Armenian police have arrested at least 21 people during protests calling for the resignation of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian over his handling of a six-week war with Azerbaijan.

Several thousand demonstrators rallied outside the government's headquarters in the capital Yerevan on January 28, with some clashing with police.

Pashinian has refused calls to step down but raised the possibility of holding early parliamentary elections.

Pashinian, who was 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, 2020, ending six weeks of fierce fighting in and around the breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh that saw ethnic Armenian forces suffer battlefield defeat.

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.

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

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.

Based on reporting by AP and TASS

ALMATY, Kazakhstan -- Kazakhstan's largest city, Almaty, will reimpose coronavirus restrictions from February 1 for an indefinite period.

Almaty's sanitary inspector-general Zhandarbek Bekshin issued the order on January 28, according to which the restrictions will be imposed due to a "worsening of the sanitary and epidemiological situation" in the city of nearly 2 million people.

According to the decision, the activities of theaters and cinemas, which were allowed to partially resume in October 2020, will be suspended again as of the first of next month.

Shopping malls will operate only from Monday to Friday between the hours of 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Grocery stores and pharmacies will continue operations as usual, but only 30 percent of their premises will be allowed to be occupied by customers at any one time.

Marketplaces located inside buildings will be open until 5 p.m. on regular business days and closed on weekends. Open-air marketplaces will follow the same regulations but be allowed to operate on Saturdays as well.

Sport tournaments, exhibitions, conferences, family celebrations, or mass religious rituals will be banned.

Individuals with any form of coronavirus will be hospitalized. Restaurants, cafeterias, and cafes will be allowed to be open from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. only.

Restaurants inside shopping malls will be allowed to sell products to go only between 7 a.m. and 8 p.m.

Public saunas, spas, and swimming pools will not operate on weekends, but will be allowed to open between 8 a.m. and 9 p.m. on other days.

Mail services will be provided between 9 a.m. and 6 p.m.

As of January 28, the number of registered coronavirus cases in the Central Asian nation was 182,530, including 2,476 deaths.

In the last two weeks, the spread of infections across the country has been on rise, reaching 1,500 new cases daily, according to health officials.

DUSHANBE -- Tajik opposition politician Mahmurod Odinaev has been sentenced to 14 years in prison on charges of hooliganism and "calling for extremism."

The Rudaki district court in Dushanbe convicted and sentenced Odinaev, a deputy head of the Social Democratic Party, on January 28.

Odinaev's son Habibulllo Rizoev was also convicted of hooliganism and fined 58,000 somonis (more than $5,000). Both men pleaded not guilty during the trial, which started on January 25.

Mahmurod Odinaev went missing on November 20 after he asked Dushanbe Mayor Rustam Emomali in a Facebook post to allow him and supporters of the Social Democratic Party -- the only opposition party functioning in Tajikistan -- to stage a demonstration over food-price hikes.

On December 5, the Tajik Prosecutor-General's Office acknowledged that Odinaev had been arrested in Dushanbe.

According to the authorities, he allegedly conducted an act of hooliganism in late October in a military draft office where prosecutors say he confronted officials over the conscription of Rizoev.

That came after the Interior Ministry said in November that another son, Shaikhmuslihiddin Rizoev, was charged with hooliganism over his alleged involvement in a brawl.

Odinaev said that unknown attackers had severely beaten his son as part of a pressure campaign imposed on him for his political activities.

Tajik President Emomali Rahmon, who has tightly ruled the former Soviet republic since 1992, has been criticized for cracking down on opposition political groups, rights defenders, and independent journalists.

Ukraine has launched a criminal investigation into attempts to interfere in the November 2020 U.S. presidential election.

Andriy Yermak, the head of the office of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said on January 28 that Ukraine would do everything in its power to bring to justice forces within the country and outside it who attempted to damage relations between Ukraine and the United States.

"The State Bureau of Investigation has opened a criminal case," Yermak was quoted as saying in an interview to the Ukrainian news outlet NV that was posted on the presidential website.

"The investigation is under way, and we are waiting for its results. The investigation must answer a lot of questions,” Yermak added.

The U.S. Treasury Department on January 11 imposed sanctions on several Ukrainian individuals and entities, accusing them of U.S. election interference and associating with a pro-Russian Ukrainian lawmaker linked to efforts by then President Donald Trump's allies to find compromising information on President Joe Biden and his son.

Trump’s request to Zelenskiy during a July 2019 call led the House of Representatives to charge him with two crimes. Trump was eventually acquitted by the Senate in early 2020, but the case damaged his administration’s relationship with Kyiv.

Among those blacklisted was Oleksandr Dubinskiy, from Zelenskiy's ruling Servant of the People party.

Dubinsky denied interfering in the election. Servant of the People may vote to expel Dubinskiy from its parliamentary faction.

President Biden, who oversaw Ukraine policy while serving as vice president from 2009 to 2017, including traveling to Kyiv six times during that period, has yet to speak with Zelenskiy since taking office on January 20.

With reporting by Reuters

KOKSHETAU, Kazakhstan -- A court in northern Kazakhstan has sentenced an opposition activist to jail and fined two other people for allegedly taking part in an unsanctioned rally.

The administrative court in the city of Kokshetau on January 28 handed a 12-day jail sentence to Aslan Qurmanbaev.

Another activist, Marat Zhanuzaqov, and a local resident, Gaukhar Shakenova, were both fined 87,500 tenges ($205).

The case stems from an unsanctioned rally held in Kokshetau's central square on January 25 by hundreds of people angered by what they called the government’s poor results in the fights against corruption and the coronavirus pandemic.

All three defendants pleaded not guilty to the charges.

