactments, said during the hearing that he fully accepted guilt on all charges, but added that he was not sure if the murder was premeditated as, according to him, he killed his lover in state of "temporary insanity."

The high-profile case was adjourned or postponed several times in recent months for various reasons, including restrictions imposed to slow the spread of the coronavirus.

Based on reporting by Current Time and Reuters

A British-based group monitoring the Syrian conflict says least six Iran-backed fighters have been killed in an Israeli rocket attack in central Syria.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on December 25 that the Israeli attack launched in the province of Hama also destroyed depots and rocket-manufacturing facilities belonging to pro-Iranian militias.

Earlier, the official Syrian news agency SANA reported that Israeli rockets had targeted the area of Masyaf in rural Hama.

The agency, citing a military source, added that Syrian air defenses had intercepted the "hostile" rockets and destroyed most of them.

SANA did not report any casualties nor damage resulting from the reported attack.

State television aired footage purporting to show air defenses responding to the attack.

There has been no comment from Israel, which rarely confirms details of its operations in Syria.

Along with Russia, Iran has provided crucial military support to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad during the Syrian conflict, which began with a crackdown on anti-government protesters in March 2011.

Israel accuses Iran of building up its military presence in Syria and has repeatedly struck Iran-linked facilities, positions, as well as weapons convoys destined for Hizballah fighters in the war-torn country.

Israel has carried out more than 30 air strikes on targets across Syria so far in the present year, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Based on reporting by AFP and dpa

Suspected Russian hackers have compromised a customer of software giant Microsoft through a reseller of Microsoft products, according to news reports on December 24, raising more questions about a massive cyberattack on U.S. government computer networks that came to light earlier this month.

The Microsoft customer is security company CrowdStrike Holdings, which said the hackers had gained access to the reseller that sold it licenses to Microsoft Office software.

CrowdStrike did not identify the hackers as the same ones that compromised SolarWinds, the company whose software was previously the only known point of entry for the suspected Russian hackers believed to be behind the intrusion that had been reported earlier.

But two people familiar with CrowdStrike's investigation told Reuters that the same hackers were to blame.

Russia denied any responsibility for the hack into the SolarWinds network management software that was used to allegedly gain access to multiple U.S. government agencies.

The U.S. government's top cybersecurity agency last week issued an urgent warning about the cyberattack, saying it posed a "grave risk" to computer networks maintained by governments, utilities, and the private sector and was ongoing and could be difficult to purge.

Until now, SolarWinds was the only publicly confirmed channel involved in the cyberattack, but officials had warned that they believed hackers had other ways in.

CrowdStrike said it had found no impact from the intrusion attempt and declined to name the reseller. CrowdStrike uses Office programs for word processing but not e-mail.

The hackers “got in through the reseller's access and tried to enable mail 'read' privileges," an unidentified person familiar with the investigation told Reuters. The intrusion would have been more serious if CrowdStrike had been using Office for e-mail, the person said.

Many Microsoft software licenses are sold through third parties, and the company has said those customers need to be vigilant.

"Our investigation of recent attacks has found incidents involving abuse of credentials to gain access, which can come in several forms," said Microsoft senior director Jeff Jones in a statement quoted by Reuters and The Washington Post. "We have not identified any vulnerabilities or compromise of Microsoft product or cloud services,” Jones added.

In its post, CrowdStrike alerted customers that Microsoft had detected unusual behavior in CrowdStrike’s Azure cloud platform account and that “there was an attempt to read email, which failed.”

Representative Jim Langevin (Democrat-Rhode Island) said he was angry about the original intrusion linked to SolarWinds but added that the reality is "the Russians pulled off a highly targeted, complex and probably expensive cyberintrusion that was a sophisticated espionage operation."

The U.S. government's response could involve expelling diplomats or suspected spies, or imposing sanctions, Langevin said, according to The Washington Post.

SolarWinds on December 24 released an update to fix the vulnerabilities in its network management software following the discovery of a second set of hackers that had targeted the company.

The identity of the second set of hackers, or the degree to which they may have broken in remains unclear.

With reporting by Reuters and The Washington Post

Russian law enforcement agencies have opened a criminal case against Lyubov Sobol, a lawyer for the outspoken Kremlin critic Aleksei Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK) and took her in for questioning, the head of the foundation said on December 25.

FBK Director Ivan Zhdanov said on Twitter that investigators launched a probe into Sobol for trespassing "with the use of violence or a threat to use it" after she rang the doorbell of an agent who has implicated the Federal Security Service (FSB) in the poisoning of the 44-year-old Kremlin critic.

Sobol's lawyer Vladimir Voronin told the AFP news agency that the opposition lawyer was currently a witness in the probe but added that he expected Sobol to be charged later on December 25.

