Dozens of member states of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) have invoked the so-called Vienna Mechanism to request answers from Belarus on “serious human rights violations and abuses” taking place in the country following a disputed presidential election in August 2020.

In a letter dated November 4 and sent to the Belarusian permanent representative to the OSCE in Vienna, the United States, Canada, all EU member states except Poland, and seven other European countries said the situation in Belarus has “deteriorated” over the past year.

The 35 countries asked Minsk to provide answers on the use of “excessive force” against peaceful protesters, “arbitrary or unjust” arrests or detention, and “more than 1,500 cases of credible reports of torture and other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment,” among other things.

The Belarusian authorities are requested to respond to the demand within 10 days.

Authoritarian leader Alyaksandr Lukashenka has cracked down hard on the pro-democracy movement and civil society after unprecedented anti-government protests erupted across Belarus following the August 2020 election in which he claimed reelection to a sixth term.

Thousands of people have been arrested, dozens of news websites blocked, and independent media shuttered as part of the sweeping clampdown, which has pushed most of the top opposition figures out of the country.

The opposition and the West say the presidential vote was rigged to keep Lukashenka in power. The European Union, the United States, and other countries have refused to recognize Lukashenka as Belarus's legitimate leader.

More than a month after the election -- in September 2020 -- 17 OSCE member states triggered the so-called Moscow Mechanism to establish a mission of experts to report on human rights violations and abuses occurring before, during, and after the vote.

The report concluded that the elections results were neither free nor fair, and “massive and systematic” violations and abuses of human rights and fundamental freedoms had been committed by the security forces.

The document also provided recommendations to the Belarusian authorities to help end the political crisis in the country, including establishing a dialogue with representatives of the opposition and civil society.

The United States has announced a reward of up to $10 million for information leading to the identification or location of any individual holding a “key leadership” position in DarkSide, a cybercrime group believed to be tied to Russia.

The State Department said in a statement on November 4 that it was also offering a reward of up to $5 million for information leading to the arrest or conviction in any country of an individual “conspiring to participate in or attempting to participate” in a DarkSide ransomware incident earlier this year.

The FBI identified the DarkSide syndicate behind the largest publicly disclosed cyberattack against critical infrastructure in the United States.

The group disbanded after its ransomware attack on Colonial Pipeline disrupted fuel service to the U.S. East Coast for six days in May.

SEE ALSO:

Fuel Shortages Spread To U.S. Capital After Pipeline Cyberattack

Colonial Pipeline officials eventually paid a ransom of more than $4 million. The Justice Department later said it had recovered most of the bitcoin ransom.

At the time, President Joe Biden said that U.S. officials do not believe the Russian government was involved in the hack but added: “We do have strong reason to believe that the criminals who did the attack are living in Russia. That’s where it came from.”

“In offering this reward, the United States demonstrates its commitment to protecting ransomware victims around the world from exploitation by cyber criminals,” the State Department said in its statement.

It added that the United States “looks to nations who harbor ransomware criminals that are willing to bring justice for those victim businesses and organizations affected by ransomware.”

In September, another ransomware attack believed to be the work of Russian hackers forced an association of corn and soy farmers based in the U.S. state of Iowa to take its systems offline.

The attack was attributed to a group called BlackMatter, which security researchers believed may be a reconstituted version of DarkSide.

BUDAPEST -- A top official in Hungary's governing party has confirmed for the first time that the government had bought spyware that was allegedly used to monitor journalists, lawyers, businesspeople, and opposition figures in dozens of countries around the world.

Lajos Kosa, the chairman of the parliament's Committee on Defense and Law Enforcement, told journalists on November 4 following a closed committee session that the Interior Ministry had bought Pegasus software produced by Israel’s NSO Group.

The company became the center of controversy after an international media consortium reported in July that its Pegasus spyware was used in attempts to hack smartphones belonging to journalists, human rights activists, business executives, and officials in some 50 countries.

Hungary was named in the reports as one of the countries trying to infiltrate the digital devices of a number of targets, triggering protests in Budapest.

Smartphones infected with Pegasus enable operators to record phone calls, access text messages, photos, e-mails, and passwords, track GPS data, and secretly activate microphones and cameras.

Kosa, a member of Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s ruling Fidesz party, said that in all cases of surveillance authorities acted legally after receiving the permission of a judge or the Justice Ministry.

Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto had previously denied knowing about such data collection, joining other ruling party members in dismissing allegations that the government illegally spied on citizens.

Opposition lawmakers are demanding a probe into the use of Pegasus. They complain that the findings of two special committee sessions examining the case have been classified by the governing party until 2050.

Hungary's government is at odds with many other European Union member states over issues regarding the rule of law and democracy.

The admission comes a day after the United States put the NSO Group on a trade blacklist, saying its software was behind the “transnational repression” carried out by some foreign governments.

With reporting by AP and ATV

A Russian analyst who gathered information for the so-called Steele dossier alleging potential ties between Donald Trump's 2016 campaign and Russia has been charged with lying to U.S. federal investigators.

A grand jury indictment unsealed in a federal court in Virginia on November 4 charged Igor Danchenko with five counts of false statements when he was questioned by FBI agents about the dossier, which turned out to be Democratic-funded opposition research.

Danchenko, who lives in the United States and previously worked for the Brookings Institution think tank in Washington, was set to appear in court later in the day.

The case was brought as part of an investigation led by Special Counsel John Durham, who was appointed by Trump to probe the origins of the FBI's probe into ties between Russia and his 2016 presidential campaign.

Danchenko was the primary researcher for Christopher Steele, a former British spy who prepared the dossier for Fusion GPS, which was working for a law firm that represented the Democratic Party and Hillary Clinton's 2016 presidential campaign.

Some of the research Danchenko compiled was provided to the FBI and used to receive surveillance warrants targeting a former Trump campaign aide.

The dossier is filled with rumors, third-hand sourcing, and unproven assertions that Trump himself was compromised and his campaign conspired with Russian intelligence to undermine Clinton’s presidential bid.

Over time, the FBI investigated the dossier’s claims but was unable to confirm or corroborate most of its allegations, according to the indictment.

Danchenko has previously suggested that the information he offered to Steele was not meant to be portrayed as indisputable fact, and that he was not responsible for how Steele made the information public.

“Even raw intelligence from credible sources, I take it with a grain of salt,” Danchenko told The New York Times last year. “Who knows, what if it’s not particularly accurate? Is it just a rumor or is there more to it?”

Danchenko, who previously wrote a report indicating that Russian President Vladimir Putin plagiarized his dissertation, has repeatedly denied suggestions that he was a Russian agent.

An investigation led by Special Counsel Robert Mueller ultimately found Russia meddled in the 2016 election, but did not find sufficient evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia.

Based on reporting by AP and Reuters

The Russian and Belarusian leaders have signed off on a series of road maps aimed at deepening the integration of the two neighbors as part of a decades-old plan to create a “Union State,” state media reported on November 4, as Minsk faces growing international pressure following last year's disputed presidential election.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Belarusian strongman Alyaksandr Lukashenka signed an agreement providing for a total of 28 integration “programs” at an online meeting of the Supreme State Council of the Union State.

The document focuses mainly on economic and regulatory issues, including common policies on taxation, banking, industry, agriculture, and energy. In addition, the two leaders approved a joint military doctrine.

There was no mention of issues surrounding political integration.

Moscow and Minsk signed a Union State treaty in 1999 and have been negotiating on and off since then.

The project would be a major step toward uniting the two countries’ economies and political structures, but also could undermine Belarus's sovereignty, something Lukashenka has strenuously resisted for years.

But the authoritarian leader has been increasingly isolated and shunned by much of the international community since a presidential election in August 2020 in which he claimed reelection to a sixth term.

The vote was condemned by Belarus’s opposition and the West as rigged, and prompted months of street protests that Belarusian security forces have harshly cracked down on.

The European Union, the United States, and other countries have not recognized Lukashenka as Belarus’s president and imposed several rounds of sanctions over a sweeping crackdown on the political opposition, civil society, and independent media.

Amid the isolation, Lukashenka has moved closer to Russia, seeking loans and military support from Putin.

Speaking during the televised video meeting with Lukashenka on November 4, Putin promised Moscow's continued backing.

"We will together resist any attempts to interfere in the internal affairs of our sovereign states and Russia will, of course, continue to provide assistance to the brotherly Belarusian people," the Russian president said from Crimea, a Ukrainian Black Sea peninsula that Moscow illegally annexed in 2014.

Lukashenka thanked Putin for his support.

"The unprecedented external pressure has become a serious test of strength for the relations between our countries. We can say with confidence that we have passed that test," he said.