Shakenova said she did not participate in the rally but was just a passerby.

Kokshetau is a remote city of 146,000 people located 300 kilometers northwest of Kazakhstan’s capital, Nur-Sultan.

Human rights groups have said Kazakhstan’s law on public gatherings contradicts international standards as it requires preliminary permission from authorities to hold rallies and envisions prosecution for organizing and participating in unsanctioned rallies even though the nation’s constitution guarantees its citizens the right of free assembly.

BISHKEK -- A court in Bishkek says it has rejected a request to transfer jailed former Kyrgyz President Almazbek Atambaev to house arrest.

The 64-year-old Atambaev was sentenced to 11 years and two months in prison in June 2020 over his involvement in the release of a notorious crime boss.

In November, the Supreme Court sent the case back to a Bishkek district court for retrial. The reason for the decision was not immediately given.

Atambaev has denied any wrongdoing.

In early October, he was released from custody as the country was rocked by mass protests against the official results of parliamentary elections. He was rearrested four days later and charged with organizing an illegal demonstration.

Atambaev was initially arrested in August 2019 after he surrendered to police following a deadly two-day standoff between security forces and his supporters that led to the death of a top security officer and more than 170 injured.

The former president and 13 other people were charged with murder, attempted murder, threatening or assaulting representatives of the authorities, hostage taking, and the forcible seizure of power.

A trial on those charges is yet to be held.

YEREVAN -- Former Armenian President Robert Kocharian, currently on trial on charges stemming from his alleged role in a 2008 crackdown on the opposition, says he will participate in early parliamentary elections if they are called.

Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian has come under heavy public criticism and pressure to step down after signing a cease-fire accord with Azerbaijan that ceded control over parts of the breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven adjacent districts after a 44-day war.

In a half-hour interview with Armenia's leading media outlets on January 27, Kocharian said Pashinian and his government should resign to allow a provisional government to take over the country until early elections can be held.

"I will take part in the early elections with my team and we will win.... Otherwise we will allow [Pashinian's government] to remain in power," Kocharian said.

Opposition politicians have demanded Pashinian's resignation over his signing of the Moscow-brokered truce agreement with Azerbaijan to stop the war in November that ended with Baku regaining control over land that had been under ethnic Armenian control since the early 1990s.

Kocharian, who served as the South Caucasus country's president from 1998 to 2008, is currently on trial on charges stemming from his alleged role in a 2008 postelection crackdown on the opposition, as well as on suspicion of taking bribes.

He faces up to 15 years in prison if convicted of the charges, which he rejects as politically motivated.

Kocharian was released from pretrial detention on bail in June 2020.

Before that, since being arrested in July 2018, Kocharian was released twice by court decisions, but in both cases he was rearrested following appeals by the prosecutors.

The 66-year-old native of the Nagorno-Karabakh region was one of the leaders of separatist forces and became its first de facto president between December 1994 and March 1997.

Iran's parliament speaker says the country has produced 17 kilograms of 20 percent-enriched uranium within a month, as Iranian officials continue to dismiss international calls for Tehran to return to full compliance with the 2015 nuclear agreement.

Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf made the announcement during a visit to the Fordow nuclear plant on January 28.

In separate comments, the spokesman of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, Behruz Kalamvandi, confirmed Qalibaf’s estimate, saying there are currently 17 kilograms of enriched uranium stockpiles with a 20 percent purity in the country.

Iran, which denies pursuing nuclear weapons, saying its nuclear program is strictly for civilian purposes, has vowed to produce 120 kilograms of uranium enriched to 20 percent per year, or 10 kilograms per month on average.

About 250 kilograms of 20 percent-enriched uranium are needed to convert it into 25 kilograms of the 90 percent-enriched needed for a nuclear weapon.

Western countries have called on Tehran to adhere to the 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, from which the United States unilaterally withdrew in 2018.

In response to the U.S. pullout and crippling sanctions, Iran has gradually breached parts of the pact, which eased international sanctions in exchange for curbs on its disputed nuclear program, saying it is no longer bound by it.

On January 27, newly installed U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the administration of President Joe Biden was willing to return to commitments under the nuclear agreement, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), but only if Iran returned to full compliance.

In response, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif reiterated Tehran's view that the United States should first lift its sanctions.

"Reality check for @SecBlinken," Zarif tweeted, saying the United States "violated" the accord by imposing sanctions on Iran that "blocked food/medicine to Iranians," among other grievances.

Zarif argued that Iran had "abided by the JCPOA" and only took "foreseen remedial measures” to the U.S. moves.

"Now, who should take 1st step?” he asked.

With reporting by AP, dpa, and AFP

Human Rights Watch (HRW) has urged the Kazakh authorities drop a lawsuit against an independent labor union, saying the case is a violation of workers' fundamental rights to organize and associate.

In a statement on January 28, HRW accused the Kazakh authorities of trying to have the operations of the Industrial Trade Union of Fuel and Energy Workers suspended.

According to the statement, a court in the southern city of Shymkent will decide on February 1 on the city administration's lawsuit against the union claiming violations of the union law.

"This brazen attempt to have the activities of an independent trade union suspended is unjustified and should be stopped in its tracks," HRW senior Central Asia researcher Mihra Rittmann said,

"Less than a year ago Kazakhstan took necessary steps to amend its highly restrictive 2014 trade union law, but now the authorities are cracking down on yet another independent trade union," it added.

The lawsuit filed against an independent industrial trade union representing workers in Kazakhstan’s oil and gas sector claims that the union violated registration provisions in the trade union law.

The claims are unsubstantiated or based on legal provisions that either no longer exist or do not apply to the union, HRW said, calling on the court in Shymkent to drop the case.