There was no immediate comment from Russian authorities.

Earlier on December 25, police raided Sobol’s apartment and took away her computers and phones, Navalny’s supporters said.

"Lyubov Sobol was taken for questioning to the Investigative Committee. The apartment is being searched," the foundation said on Twitter on December 25.

Sobol posted a video on Twitter from inside her apartment before going incommunicado. In the video, her seven-year-old daughter can be heard crying as someone pounds on the front door, demanding it be opened.

"They knock on the door and say the police are here. Apparently, the search will be at my home. I've never had a personal search before. Well, everything happens for the first time. Apparently, because I recently went to Navalny's poisoner, " Sobol says in the video.

Separate CCTV image released by Navalny's allies shows masked men in black uniforms inside Sobol's Moscow residential building.

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Sobol was among journalists and political activists who tried to meet with Konstantin Kudryavtsev late in the evening on December 21, the day Navalny published an audio-recording of what appears to be a conversation with Kudryavtsev over the FSB's role in the poisoning.

She was briefly detained at a police station.

Sobol's lawyer said the probe had been launched following a complaint from Kudryavtsev's mother-in-law.

Navalny said the Russian authorities' "hysterical reaction" only proved their guilt.

"You call a killer's doorbell -- they break down your door and take you in for questioning," Navalny wrote on his blog on December 25.

Laboratory tests in three separate European countries, confirmed by the global chemical weapons watchdog, established that Navalny was poisoned with a Soviet-style Novichok nerve agent.

Russia has rejected calls for an investigation into the poisoning, and denies the involvement of state agents in the case, saying it has yet to be shown any evidence.

Navalny is currently in Germany where he is recovering from the poisoning. He has said he plans to return home an undisclosed date.

The European Union and Britain have imposed asset freezes and travel bans against six senior Russian officials believed to be responsible for the Navalny poisoning, as well as one entity involved in the program that has produced a group of military-grade nerve agents known as Novichok.

With reporting by Current Time, Reuters and AFP

Iran has won approval from the United States to use foreign currency reserves it holds abroad to buy coronavirus vaccines despite U.S. sanctions on Iranian banks, the central bank chief said on December 24.

Abdolnaser Hemmati said the U.S. Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control approved the transfer to a Swiss bank.

Hemmati said Iran would pay around $244 million for initial imports of 16.8 million doses of vaccines from COVAX, a global COVID-19 vaccine allocation plan led by the World Health Organization (WHO).

Iranian officials have said that U.S. sanctions are preventing them from making payments to COVAX.

"They (Americans) have put sanctions on all our banks. They accepted this one case under the pressure of world public opinion," Hemmati told Iranian state TV.

Earlier on December 24, Hemmati described the approval of the transfer in an Instagram post that did not give further details of the payment mechanism or the vaccine supplier.

There was no confirmation from the U.S. Treasury Department.

Iran’s death toll from COVID-19 is more than 54,000 and it is the worst-affected country in the Middle East.

Health Ministry spokeswoman Sima Sadat Lari told state TV earlier that 152 people had died of COVID-19 in Iran in the previous 24 hours.

While that is the lowest number since September 18, officials have cautioned that there is a danger of a resurgence in infections.

Based on reporting by Reuters and Bloomberg

Maia Sandu has been sworn in as the new president of Moldova, pledging in her inauguration speech on December 24 to be an “honest and transparent” president of “all Moldovans.”

Sandu, a Harvard-educated former World Bank economist who favors closer ties to the European Union and the United States, was elected last month after a clear runoff victory against Russia-backed Igor Dodon.

She promised during her presidential campaign to battle endemic corruption in Moldova, one of Europe's poorest countries.

During the inauguration ceremony, Sandu, 48, cited the coronavirus pandemic and the country’s economic crisis as her priorities and promised to appoint a team of experts to tackle the issues. Sandu has presented closer integration with the EU as a way out of the economic crisis.

"We need to get the vaccine as soon as possible," said Sandu, referring to the COVID-19 vaccines that are already being deployed in some countries.

She also spoke about the modernization of the health system, which she said showed its limitations during the pandemic, and pledged to pursue a pro-European foreign policy “that would support domestic policy.”

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U.S. State Department spokesman Cale Brown congratulated Sandu, the first female president of Moldova, on her “historic” inauguration on Twitter.

“We look forward to working with you to strengthen Moldova’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, advance the rule of law, democratic reform, and greater economic prosperity,” Brown said.

Thousands of Sandu's supporters greeted her outside the Palace of the Republic in the capital, Chisinau, after the ceremony, chanting "Maia Sandu and the people!" and "The people love you!"