Exiled opposition leader Svyatlana Tsikhanouskaya said Lukashenka no longer had the legitimacy to sign such documents and said people were being kept in the dark about the details involved.

“In 2020 our people denied authorization for Lukashenka to sign anything on their behalf,” she tweeted.

With reporting by AFP

MOSCOW -- Police in the Russian capital have detained nationalist activists ahead of an unsanctioned public event known as the Russian March that has been banned since 2019.

Avtozak Live online news channel reported on November 4 that at least 18 people, including reporters with the Associated Press, RBK, and Izvestia, were detained by police at a subway station in Moscow.

According to the channel, police are patrolling Barrikadnaya subway station, where the participants in the Russian March were scheduled to meet.

Nationalist groups announced earlier that they planned to hold demonstrations in Moscow and a handful of other Russian cities, as the country marks the annual National Unity Day holiday.

The Moscow city prosecutor's office warned residents of the Russian capital of possible repercussions for holding and taking part in unsanctioned public events.

On November 3, one of the organizers of the rally in Moscow, Nikita Zaitsev, was arrested and sentenced to 10 days in jail on a charge of disobeying the police.

The holiday, held on November 4, was established in 2005 by President Vladimir Putin as a replacement for Soviet-era commemorations of the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution.

Russian officials have tried to promote the holiday, which formally marks a battlefield victory over Polish forces in 1612, as a way to bolster patriotism.

Right-wing, nationalist, and monarchist groups have used the day to stage xenophobic and anti-immigrant marches, and past holidays have seen scuffles between protesters and riot police.

Past demonstrations have also failed to garner much turnout.

In 2019, Moscow, Mayor Sergei Sobyanin for the first time refused to issue a permit to organizers of the Russian March.

Belarusian soldiers bringing illegal migrants to the border of Poland "threatened to open fire" on Polish troops, the Poland’s Defense Ministry said on November 4, in what it described as the latest attempt by Minsk to escalate the situation at the frontier.

The incident comes as thousands of migrants from the Middle East and Africa in recent months have attempted to illegally enter Poland and fellow EU members Latvia and Lithuania from Belarus.

The EU accuses Belarusian strongman Alyaksandr Lukashenka of flying in migrants and funneling them to the bloc's borders to retaliate against Brussels for sanctions imposed over a sweeping crackdown on the political opposition, civil society, and independent media since last year’s disputed presidential election.

In a statement, the Defense Ministry said that on November 3 Polish soldiers located around 250 migrants near a border fence and Belarusian troops “guarding them, threatened to open fire on our soldiers.”

“The actions of Belarusian soldiers looked like an attempt to escalate the situation, but also an attempt to conceal the fact that a group of migrants had entered the territory of [the] Republic of Poland,” the Defense Ministry said.

A day earlier, Poland accused Belarus of staging an armed “intrusion” when unidentified uniformed men crossed into its territory overnight on November 1-2. The ministry summoned the Belarusian charge d'affaires to protest “deliberate escalation” on the border.

SEE ALSO:

Poland Summons Belarusian Envoy Over Armed 'Intrusion'

In response, the Belarusian Foreign Ministry said it had made a "strong protest" to a Polish diplomat over claims of the border breach.

"Belarus has never provoked and does not intend to provoke border incidents, therefore it categorically rejects such provocations," the Foreign Ministry said in a November 4 statement.

Poland has imposed a state of emergency at the border, put up razor wire, and increased the number of soldiers and guards to stem the flow of migrants crossing from Belarus. Lawmakers last week also approved the building of a $407 million wall on its eastern border.

SEE ALSO:

Polish Lawmakers Approve Belarus Border Wall Amid Migrant Crossing Surge

Last month, the Polish Border Guards said Belarusian forces fired shots -- possibly blank ammunition -- at its soldiers. In other cases, Poland accused Belarusian forces of destroying a razor-wire barrier on the border or encouraging migrants to do so.

With reporting by AFP and Reuters

Most of the ammunition and nearly all the weapons used by Ukrainian separatist forces was produced in what is today Russia, according to a detailed weapons-tracing study.

Kyiv and its Western backers have long accused Moscow of transferring arms to separatist forces in eastern Ukraine, fueling a conflict that has killed more than 13,000 people since 2014.

Previous analyses of Russia's support for armed formations in eastern Ukraine relied on open-source photos and videos and government intelligence.