Rights activists and labor leaders have said the government has steadily increased pressure on unions since a series of protests staged by oil workers in western Kazakhstan in 2011.

The protests culminated in violent clashes with police in December 2011 that left at least 16 workers dead in the oil town of Zhanaozen.

In July 2019, a court in Shymkent sentenced to seven years in prison independent union leader Erlan Baltabai, who advocated for energy company workers, after finding him guilty of embezzlement, a case he and his supporters called politically motivated.

An independent report commissioned by the International Biathlon Union (IBU) says there is evidence of "systematic corrupt and unethical conduct" by the former leadership of the sport's governing body in a decade-long cover-up of Russian doping cases.

The report, published on January 28, says that former IBU President Anders Besseberg and ex-Secretary-General Nicole Resch "have cases to answer for breach of the IBU's rules, based on their apparent protection of Russian interests, particularly in the anti-doping context, without good justification," between 2008 and 2018.

Norway's Besseberg and the German Resch stepped down in 2018 after Austrian police raided the IBU's headquarters in the city of Salzburg amid a criminal investigation into whether the pair had accepted benefits for covering up Russian doping cases. They haven't been charged with any crime.

The report by the External Review Commission accuses Besseberg, who led the IBU for 25 years, of intensely lobbying for Russia's interests, saying he "appears...to have had no regard for ethical values and no real interest in protecting the sport from cheating."

The commission says Besseberg has been taken on hunting and fishing trips for free in Russia and had IBU employees transport his trophies. It also cites evidence from a police investigation that he admitted that he "received the service of a prostitute" while staying in Moscow, which he believed had been paid for by a third party.

The report also takes aim at Resch, who is accused of having failed to request extra testing of Russian athlete Yevgeny Ustyugov at the doping-tainted 2014 Olympics in Russia's Black Sea resort of Sochi after indications of "highly abnormal values" in his blood.

Ustyugov won an Olympic gold medal but was stripped of the honor last year after a ban over a separate allegation of past doping violations.

The report also says that Resch offered "undercover" help with doping appeals by three Russian athletes, and tried to influence an anti-doping panel considering a case the IBU had brought against another Russian.

"We are shocked by the wrongdoing" described in the report, IBU President Olle Dahlin said in a statement, adding that owing to reforms "we now have the safeguards in place to ensure this kind of wrongdoing does not happen again."

World Anti-Doping Agency President Witold Banka called the allegations in the report "abhorrent to all who care about sport integrity."

"However, it is to the credit of the IBU that in the wake of this scandal, it has taken significant steps to enhance the integrity of its anti-doping program," Banka said in a statement.

With reporting by AP and dpa

TASHKENT -- A court in Tashkent has found the Uzbek capital's mayor, Jahongir Ortiqhojaev, guilty of breaking the law over decisions to hand city land to a company affiliated with the president's son-in-law.

The Chilonzor district court on January 27 ruled that two decisions made in 2018 and 2019 by Ortiqhojaev were unlawful.

According to the 2018 decision, more than 6 hectares of land in Yunusobod, one of Tashkent's most expensive districts with some 100 private businesses based there, was to be placed in the city's land reserve.

Then, on the last day of 2019, Ortiqhojaev issued another order giving that land to the Urban Developers construction company.

Business owners and entrepreneurs in Yunusobod filed a lawsuit against the decisions, saying the plan to develop the area would harm their businesses and that several regulations and laws had been violated since the land, worth at least $11.5 million, was placed under the control of Urban Developers.

Urban Developers, which planned to develop a trade and entertainment complex in the Yunusobod district, appeared to be associated with Oibek Tursunov, the husband of President Shavkat Mirziyoev's elder daughter, Saida. The company was established a month before the mayor's 2019 decision was announced.

Ansor Naberaev, officially listed as the owner of Urban Developers, has rejected any connection with Tursunov. He was not immediately available for comment on the court's January 27 ruling.

According to official registration and tax documents, 97 percent of Urban Developers' shares are owned by a company called Odoratus Business LLP, which is registered in the United Kingdom and operated by B2B Consultants Limited in the Central American country of Belize.

The company's assets are officially shown as having a value of 100 pounds ($130).

According to the documents, obtained by RFE/RL, Odoratus Business also co-owns shares of several other companies in Uzbekistan, including more than 60 percent of shares of the Milk House company, which is co-owned by the Pro Milk Technology company.

More than 95 percent of Pro Milk Technology's shares are controlled by Promadik Invest, which is owned by Tursunov.

BISHKEK -- Sadyr Japarov, in jail on hostage-taking charge just three months ago, has been sworn in as Kyrgyzstan's president after his landslide election victory earlier this month.

In a decidedly low-key inauguration ceremony due to coronavirus concerns, the 52-year-old Japarov was sworn in on January 28 at the National Philharmonic Hall in Bishkek.

Kyrgyzstan has been in crisis since parliamentary elections in October led to protests that triggered the toppling of the government and the resignation of then-President Sooronbai Jeenbekov -- the third time since 2005 that a Kyrgyz president and his government had been ousted by protests.

Japarov was among several prominent politicians freed from prison by protesters during the unrest. He had been serving a 10-year prison sentence for hostage taking during a protest against a mining operation in northeast Kyrgyzstan in October 2013. He has steadfastly denied the charge.

After taking the oath of office, Japarov, who won more than 79 percent of the vote in the January 10 election, called on all political groups including his opponents, ethnic groups, and nongovernmental and religious organizations to unite and work together for the Central Asian nation's better future.

Japarov emphasized that he will stick to a "multipronged" foreign policy, stressing that Russia, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan will be major partners under his leadership.