She previously served as prime minister for several months during Dodon's term before being ousted in a vote of no confidence last year.

On December 23, Prime Minister Ion Chicu and his government resigned in a move to help push the country toward early elections.

In her inauguration speech, Sandu said that snap legislative elections are the "only way to cleanse parliament and restore justice in our country."

Earlier this month around 20,000 protesters took to the streets in Chisinau to demand early elections after lawmakers passed a bill transferring control of the country's intelligence agency from the president to parliament.

The move was seen as a way to boost the power of parliament, where pro-Moscow Socialists aligned with Dodon hold a razor-thin one-seat majority in the 101-seat legislature.

The November presidential election was seen as a referendum on two divergent visions for the future of the Eastern European country of 3.5 million people that is sandwiched between Ukraine and Romania.

Since the election Sandu has called for the withdrawal of Russian troops from Moldova's Moscow-backed separatist region of Transdniester, prompting the Kremlin to warn it could lead to "serious destabilization.”

Sandu is expected to nominate a new prime minister after consulting with the outgoing parliament.

Since the prime minister has resigned, she can dissolve parliament if there are two failed attempts to find a successor.

With reporting by AFP

The Kremlin has said it does not rule out delays to the completion of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline in light of the threat of new U.S. sanctions.

Sanctions are aimed at hampering the project and can fulfill their goal, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told a news conference on December 24.

"Of course, this can complicate [the implementation of the project], but at the same time, our European partners and we are interested in the project's implementation so that it is finalized in the interests of European consumers and Russian gas suppliers," Peskov said.

Commenting on whether the Trump administration will have time to stop the project, Peskov said: "We are not inclined to read coffee grounds here. We have our own issues to work out, and we're working on them."

"However, our European partners and we are interested in this project being implemented," he said.

SEE ALSO:

Pipeline From Hell? Nord Stream 2 And Why It's So Contentious

The Nord Stream 2 pipeline is to carry Russian-sourced gas directly to Germany, the European Union's largest economy, via a route under the Baltic Sea similar to the existing Nord Stream line.

The United States has condemned the pipeline as threatening the security of NATO allies in the EU by increasing dependence on Russia.

Washington in December 2019 passed a bill that imposed sanctions on vessels laying the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, forcing Swiss-based Allseas to stop work on the project shortly before its completion.

Russia is now seeking to retrofit its own vessels to finish the pipeline to complete the project.

The National Defense Authorization Act, an annual bill that mainly sets the policy for the U.S. Department of Defense, includes an extension of Washington's sanctions against the pipeline. However, outgoing U.S. President Donald Trump on December 23 vetoed the bill.

Peskov would not comment on whether Trump could still stop completion of the pipeline. Washington does want to make it as difficult as possible to implement the project, he added.

The pipeline is currently reported to be 93 percent completed.

With reporting by dpa and TASS

A Russian court has sentenced a married couple in Kaliningrad to lengthy jail terms after finding them guilty of spying for Latvia and state treason.

The wife, Antonina Zimina, received 13 years in a penal colony while her husband, Konstantin Antonets, was sentenced to 12 1/2 years in a maximum-security prison.

The prosecutors had requested 14 years for Zimina and 13 years for Antonets.

The couple denied any wrongdoing and will appeal the verdict, their lawyer, Mikhail Bayev, said.

Antonets and Zimina were detained in July 2018 in Kaliningrad and went on trial behind closed doors in May.

They were charged with treason after state prosecutors accused them of sharing a photograph with Latvia of a counterintelligence officer from Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) who had attended their wedding.

The daily Kommersant reported in February that some videos and photographs from the couple’s wedding were later published on social media and were eventually included in an unspecified Baltic television program, prompting the FSB to open a criminal investigation.

In recent years, the number of cases of alleged high treason has increased dramatically in Russia.

One of the latest high-profile high treason cases involves Ivan Safronov, a journalist and an aide to the Russian Roskosmos space agency chief, Dmitry Rogozin.

Safronov was arrested on July 7 and later charged with passing classified materials to the Czech Republic.

With reporting by Reuters, Interfax, and The Moscow Times

Maia Sandu has been sworn in as the new president of Moldova after taking the oath of office on December 24 at a ceremony in Chisinau.

Sandu, a Harvard-educated former World Bank economist who favors closer ties to the European Union and the United States, was elected last month after a clear runoff victory against Russia-backed Igor Dodon.

During her inauguration ceremony, Sandu, 48, promised to be a “uniting” president.

She cited the coronavirus pandemic and the country’s economic crisis as her priorities while promising to appoint a team of experts to tackle the issues. Sandu has presented closer integration with the EU as a way out of the economic crisis.