But the three-year study published on November 3 offers a more granular view of arms transfers using forensic documentation of ammunition and military equipment recovered from the battlefield.

"The evidence confirms that factories based in what is today the Russian Federation produced most of the militias' ammunition and nearly all their weapons, from assault rifles and precision rifles, grenade launchers, precision-guided munitions, and land mines to anti-tank guided weapons," researchers from the Berlin-based Conflict Armament Research said.

Researchers examined thousands of rounds of ammunition and 43 weapons to arrive at the conclusion that nearly all weaponry came from Russia, in some cases having been manufactured during the Soviet Union, but also being produced in a significant proportion after the dissolution of the U.S.S.R.

The study found several types of grenade launchers, rifles, and land mines were never used by the Ukrainian military, suggesting many weapons were not captured by separatist forces and then put to use on the battlefield.

While aging Kalashnikov rifles used by militia groups around the globe are often assembled from parts of several guns, the researchers found that a "large proportion" of weapons used by militias in eastern Ukraine bear matching serial numbers.

"The lack of component mixing suggests a short chain of custody between the point at which weapons left a production facility or military inventory and use by armed formations operating" in eastern Ukraine, the report says.

The investigation also exposed the systematic obliteration of primary identifying marks on certain weapons, such as rocket launchers.

"It is likely that parties removed the marks either to conceal evidence of the precise point of diversion or to mask the country of manufacture," the report says.

The study traced components of Russian-manufactured unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and concludeds that "the militias are deploying a fleet of Russian-made drones in Ukraine."

Russian entities have also been able to acquire British, Czech, French, German, Spanish, and U.S.-made components for the drones despite Western sanctions on the Russian defense sector.

"Despite the 2014 EU arms embargo on the Russian Federation, key EU-made technology has thus made its way into Russian military drones," the report says.

The "investigation indicates that a general lack of clarity regarding the end use or end user of components, as well as opaque licensing requirements for dual-use components, may facilitate the export of EU-made components for the manufacture of Russian military UAVs," the study says.

Three Uzbek journalists and a private businesswoman have been sentenced on charges of libel and disobeying the authorities.

The Supreme Court said on November 3 that a lower court in the southern region of Qashqadaryo sentenced the same day Elyorbek Tojiboev, a correspondent with the Effect.uz website, to three years in a colony settlement.

In the tightly controlled former Soviet republic, decisions by regional courts are very often made public by the Supreme Court.

A colony settlement is a dormitory-like penitentiary located near an industrial facility where convicts work alongside the general public.

Two other journalists with Effect.uz, Akbar Nurimbetov and Hamidjon Ahmedov, were handed parole-like sentences of three and and 2 1/2 years, respectively.

Another defendant in the case, businesswoman Guzal Khudoyorova, was sentenced to two years of restricted freedom.

The four were found guilty of libel, insulting representatives of public authorities, and disobeying the authorities.

The charges against the journalists and Khudoyorova stemmed from a video the reporters shot in January at the trial of blogger Otabek Sattoriy, where a judge and several journalists engaged in an argument regarding the legality of the media presence in court.

After the journalists published the video, the region's Judges Councils filed a lawsuit against the reporters and Khudoyorova, who had been present in court backing the journalists' demand that they had a right to cover the trial of Sattoriy.

The Judges Council accused the four of insulting the judge and bailiffs, disobeying an official order to leave the courtroom, and spreading untruthful information about the authorities by publishing the video.

It is not known how the reporters and Khudoyorova pleaded.

In June, several journalists from Effect.uz were beaten in the eastern city of Andijon by the son of the city council's chairman.

In May, a court in the southern Surxondaryo region sentenced Sattoriy, who has been known for reports critical of local government, to 6 1/2 years in prison on what he and rights groups called "trumped-up" extortion and slander charges.

Sattoriy rejected the charges as politically motivated.

Uzbekistan is ranked 157th out of 180 countries in Reporters Without Borders 2020 World Press Freedom Index.

Two former inmates of the penal colony in Russia's Vladimir region have described what they said were the penitentiary administration's methods used to put pressure on jailed opposition leader Aleksei Navalny.

Nariman Osmanov and Yevgeny Burak told Dozhd TV in an interview broadcast on November 4 that the colony administration placed Navalny in a group of inmates that had been specially formed to deal with the opposition leader.