"I, like all patriots of the country, dream that Kyrgyzstan will become economically developed, dynamic, strong, and free," Japarov said.

"A country where human rights are observed, where there is a dictatorship of law, and youth look to the future with optimism," he added, echoing a catchprase used by Russian President Vladimir Putin, who was among the first leaders to congratulate Japarov on his election victory.

International observers said the election "generally respected" fundamental freedoms even though the vote was not "fully fair."

A joint ODIHR/OSCE Parliamentary Assembly preliminary report concluded that candidates "could mostly campaign freely" but the campaign was "dominated by one candidate who benefited from disproportionate financial means and misuse of administrative resources, resulting in an uneven playing field."

Transparency International (TI) says in an annual report that the coronavirus pandemic has highlighted "widespread corruption" in countries across Eastern Europe and Central Asia, where it says "corrupt and authoritarian" leaders have reduced oversight of government spending and curtailed civil liberties.

Some political leaders in the region "used the crisis to increase their power, add restrictions to already limited access to information, eliminate transparency requirements from public procurement rules, and renounce public accountability mechanisms," the Berlin-based corruption watchdog said in its 2020 Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI), published on January 28.

As a result, the report added, transparency of foreign-aid spending has decreased, "making it difficult to track funds and ensure appropriate distribution to the intended recipients."

The CPI ranks 180 countries and territories by their perceived levels of public-sector corruption, based on 13 expert assessments and surveys of business executives. The lower the number on its 0-100 scale, the more corrupt a country is perceived to be.

TI said that countries performing well on the CPI "invest more in health care, are better able to provide universal health coverage, and are less likely to violate democratic norms and institutions or the rule of law."

But persistent corruption has undermined health-care systems in many countries and contributed to "democratic backsliding" amid the coronavirus pandemic.

"COVID-19 is not just a health and economic crisis. It is a corruption crisis. And one that we are currently failing to manage," TI Chairwoman Delia Ferreira Rubio said.

"The past year has tested governments like no other in memory, and those with higher levels of corruption have been less able to meet the challenge," Rubio said, adding that even countries at the top of the index "must urgently address their role in perpetuating corruption at home and abroad."

Denmark and New Zealand retained their places at the top of the CPI, followed by Singapore and seven Western and Northern European countries.

Eastern Europe and Central Asia remained the second-lowest performing regions in the ranking, with an average score of 36.

Georgia (56), Armenia (49), Belarus (47), and Montenegro (45) scored above the global average of 43, while Uzbekistan (26), Tajikistan (25), and Turkmenistan (19) ranked at the bottom of the region.

Belarus, where the authorities have cracked down on mass protests triggered by a contested presidential election in August, has jumped 16 points since 2012.

Corruption remains a problem in the country, where "the president's office has exercised authoritative power with little to no legislative or judicial checks and balances while the economy has mostly been controlled by the state," TI said.

Kyrgyzstan (31) jumped seven points since 2012, but the watchdog said that "widespread corruption and a lack of transparency and accountability have undermined an adequate response to COVID-19."

Bosnia-Herzegovina (35) dropped seven points over the same period, with the Balkan country experiencing "numerous violations" of human and labor rights during the pandemic, as well as "discrimination in economic aid distribution and alleged unlawful procurement of medical equipment."

Serbia (38), which earned its lowest score on the CPI in nine years, faced "serious rule-of law issues, continued democratic erosion, and efforts to silence critical voices."

TI cited several controversial steps taken by the government in response to COVID-19, including suspending parliament, implementing extensive curfews, and "inciting violence against protesters."

The government also "restricted access to information on the procurement of medical equipment, and retaliated against health-care workers who criticized its response to the public health crisis."

Kazakhstan also scored 38, Kosovo 36, North Macedonia 35, Moldova 34, and Ukraine 33.

Azerbaijan and Russia were ranked 129th, each with a score of 30.

With a score of 44, Bulgaria, Hungary, and Romania were well below the average regional score of 66 and remained the lowest performers from the Western Europe and European Union region.

Afghanistan (19) came last in RFE/RL's broadcast region despite jumping 11 points since 2012.

Afghanistan "instituted significant legal and institutional reforms and recently announced plans to establish a new anti-corruption commission," TI noted.

Pakistan ranked 124th with a score of 31, while Iran scored 25, putting the country in 149th place.

Russia hopes the extension of the last remaining U.S.-Russian arms-control treaty will give a new boost to restarting a strategic dialogue between Moscow and Washington, Russia's deputy UN ambassador has said.

"I would say that currently there are more reasons for optimism because yesterday our presidents held a telephone conversation and agreed to extend New START by five years," said Dmitry Polyansky, according to TASS. "But does this prevent problems in US-Russian relations? I would not say so."

Polyansky told a press briefing at the United Nations in New York that Moscow recognized some people in the new U.S. administration's foreign-policy team who bring a "certain legacy with them," and this "explains why we are somewhat cautious."

Polyansky did not name the people he referred to, but President Joe Biden's choice to serve as undersecretary for political affairs, Victoria Nuland, is known as a Russia hawk. She irritated the Kremlin when she expressed solidarity with demonstrators in Ukraine in the early days of a pro-Western uprising.

Nuland was assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs at the time. In her new position, she will hold the third-highest spot in the State Department.

But Nuland wrote an opinion piece last summer in which she said the next U.S. president should "try again" with Russian President Vladimir Putin to improve bilateral relations.

Polyansky said if the approach of the Biden administration is about "featuring Russia as kind of a rogue state...that deserves isolation, sanctions" and if there is no dialogue and understanding about what is behind the current world political situation, "I don’t think that there will be much of a breakthrough."