She previously served as prime minister for several months during Dodon's term before being ousted in a vote of no confidence last year.

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She promised during her presidential campaign to battle endemic corruption in Moldova, one of Europe's poorest countries.

On December 23, Prime Minister Ion Chicu and his government resigned in a move to help push the country toward early elections.

In her inauguration speech on December 24, Sandu said that snap legislative elections are the "only way to cleanse parliament and restore justice in our country."

Earlier this month around 20,000 protesters took to the streets in Chisinau to demand early elections after lawmakers passed a bill transferring control of the country's intelligence agency from the president to parliament.

The move was seen as a way to boost the power of parliament, where pro-Moscow Socialists aligned with Dodon hold a razor-thin one-seat majority in the 101-seat legislature.

The November presidential election was seen as a referendum on two divergent visions for the future of the Eastern European country of 3.5 million people that is sandwiched between Ukraine and Romania.

Since the election Sandu has called for the withdrawal of Russian troops from Moldova's Moscow-backed separatist region of Transdniester, prompting the Kremlin to warn it could lead to "serious destabilization.”

Sandu is expected to nominate a new prime minister after consulting with the outgoing parliament.

Since the prime minister has resigned, she can dissolve parliament if there are two failed attempts to find a successor.

With reporting by AFP

Serbia launched on December 24 its coronavirus vaccination program using the Pfizer-BioNTech shot.

Prime Minister Ana Brnabic and a member of the epidemic crisis management group, Darija Kisic-Tepavcevic, were the first to receive the jab in order to foster public confidence in the safety and efficacy of the vaccine.

"I want to personally demonstrate that the vaccine is safe," Kisic-Tepavcevic said in an interview with the state broadcaster RTS.

Serbia received a first batch of nearly 5,000 doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine on December 22.

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said the first shots will go to the elderly in retirement homes.

RFE/RL's Coronavirus Crisis Archive

Features and analysis, videos, and infographics explore how the COVID-19 pandemic is affecting the countries in our region.

"It is important to protect these people.... More than 80 percent of the people who have died from this terrible virus are the elderly and they are most at risk," he said.

Mirsad Djerlek, state secretary in the Health Ministry, told RFE/RL that as more vaccines arrive in the coming weeks health-care workers will also get the vaccine.

He said about 80,000 doses should be delivered each month, or enough for about 40,000 people because it’s a two-dose regimen.

While Serbia hasn’t approved their use yet, it plans to add the Russian-made Sputnik V vaccine and a jab produced by China's Sinopharm to ensure a greater quantity of vaccine for its 7 million people.

“We expect that these two vaccines will arrive in Serbia very soon,” Djerlek said.

The Pfizer-BioNTech shot is already in use in the United States, Britain, Canada, and Israel.

Meanwhile, rollout of the Pfizer-BioNTech will begin across the EU on December 27.

Serbia has suffered 2,800 deaths to the coronavirus while more than 300,000 have been infected.

With reporting by RFE/RL's Balkan Service and AFP

U.S. President Donald Trump has warned Iran against any attack on U.S. military or diplomatic personnel in Iraq, days after suspected Iran-backed Iraqi militia launched a barrage of rockets at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad’s heavily fortified Green Zone.

The warning, issued on Twitter on December 23, came after top U.S. national-security officials met to prepare a range of options to propose to the president in order to deter any attack on U.S. interests in Iraq.

The so-called principals committee group, including acting Defense Secretary Chris Miller, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and national-security adviser Robert O'Brien met at the White House, Reuters reported, citing an anonymous official.

For weeks, U.S. officials have suggested Iran or allied Iraqi militia could carry out retaliatory attacks to mark the first anniversary of the U.S. drone strike that killed Iran’s top general, Qasem Soleimani, and Iraqi militia leaders outside Baghdad's airport on January 3.

The aim of the White House meeting was "to develop the right set of options that we could present to the president to make sure that we deter the Iranians and Shi'a militias in Iraq from conducting attacks on our personnel,” a senior administration official told Reuters.

Following the meeting, Trump took to Twitter to comment on a hail of rockets that targeted Baghdad’s heavily fortified Green Zone on December 20, causing minor damage to the U.S. Embassy compound and residential areas in the international zone.

“Our embassy in Baghdad got hit Sunday by several rockets. Three rockets failed to launch. Guess where they were from: IRAN,” Trump wrote above a picture claiming to show rockets from Iran.

“Now we hear chatter of additional attacks against Americans in Iraq. Some friendly health advice to Iran: If one American is killed, I will hold Iran responsible. Think it over,” Trump wrote, repeating a redline over any American casualties.

Iranian Condemnation

Iran’s foreign minister dismissed Trump’s allegations that Iran was behind the recent rocket attack.