"So we're not too pessimistic," Polyansky said. "We're realists."

Polyansky said Russia will shape its opinion of the new administration and its attitude toward Russia "on the basis of concrete actions."

The diplomat said there were a lot of security and strategic issues on the table, including arms control, which required "a serious, in-depth dialogue, on equal footing."

But the first phone call between Putin and Biden underscored the troubled relations between the United States and Russia.

While the Kremlin focused on the New START treaty, the White House said Biden raised concerns about the arrest of Kremlin critic Aleksei Navalny, Moscow's alleged involvement in a massive cyber-espionage campaign, and unverified reports of Russian bounties on U.S. troops in Afghanistan.

SEE ALSO:

Were We On The Same Call? Why The Readouts of Biden's Talk With Putin Differed -- A Lot

On each of these issues, Polyansky said, "there are a lot of allegations but there are no proofs, and there are no facts."

Polyansky expressed hope that the agreement to extend the New START will spur a dialogue.

The lower house of parliament, or State Duma, voted unanimously on January 27 to extend the New START for five years. It was then approved quickly in the upper house of parliament, the Federation Council.

The extension was "a step in the right direction," Putin said in an address to the Davos Economic Summit on January 27, adding that "challenges remain" that could cause "a real setback in global development, which is fraught with a fight of all against all and attempts to resolve looming controversies through a search for internal and external enemies."

"The situation can develop unpredictably and spin out of control if nothing is done to prevent it," he said, while expressing "hope" that global conflicts are a thing of the past since they could mean "the end of civilization."

New START, the last remaining arms-control pact between Washington and Moscow, limits the number of deployed strategic nuclear warheads at 1,550, deployed strategic delivery systems at 700, and provides for a verification regime.

With reporting by AP and TASS

MOSCOW -- A Russian court has rejected opposition leader Aleksei Navalny's appeal against his arrest as authorities stepped up their campaign against the Kremlin critic with new detentions of his associates and warnings by police they will crack down on protesters expected to take to the streets this weekend in support of the 44-year-old lawyer.

Judge Musa Musayev said at a court hearing on January 28 that Navalny will remain behind bars until February 15, upholding a previous ruling ordering Navalny be incarcerated to allow a different court to decide in early February on converting a suspended 3 1/2 year sentence into real jail time in relation to an embezzlement case that is widely considered trumped up and politically motivated.

Navalny, who took part in the hearing via a video link, called his arrest a sign of the “lawlessness” that has become commonplace in Russia “with a goal to frighten me and everyone else.”

“They want to muzzle people like me," Navalny said, adding that Russia's current authorities "are not masters of our country and they will never be."

"Yes, the power now is on your side, but that will not last forever," Navalny said.

After the judge’s ruling, Navalny’s team announced that it planned to appeal to the European Court of Human Rights.

Navalny was arrested on January 17 upon returning to Russia from Germany, where he had been recovering from a near-fatal poisoning by a military-grade nerve agent in August 2020 he accuses President Vladimir Putin of ordering, a claim the Kremlin denies.

The day after his arrest, a makeshift court set up in a police station just outside of Moscow ruled the anti-corruption campaigner should be held until the other court makes its decision.

WATCH: A Russian doctor kept her cool as her home was searched by police at 3 a.m. -- playing Beethoven's Fuer Elise on her piano while officials looked on.

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Navalny Supporter Defiantly Plays Piano As Russian Police Raid Her Home

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During the appeal hearing, Navalny’s defense argued that because of his rehabilitation in Germany, he was unable to register with authorities as required by probation terms during the period. His lawyers also contested his arrest, charging that due process was repeatedly violated.

The ECHR ruled in October 2017 that the case that put him on probation was "arbitrary and manifestly unreasonable."

“In connection with the peaceful processions on January 23, more than 20 criminal cases have been initiated under seven articles of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. In connection with the poisoning of Navalny with the prohibited military poison 'Novichok' five months ago, zero cases have been initiated,” Navalny aide Leonid Volkov said in a tweet after the court ruling.

Navalny's arrest and the detention ruling sparked the largest mass nationwide protests in years on January 23 when tens of thousands of Russians took to the streets in his name. Police detained almost 4,000 people in the demonstrations.

Navalny's team has called for another round of demonstrations on January 31, prompting Russian officials to step up their campaign to stop the dissent.

Moscow police warned on January 28 that “any attempts at holding the unsanctioned public event and any provocative steps on the part of its participants will be viewed as a threat to public peace and stopped immediately, while perpetrators will be held liable consistent with the law."

A day before the appeal hearing, Navalny's two leading allies were detained for 48 hours for alleged violations of sanitary and epidemiologic regulations.

Navalny's brother, Oleg, and Lyubov Sobol, a lawyer at Navalny's Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK), were told on January 27 that they will be held in detention for two days until a court decides on their pretrial restrictions.

Sobol was detained after police searched her apartment. Her lawyer Vladimir Volkov tweeted that during questioning, police ran through a list of more than three dozen people -- including activists and actors who openly supported Navalny after his arrest earlier in January -- asking whether she knew them.

Sobol refused to answer the questions, saying it was her constitutional right, after which she was taken to a police station.

Oleg Navalny was detained after he refused to open the door for the police when they came to his brother's apartment in Moscow on January 27. Police subsequently broke the door down and entered the residence.

Also, on January 27, a leading member of the Pussy Riot protest group, Maria Alyokhina, was detained for 48 hours on similar charges of allegedly violating coronavirus regulations during the mass rally in Moscow.