“Putting your own citizens at risk abroad won't divert attention from catastrophic failures at home,” Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said on Twitter.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh described Trump’s accusations as “baseless” and said that Iran has repeatedly condemned attacks on diplomatic and residential sites.

Khatibzadeh was quoted by the official government news agency IRNA as saying that Tehran considers the U.S. responsible for the consequences of "any unwise move" in the current condition.

"In this specific issue, the fingers are pointed at the U.S. and its partners and allies in the region that are trying to increase tension," he said.

The U.S. military's Central Command (CENTCOM) said in a statement that the rocket attack in Iraq was “almost certainly” carried out by an “Iranian-backed rogue militia group.”

“While this 21 rocket attack caused no U.S. injuries or casualties, the attack did damage buildings in the U.S. Embassy compound, and was clearly NOT intended to avoid casualties,” the statement said.

Following the December 20 attack, an Iraqi military statement said “an outlawed group” launched eight rockets at the Green Zone, the location of embassies and government buildings.

Most of the rockets landed near an empty residential complex and checkpoint, injuring one Iraqi security person.

Although no Americans were killed or injured by the rockets, the attack and Trump’s threat underscore a highly combustible situation in Iraq that could quickly spiral out of control.

A rocket attack blamed on Iran-backed militia in December 2019 killed a U.S. defense contractor and wounded several U.S. and Iraqi soldiers at a military base in the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk, touching off a cycle of escalation that led to Soleimani's killing and Iran launching retaliatory ballistic missiles at Iraqi bases housing U.S. troops, bringing the two rivals to the brink of full-fledged war.

In a new show of force directed at Iran around the anniversary of Soleimani’s killing, a U.S. nuclear submarine carrying 154 Tomahawk cruise missiles crossed the Strait of Hormuz on December 21.

The aircraft carrier USS Nimitz has been patrolling Gulf waters since late November, and two American B-52 bombers recently overflew the region in a demonstration of strength aimed at Iran.

"My assessment is we are in a very good position and we'll be prepared for anything the Iranians or their proxies acting for them might choose to do," General Kenneth McKenzie, the U.S. commander for the Middle East, told journalists on December 20.

U.S. officials have blamed Iran-backed Iraqi militia for carrying out a string of attacks on U.S. interests in Iraq this year, prompting Washington to threaten a diplomatic and military withdrawal from the country.

The Trump administration in November ordered a reduction of U.S. troops in Iraq from 3,000 to 2,500 by mid-January.

Several Iraq militia groups in October announced a brief suspension of attacks on U.S. interests on condition that a timetable would be presented for U.S. forces to leave Iraq. That truce came to an end on November 18 with a rocket strike on the U.S. Embassy.

Meanwhile, the United States said in early December it was partially withdrawing some staff from its embassy in response to rising tensions.

U.S. officials say the temporary staff reduction was in response to possible threats around the anniversary of Soleimani's killing and that of leading Iraqi paramilitary figure Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis.

Aggravating the situation, tensions spiked again across the region following assassination of Iranian nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh near Tehran in late November. Iran has blamed Israel and, indirectly, the United States, raising the possibility that Iran or one of its regional proxies will retaliate.

The developments in Iraq come as Trump ramps up pressure on Iran ahead of a transition to President-elect Joe Biden, who has said he will try to revive diplomacy with Iran upon entering the White House in January.

Biden is expected to try to rejoin the Iran nuclear accord that Trump quit in 2018 and work with allies to strengthen its terms, if Tehran resumes compliance.

Western diplomats and media reports have suggested Iran has told allied Iraqi militia groups to avoid provoking the United States in the final weeks of the Trump administration out of concern the situation could escalate before a more dovish Biden administration comes to power.

But there are also questions about how much direct operational control Iran really maintains over an array of Iraqi militia groups and proxies across the region, raising the prospect of accidents and miscalculations.

"I do believe we remain in a period of heightened risk," McKenzie, the head of U.S. Central Command, told ABC News on December 22. "I would just emphasize this key point: We're not looking to escalate ourselves. We're not looking for war with Iran, I really want to emphasize that."

"It is my belief that Iran doesn't want a war with the United States right now," he added.

With reporting by AFP and Reuters.

Romanian lawmakers have approved a new center-right pro-Western coalition government headed by U.S.-educated banker Florin Citu, a former finance minister who has pledged to overcome the coronavirus crisis and the economic woes it has caused.

Some 260 lawmakers in the freshly elected parliament voted in favor of approving Citu's cabinet, with 186 against.

"My government will have two major objectives: getting over the health crisis and getting the economy back on track," Citu, 48, said in a speech to both houses of parliament.

Citu, who served as finance minister in the outgoing minority government of the National Liberal Party (PNL), has a degree in economics from the University of Iowa.

Shortly after the vote, the new cabinet was sworn in by President Klaus Iohannis.

Following the December 6 election, PNL formed a center-right alliance with the newly formed USR-PLUS alliance and the UDMR ethnic Hungarian party.

The leftist PSD, the heir to the Communist Party, won the most votes in the election -- some 30 percent -- but failed to find partners to form a government.

The 20 ministries have been divided up according to electoral strength between the three members of the alliance.

The new government presented an ambitious reform program to speed up construction of desperately needed transport infrastructure, reform an antiquated and corruption-ridden health-care network, and strengthen a judiciary system that was the target of years of political pressure from PSD.

Citu's government must also revive Romania's economy following the impact of the coronavirus, which has infected 604,251 people in the country and killed 14,766.

The country launches its vaccination program on December 27.

With reporting by Reuters and AFP

The United States has imposed sanctions on Belarusian police units and a senior security official in Minsk over their violent crackdown on mass demonstrations against the contested reelection of strongman Alyaksandr Lukashenka.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on December 23 denounced what he said were ongoing "efforts to undermine Belarusian democracy."

"We stand with the brave people of Belarus and support their right to free and fair elections," Pompeo said.

In announcing the sanctions on December 23, the Treasury Department said it will freeze any U.S. assets and prohibit any transactions with Belarusian First Deputy Interior Minister Henadz Kazakevich.

Kazakevich had appeared in a video in October threatening to use lethal force against those demonstrating against official results of Belarus's August presidential election -- a vote in which Lukashenka was declared the winner of a sixth term.

The demonstrators have rejected the results, saying they were rigged in Lukashenka's favor.

Tens of thousands of people have taken to the streets for months, declaring that opposition candidate Svyatlana Tsikhanouskaya was the real winner.

The Treasury Department on December 23 also imposed sanctions on three security bodies involved in the crackdown.

They include the Minsk Special Purpose Police Unit (OMON), the General Directorate of Internal Affairs of the Minsk City Executive Committee, and the Minsk-based KGB "Alpha Unit."

The United States previously imposed sanctions on individual election officials accused of rigging the August vote.

But the expanded sanctions announced by Washington on December 23 also included the Belarusian Central Election Commission.

Washington has had sanctions in place since 2006 on Lukashenka over a previous crackdown against those protesting his disputed reelection.

The European Union has also imposed fresh measures against Lukashenka and one of his sons, Viktar, over the latest violence, including a freeze on their assets and travel visa bans.

With reporting by AFP

A massive fire has broken out at a temporary migrant camp in northwestern Bosnia-Herzegovina that has been the target of criticism by rights watchdogs because it lacks basic amenities.

Officials said on December 23 that former residents started the blaze at the Lipa tent camp near the Croatian border that once accommodated 1,200 migrants.

No injuries were immediately reported.

The Lipa camp was to be closed on December 23 and moved to another location.

However, officials said the move had to be postponed since the camp was almost entirely destroyed in the fire.

The International Organization for Migration (IOM) several times extended the closure of the Lipa camp, located between Bosanski Petrovac and Bihac.

Bosnia has become a bottleneck for thousands of migrants hoping to reach neighboring European Union member Croatia and then head toward other Western EU members.

The bulk of the migrants are stuck in Bosnia's northwestern Krajina region.

"As far as we know now, a group of former residents put three tents and containers on fire after most of the migrants had left the camp," said the IOM's chief of mission in Bosnia, Peter Van Der Auweraert.

"Luckily, no casualties to our knowledge at this point but disaster nevertheless," Van Der Auweraert said on Twitter.

He later told reporters the fire was under control, but that most of the camp was either destroyed or damaged. He said most camp residents were still around the area because "there's no alternative accommodation available" in Bosnia for them.

The Lipa camp was set up as a temporary shelter during the summer to cope with the coronavirus pandemic after Bosnian authorities closed another camp on the outskirts of Bihac.

The European Union has warned Bosnia that thousands of migrants face a freezing winter without shelter, and it urged the country's bickering politicians to set aside their differences and take action.

Thousands of people have been sleeping outdoors in makeshift tent camps or abandoned houses with no facilities in the area, which saw the first snow earlier this month.

With reporting by AP and dpa

CHITA, Russia -- Private Ramil Shamsutdinov, who is accused of murdering eight fellow servicemen last year in what he claims was the result of his brutal hazing in the Russian Army, has called the incident a "tragedy."

Shamsutdinov said during his final statement at the high-profile trial in the Siberian city of Chita, on December 23 that he regretted what happened in October 2019, when he allegedly went on a shooting spree, killing eight military servicemen, including two high-ranking officers, in the town of Gorny in the Zabaikalye region.