According to the FBK, at least 15 homes of Navalny's associates and relatives were searched in Moscow on January 27, with police explaining the searches as a probe launched into "violation of sanitary and epidemiological regulations" stemming from mass rallies in Moscow last weekend.

On January 28, the Investigative Committee said it had launched a probe against Volkov, accusing him of calling on minors to take part in the rallies to support Navalny.

On January 27, Russia's media regulator, Roskomnadzor, said social networks -- Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, VKontakte, Odnoklassniki, and YouTube -- will face fines for failing to delete posts that encourage young people to take part in opposition protests.

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5 Things To Know About Russian Opposition Leader Aleksei Navalny

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The Navalny affair has also struck a chord outside the country.

In a joint statement on January 27, the foreign ministers of the G7 group of rich nations -- Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the U.K., and the U.S. -- described Navalny's detention as "deplorable" and called for his "immediate and unconditional release."

Moscow rebuffed the call, accusing the West of interfering in the internal affairs of Russia.

With reporting by TASS, Reuters, dpa, and Interfax

Ukraine's former national-security chief, Oleksandr Danylyuk, has called the election of Joe Biden "excellent news" for Kyiv but said the new U.S. administration will lay down strict preconditions for cooperation, including pushing out corrupt officials.

Danylyuk told a U.S.-Ukraine Business Council virtual conference on January 27 that Biden's team knows "Ukraine well" and it will be very difficult for the nation's officials to "bullshit them."

Danylyuk said Biden's victory will be bad news for some current and former Ukraine officials, including those involved in helping the Trump administration look for dirt on Biden's son Hunter, who sat on the board of a Kyiv-based gas company.

Trump's request to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy during a July 2019 call to help him find compromising information on his Democratic competitor led the House of Representatives to charge him with two crimes.

Trump was eventually acquitted by the Senate in early 2020, but the case damaged his administration's relationship with Kyiv.

"The new [Biden] administration will be effective in communicating, cooperating with Ukraine, but under certain conditions. Certain people involved -- for example in the impeachment scandals -- will have to go," Danylyuk told the conference.

He said those officials were operating in their own interest rather than in the interests of Ukraine.

Danylyuk said Zelenskiy’s government was "very weak" and that this could pose a challenge to the United States as it pushes Kyiv to carry out tough reforms.

"It's very difficult to be a strong partner [to the United States], when the execution is weak. It's difficult to plan something when you know there's no one to implement it properly," he said.

He called anti-corruption and judiciary reform the most important issues that Ukraine needs to tackle and described the annulment of anti-corruption reforms in October as the "worst news" for the country in 2020 aside from the pandemic.

"Unless the key topics of anti corruption and judiciary are tackled, nothing is going to change in the country," he said. "You can have wonderful economic policy, you can address the energy issues, but these two things impede the development of the country."

Biden, who oversaw Ukraine policy while serving as U.S. vice president from 2009 to 2017, including traveling to Kyiv six times during that period, has yet to speak with Zelenskiy since taking office on January 20.

Danylyuk resigned in September 2019, after four months on the job, amid concern over corruption in the Zelenskiy administration.

He said he is forming a think tank with two other former officials to create a platform for people "who would like to change the country."

A Taliban delegation has held talks with high-ranking Iranian officials in Tehran amid ongoing peace talks between the Afghan government and the militant group.

Taliban spokesman Mohammad Naeem tweeted that the delegation led by deputy leader Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar met with Ali Shamkhani, the secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, and other officials on January 27.

Naeem said the two sides discussed the Afghan peace process, border issues, and Afghan refugees.

Shamkhani was quoted by Iranian state media as saying that Tehran would "never recognize a group that wants to come to power through war," and urged the Taliban to reach a peace settlement with the internationally recognized government in Kabul.

Baradar was quoted as saying that the militant group does not "trust the United States and we will fight any group that is a mercenary for the United States," in reference to the Afghan government.

The relationship between Shi’ite-majority Iran and the Taliban, a fundamentalist Sunni group, is complex. Iran officially opposes the Taliban, but a number of experts claim that Tehran provides some military support to the Taliban.

The Taliban’s visit to Afghanistan's western neighbor comes as peace talks in the Gulf state of Qatar remain deadlocked.

U.S. President Joe Biden's new administration has said it is reviewing an agreement reached with the Taliban last year to determine if the militant group is meeting its commitments, including reaching a cease-fire and engaging in meaningful negotiations with the Afghan government.

Under a U.S.-Taliban deal reached last February, all foreign forces are to leave Afghanistan by May 2021 in exchange for security guarantees from the militant group, including severing ties with the Al-Qaeda terrorist group.

The Afghan government said it welcomed the Biden administration’s review of the U.S.-Taliban agreement.

With reporting by Tolo News, Pajhwok, and The National

The U.S. military says it flew a B-52 bomber over the Persian Gulf in a show of force "to deter potential aggression" amid fears that heightened tensions with Iran could result in attacks on U.S. or allied targets in the region.

It was the third such mission this year and the first since President Joe Biden took office on January 20.

U.S. Central Command said the bomber carried out a round trip from Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana that ended on January 27.

"This long-range, short-duration defensive mission was intended to demonstrate the U.S. military's ability to deploy airpower anywhere in the world to deter potential aggression and showcase the US commitment to regional security," U.S. Central Command said in a statement.

Tensions between the United States and Iran have soared since 2018, when former President Donald Trump withdrew Washington from a nuclear deal between Tehran and world powers and imposed crippling sanctions on the Islamic republic.

Biden has stated a desire to return to the deal if Iran honors the agreement’s limits on its nuclear program. Iran has called on Biden to remove the sanctions first before any further steps can be taken.