"The circumstances I found myself led me to the situation that caused the tragedy. I did not want it. I did not understand myself how it happened. I regret what I did. There is nothing else I can say," Shamsutdinov said.

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Shamsutdinov, who was charged with murder and attempted murder, went on trial on November 23.

Two witnesses testified at the trial that Shamsutdinov had endured torture and beatings by other soldiers and officers during his hazing in the service.

Shamsutdinov's lawyer, Ruslan Nagiyev, told RFE/RL that his client's verdict and sentence will be pronounced on December 24.

The case shocked many in Russia and attracted the attention of rights activists after Shamsutdinov claimed that he committed the act while suffering a nervous breakdown caused by the brutal hazing and torture he had endured.

The Defense Ministry accepted at the time that Shamsutdinov "had a conflict" with one of the officers he killed. In March, Private Ruslan Mukhatov was found guilty of bullying Shamsutdinov and was handed a suspended two-year prison term.

Deadly shootings in Russian military units as the result of wide-spread hazing have been a focus of human rights organizations for years.

In November, a soldier at a military air base in the western region of Voronezh shot an officer and two soldiers dead.

In recent years, photos and video footage have been posted online by members of the Russian military that show the severe bullying of young recruits as they are inducted into the army.

MOSCOW -- A court in Moscow has handed local opposition politician Yulia Galyamina a two-year suspended sentence for her involvement in anti-Kremlin rallies.

The Tver district court on December 23 found Galyamina, an opposition member of a Moscow district council, guilty of repeatedly violating rules on public gatherings by organizing and staging unsanctioned rallies and protests in Moscow.

Dozens of Galyamina's supporters gathered in front of the court as the verdict was handed down to support the outspoken critic of President Vladimir Putin.

In her final statement during the trial ealier in the week, Galyamina told Putin, investigators, security officials and police that the proceedings proved they see her as a "real threat."

"I am a teacher, a municipal lawmaker, a politician who calls for nonviolent change, for honest political struggle, for a decent life for people. I'm a woman who is a threat to a man, who seems to have all possible powers. However, that man is just a little man who is scared of a woman's soft power," Galyamina said.

Amnesty International has condemned the charges against Galyamina as "appalling and reprehensible," saying they were aimed at "silencing a major dissenting voice and threatening to ban her political activities."

Galyamina was involved in a campaign against what she says are "illegal plans" by Putin to remain in power beyond his term limits.

Her team organized a peaceful rally in central Moscow in July against constitutional reforms introduced in 2020 that give Putin an option to remain in power for as many as 16 more years if he wins two more elections after his current term expires in 2024.

Dozens of people were detained by the police during the protest.

The German hospital that treated Aleksei Navalny has posted its final statement on the case of the Russian dissident's acute illness, saying he was poisoned with the chemical nerve agent Novichok.

Navalny became violently ill while on a domestic flight in Russia on August 20 and was initially treated at a hospital in the Siberian city of Omsk for two days before being flown to Germany for emergency treatment.

In an article published in The Lancet medical journal on December 23, doctors at Berlin's Charite hospital detailed symptoms observed as Navalny was admitted into their care.

"A laboratory of the German armed forces designated by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons identified an organophosphorus nerve agent from the Novichok group in blood samples collected immediately after the patient's admission to Charite," the report said.

Navalny, 44, only narrowly survived the poisoning, the German hospital team said.

"His good health status before the poisoning probably favored his recovery," the report said.

Laboratories from several Western countries have determined that Navalny was poisoned with the Soviet-era nerve agent Novichok, which only Russian authorities can administer.

The claim has been repeatedly denied by Moscow.

The Lancet publication came just two days after Navalny published a video of what he said was a telephone conversation with an alleged member of Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB), who says agents placed the poison in his underpants while Navalny was traveling in Siberia.

Navalny said he impersonated an official in the Kremlin's Security Council to get the FSB agent to admit to the poisoning.

With reporting by dpa and AFP

The prosecutor in a high-profile trial in Moscow has asked a court to sentence Azat Miftakhov, a mathematician who says he was tortured in custody, to six years in prison on hooliganism charges.

Miftakhov's lawyer, Svetlana Sidorkina, said on December 23 that the defendant, who has rejected all of the charges and believes he was targeted by police because of his anarchist views, and his lawyers will testify as the process resumes on December 25.

Miftakhov, 25, a postgraduate mathematics student at Moscow State University, was arrested on February 1, 2019, and accused of helping make an improvised bomb found in January in the city of Balashikha near Moscow.