YAKUTSK, Russia -- A shaman in the Siberian region of Yakutia who has had several attempts to march on foot to Moscow "to drive President Vladimir Putin out of the Kremlin" stopped by authorities, has been forcibly taken to a psychiatric clinic again after announcing a plan to resume his trek to the Russian capital.

Aleksei Pryanishnikov, legal coordinator for the opposition group Open Russia, told RFE/RL on January 27 that police and officials at a psychiatric clinic in Yakutia's capital, Yakutsk, had detained Aleksandr Gabyshev while giving little information on the reasons.

"At this point, we do not know on what grounds they detained him. I think we will get the details tomorrow," Pryanishnikov said, adding that Gabyshev’s lawyers are now with him.

On January 9, Gabyshev said heplanned to leave in March for the Russian capital from his native Yakutia on horseback in another attempt to try to drive Putin out of the Kremlin. His supporters were expected to follow in cars.

Gabyshev first made headlines in March 2019 when he called Putin "evil" and announced that he had started a march to Moscow to drive the Russian president out of office.

He then walked more than 2,000 kilometers, speaking with hundreds of Russians along the way.

As his notoriety rose, videos of his conversations with people were posted on social media and attracted millions of views.

In July that year, when Gabyshev reached the city of Chita, he led a 700-strong rally under the slogan "Russia without Putin!"

At the time, Gabyshev said, "God told me that Putin is not human but a demon, and has ordered me to drive him out."

His march was halted when he was detained in the region of Buryatia later in September.

His forced stay in a clinic was equated by many with a Soviet-era practice used to muzzle dissent.

Shamans have served as healers and diviners in Siberia for centuries.

During the Soviet era, the mystics were harshly repressed. But in isolated parts of Siberia, they are now returning to prominence.

A Russian court has fined several of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty's Russian-language projects and its general director a total of 1.1 million rubles ($14,500) for failing to comply with new restrictions under the country’s "foreign agent" law.

The Tverskoi District Court in Moscow on January 27 ruled in favor of four administrative protocols submitted by Russian media regulator Roskomnadzor "for noncompliance by the media performing the functions of a foreign agent with the requirements of the law on labeling information disseminated by them."

RFE/RL was fined 1 million rubles by the court, while the general director of the services was fined 100,000 rubles.

On January 12, Roskomnadzor submitted a total of eight protocols that target four of RFE/RL's Russian-language projects -- its main service for Russia, Radio Liberty; the Current Time TV and digital network; and Siberia Realities (Sibir.Realii) and Idel Realities (Idel.Realii), two regional sites delivering local news and information to audiences in Siberia and the Volga-Urals.

Rulings on the four other protocols are expected in February.

Among other things, the law requires certain news organizations that receive foreign funding to label content within Russia as being produced by a "foreign agent."

The law also puts RFE/RL journalists at risk for criminal prosecution.

An independent nonprofit corporation that receives funding from the U.S. Congress, RFE/RL has not complied with the order. The mounting fines could potentially force the company to shutter its presence within Russia.

U.S. Republican and Democratic lawmakers recently called for new sanctions against Moscow if the Kremlin moves to enforce the stringent restrictions and punishing fines that threaten RFE/RL’s news operations in Russia.

Russian regulators have singled out RFE/RL, whose editorial independence is also enshrined in U.S. law, over other foreign news operations in Russia.

Since early in Vladimir Putin’s presidency, the Kremlin has steadily tightened the screws on independent media.

The country is ranked 149th out of 180 places in the World Press Freedom Index produced by Reporters Without Borders.

Ukrainian authorities say they have exposed a group of hackers who interfered with the computer network servers of several European and U.S. banks, causing losses of $2.5 billion.

The Prosecutor-General's Office said in a statement on January 27 that since 2014, "hackers from Ukraine" have used malicious software designed to steal personal data such as passwords and logins from servers from private and state banking institutions in Austria, Britain, Germany, Lithuania the Netherlands, Switzerland, and the United States.

The prosecutors said computer and server equipment were seized in police raids in the Kharkiv region.

The investigation was carried out in coordination with the EU’s judicial cooperation unit Eurojust, the European policing agency Europol, as well as U.S. and German law enforcement agencies, the statement said.

It did not give further details.

Groups of masked security forces have broken down doors and teemed into buildings across Moscow in a sweep of places associated with Aleksei Navalny, days before another nationwide protest in support of the jailed Kremlin critic.

The sweep on January 27 included Navalny's apartment, where police detained his brother, Oleg, and a rented apartment where Navalny's wife, Yulia, has been living. It also included offices from his Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK) and the Navalny Live studio, which produces videos and broadcasts revealing corruption at all levels of government, and, in particular, the Kremlin and those around President Vladimir Putin.

Some reports said Oleg Navalny was detained by police.

A couple of Navalny associates already in jail for organizing a January 23 protest across the country that showed officials a glimpse of the growing anger toward the Kremlin over graft and Navalny's incarceration were brought from detention centers to their homes to allow police to search the premises.

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"Today the police came to the FBK office, the Navalny LIVE studio, to the home of Alexey and Yulia Navalny, as well as to @olsnov, @Kira_Yarmysh, @alburov and @DrAnastasy...These searches are illegal and serve one purpose - to intimidate us. But on January 31, all of Russia will take to the streets again," the Navalny Live team said in a tweet, referring to Navalny associates Oleg Stepanov, Kira Yarmysh, Georgy Alburov, and Anastasia Vasilyeva.

According to Arseny Vesnin, a journalist with Ekho Moskvy, police searched around 20 sites linked to Navalny and his team.

Russian media, citing a source in the security agencies, reported that the reason given for the raids was violations of coronavirus hygiene restrictions.