The Public Monitoring Commission, a human rights group, has said that Miftakhov's body bore the signs of torture, which the student claimed were the result of investigators unsuccessfully attempting to force him to confess to the bomb-making charge.

Others who were detained along with Miftakhov, but later released, have also claimed to have been beaten by the police.

Miftakhov was released on February 7, 2019, after the initial charge failed to hold, but he was rearrested immediately and charged with involvement in an arson attack on the ruling United Russia party's office in Moscow in January 2018.

A prominent Russian human rights organization, Memorial, has declared Miftakhov a political prisoner.

A series of demonstrations demanding Miftakhov's immediate release have been held in Moscow and other cities in Russia since his arrest.

Based on reporting by Novaya gazeta and Meduza

TBILISI -- In an ongoing stand-off between the ruling Georgian Dream party and opposition parties refusing to take their seats in parliament, Georgian lawmakers have approved the first reading of a bill that withholds state funding for parties boycotting parliament.

Six of the eight opposition parties that gained entrance to parliament in the October 31 elections have requested their mandates be suspended, saying the poll was rigged and new elections must be held.

Georgian Dream initiated the bill, according to which political parties that refuse to take up at least half of their parliamentary seats will lose state funding.

Lawmaker Tea Tsulukiani said after the December 23 vote that the legislation had nothing to do with the opposition parties' current boycott of parliament.

Deputies also agreed that the second reading of the bill will be debated after it is assessed by the OSCE's Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights and the Venice Commission.

The first session of the newly elected parliament was held without the opposition parties' representatives since December 11.

The Central Election Commission announced final results showing Georgian Dream, founded by billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili, took 48.22 percent of the vote. The opposition United National Movement bloc got 27.18 percent and European Georgia was third with 3.79 percent.

Six other smaller opposition parties also crossed the 1 percent threshold to enter parliament.

Four rounds of U.S. and EU-brokered talks between the ruling Georgian Dream and opposition parties to find a compromise on the issue have failed to yield any results so far.

BISHKEK -- Kyrgyz lawmakers have approved an economic-amnesty bill that allows individuals who obtained financial assets through illegal means to avoid prosecution by turning the assets over to the State Treasury.

Economy Minister Bekbolot Aliev said on December 23 that the amnesty's main goal was not about filling the government's coffers but "to bring the shadow economy to the legal scene."

Kyrgyz authorities have said that the bill may affect around 1,300 individuals convicted or suspected of enriching themselves through tax evasion, financial fraud, smuggling, and other economic misdeeds.

Critics, however, say the legislation was proposed and hastily prepared by lawmakers to avoid a conviction for the former deputy chief of the Customs Service, Raimbek Matraimov, who has been implicated in a high-profile case involving the illegal funneling of hundreds of millions of dollars abroad.

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The idea of economic amnesty was announced on October 21 by Sadyr Japarov, then acting Kyrgyz president, just a day after Matraimov was detained and placed under house arrest.

The State Committee for National Security (UKMK) said at the time that Matraimov had agreed to pay about 2 billion soms ($24.7 million) in damages to the state, and that 80 million soms ($1 million) had already been transferred to its account.

Matraimov is one of three brothers from what is rumored to be one of the wealthiest and most-powerful families in Kyrgyzstan. He was a key financial backer for political parties and presidents, including Jeenbekov and the Mekenim Kyrgyzstan party, which dominated the October 4 parliamentary elections along with a party called Birimdik, which listed Jeenbekov's brother among its ranks.

Protesters, angry at evidence of vote-buying and other improprieties during the vote, seized government buildings after the election results were announced, prompting officials to annul the balloting and Jeenbekov to step down.

In the resulting power vacuum, Japarov, a former nationalist lawmaker and convicted kidnapper who was freed from prison when a mob stormed a Bishkek prison during the protests, was elected prime minister by parliament and then had the presidential powers transferred to him when Jeenbekov left office in mid-October.

Last year, a joint investigation by RFE/RL's Kyrgyz Service, the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, and the Kyrgyz news site Kloop, implicated Matraimov in a corruption scheme involving the transfer of funds out of the country by Chinese-born Uyghur businessman Aierken Saimaiti, who was assassinated in Istanbul in November 2019.

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How A Kyrgyz Customs Chief Enabled A Secretive Smuggling Empire

Prior to his killing, Saimaiti provided a trove of financial records to reporters showing how he moved money out of Kyrgyzstan via murky wire transfers and cash couriers over the course of several years.

On December 9, the U.S. Treasury Department imposed sanctions on Matraimov for his role in a vast corruption and money-laundering scheme.

Japarov suspended his duties as acting president and prime minister in mid-November in order to be eligible to take part in an early presidential election on January 10.