"There are lots of "heavies" [security officers] wearing masks. They started to break down the door. Oleg Navalny [Aleksei's brother] is in the apartment. We do not know why or on what basis they are conducting the search," Zhdanov said in a tweet.

Zhdanov also posted video taken at another location showing Yulia Navalnaya telling police to wait for her lawyer to arrive as they banged loudly at the door.

Navalnaya's lawyer, Veronika Polyakova, was allowed inside the apartment by police after standing outside the door for several hours.

Navalny was arrested on January 17 upon returning to Russia from Germany, where he had been recovering from a near-fatal poisoning by a military-grade nerve agent in August that he accuses Putin of ordering.

A court later extended his detention for 30 days to allow for a different court to decide in early February on converting the suspended 3 1/2 year sentence into jail time.

Navalny's FBK and other activists organized mass rallies across Russia on January 23, demanding the 44-year-old politician's immediate release.

Thousands were arrested during the unsanctioned rallies despite the fact that almost all of the demonstrators were peaceful.

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What's Different About The Latest Protests Across Russia?

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The coordinator of Navalny's teams across the country, Leonid Volkov, wrote on Twitter on January 27 that the search of Navalny's apartment must be linked to the activists' plans to resume the protests on January 31.

Navalny's detention and the sometimes violent crackdown on the protesters has sparked outrage among many Western countries.

U.S. President Joe Biden told Russian leader Vladimir Putin in a January 26 phone call that Washington was concerned about Navalny's arrest, while EU foreign ministers on January 25 agreed to wait and see if Navalny is released before deciding to impose fresh sanctions on Russia.

The foreign ministers of the Group of Seven (G7) also criticized the jailing of Navalny and the detention of demonstrators demanding his release.

"We are...deeply concerned by the detention of thousands of peaceful protesters and journalists, and call upon Russia to adhere to its national and international obligations and release those detained arbitrarily for exercising their right of peaceful assembly," the group of some of the world's richest nations said in a statement.

Moscow rebuffed the global criticism saying that the situation around Navalny had complicated Moscow's ties with the European Union and accused the West of "gross interference" in Russia's domestic affairs.

"The actions linked to the so-called "poisoning" of Navalny has led to a spike in unfriendly actions that has thrown into question the possibility of building further cooperation with the European Union itself," the statement said.

With reporting by TASS, Reuters, dpa, and Interfax

Iranian President Hassan Rohani has criticized Iran's judiciary over the prosecution of the country’s telecommunications minister after he allegedly refused to block Instagram and impose restrictions on other foreign social media and messaging platforms.

Mohammad Javad Azari Jahromi was summoned for prosecution last week but Rohani, seen as a moderate, challenged the Islamic nation's judiciary during a cabinet meeting on January 27, saying that while a lack of control on content is wrong, the "closure" of social media is also misguided.

“If you want to try someone, try me,” he said, noting that improving Internet bandwidth in Iran was done on his orders.

"These days, the Internet is like oxygen for people...to want to restrict it would be absolutely wrong.... How else can we expect people to do everything from home and teach their children online during the pandemic?” he asked.

Jahromi has been released on bail. His prosecution is seen as part of a political struggle between moderates and conservative hard-liners ahead of the presidential election in June.

Hard-liners in the Iranian parliament, judiciary, and other powerful bodies have long viewed social-messaging services as part of a “soft war” waged by the West against the clerical establishment that is responsible for "social immorality" in the country.

Many websites and social-media platforms are blocked in Iran, including YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and Telegram, but the restrictions are ignored by many Iranians who access them via proxy VPN services.

With reporting by AP, dpa, and ISNA

BISHKEK -- The trial of the former deputy chief of Kyrgyzstan's Customs Service, Raimbek Matraimov, who was placed on the U.S. Magnitsky sanctions list for his alleged involvement in the illegal funneling of hundreds of millions of dollars abroad, will start on February 3.

The Supreme Court of Kyrgyzstan said on January 27 that the case will be tried in the Bishkek Birinchi Mai district court.

Matraimov was detained on corruption charges in October 2020 and placed under house arrest.

Kyrgyz authorities said at the time that he had agreed to pay about 2 billion soms ($23.5 million) in preliminary damages to the state through 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. If the court decides not to pursue jail time, it can assess full damages at trial.

In June 2019, an investigation by RFE/RL, the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, and Kloop implicated Matraimov in a corruption scheme involving the transfer of hundreds of millions of dollars out of Kyrgyzstan by Chinese-born Uyghur businessman Aierken Saimaiti, who was assassinated in Istanbul in November 2019.

SEE ALSO:

How A Kyrgyz Customs Chief Enabled A Secretive Smuggling Empire

In early December 2020, the U.S. Treasury Department announced that it had slapped sanctions on Matraimov for his role in a vast corruption and money-laundering scheme.

The $700 million scheme involved a company controlled by Matraimov bribing officials to skirt around customs fees and regulations, as well as engaging in money laundering, “allowing for maximum profits,” the Treasury Department said.

The sanctions fell under the Magnitsky Act, a piece of legislation passed by the United States in 2012 that penalizes individuals responsible for committing human rights violations or acts of significant corruption.

Last week, a spokesperson for Kyrgyzstan's state registration service, Damira Azimbaeva, confirmed to RFE/RL that both Matraimov and his wife, Uulkan Turgunova, had changed their surnames.

Earlier reports said that Raimbek Matraimov had changed his last name into Ismailov, and his wife had changed her surname into Sulaimanova, which many considered as a move to evade the U.S.-imposed sanctions.

There have been no official statements from the lawyers of Matraimov's family to explain the decision to change surnames.