According to Osmanov, all the inmates in the brigade had been instructed not to talk to Navalny and record each of his steps on a daily basis.

Burak said that at least 10 inmates always followed Navalny, even in bathrooms, constantly trying to provoke the politician to hit them, which Navalny managed to avoid.

Osmanov and Burak said that a purported documentary film was shown in the colony insinuating that Navalny was gay.

Homosexual inmates in jails and prisons across Russia and most of the former Soviet republics face daily humiliation and torture and are forced to do menial work.

Osmanov also said that when Navalny was on hunger strike in the colony, prison guards moved next to his bed the bed of an inmate who was said to be suffering from tuberculosis -- a rumor later proven to be not true.

Osmanov said that during Navalny's hunger strike, some inmates brought a bag of sausages to the barrack and started roasting the sausages on the premises, which is usually not permitted.

According to Osmanov, all the actions were ordered by the penitentiary administration.

Navalny was arrested in January on his return to Russia from Germany, where he was treated for a nerve-agent poisoning he claims was carried out by Russian security agents at President Vladimir Putin's behest, which the Kremlin has denied.

Navalny was subsequently sentenced to 2 1/2 years in prison on a parole violation on a conviction that he denounces as absurd and politically motivated.

Thousands of Russians were detained during nationwide protests calling for his release.

With reporting by Dozhd

Thousands of Iranians have attended the government-organized commemorations of the 1979 seizure of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, chanting "Death to America" and "Death to Israel," and burning U.S. and Israeli flags.

The embassy takeover sparked a 444-day hostage crisis and a break in diplomatic relations between the two countries that continues today.

State television on November 4 said that 800 cities across Iran staged demonstrations. Last year, the authorities canceled the event due to the coronavirus pandemic.

General Hossein Salami, the commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), delivered a speech to the crowds in Tehran condemning what he called the U.S. aggression in the region over the past decades. A large U.S. flag was spread on the street so protesters could stomp on it.

The commemoration marks the events on November 4, 1979, when hard-line Iranian student demonstrators overran guards and pushed into the embassy compound, enraged that U.S. President Jimmy Carter had allowed Iran's exiled and fatally ill Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi to receive cancer treatment in the United States.

The November 4 commemorations across Iran came a day after the European Union, Iran, and the United States announced that indirect talks to resuscitate the landmark 2015 nuclear deal between world powers and the Islamic republic would resume on November 29 in Vienna after months of hiatus.

SEE ALSO:

Talks To Salvage Iran Nuclear Deal To Restart On November 29

In comments broadcast on state TV, ultraconservative President Ebrahim Raisi reiterated that Iran wants "result-oriented" nuclear talks and would "stand against excessive demands which could damage our nation's interests."

Former U.S. President Donald Trump withdrew from the landmark accord in 2018 and imposed crushing sanctions.

Trump's successor, Joe Biden, who took office in January, has pledged to rejoin the deal if Iran returns to full compliance. But talks that resumed in April in Vienna were halted after Raisi's election in June.

With reporting by AP and AFP

KYIV -- The Ukrainian parliament has approved the appointment of the former deputy prime minister, Oleksiy Reznikov, to the post of defense minister.

A total of 273 lawmakers voted for Reznikov’s appointment to the post on November 4, a day after parliament accepted Reznikov's resignation as deputy prime minister for the reintegration of eastern regions controlled by Russia-backed separatists. Some 74 lawmakers abstained.

The 55-year-old Reznikov represented Ukraine on the working political subgroup at the Trilateral Contact Group, which meets to try and resolve the ongoing conflict in parts of Ukraine's eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, commonly known as the Donbas.

Russia seized Ukraine's Crimea region and began backing fighters in parts of the two eastern provinces after months-long protests in Kyiv prompted Kremlin-leaning President Viktor Yanukovych to flee in February 2014.

The resulting seven-year war has taken the lives of more than 13,200 people and, along with the forcible annexation of Crimea, devastated Ukraine’s economy.

The Ukrainian government’s parliamentary envoy, Taras Melnychuk, said on November 3 that lawmakers will vote on November 4 to fill four vacant ministerial posts after a series of resignations this week.

Iryna Vereshchuk has been nominated to take Reznikov’s former post; Pavlo Ryabikin to the post of minister for strategic industries; while Yulia Svyrydenko is the candidate to the post of the first deputy prime minister and minister of economy.

A Dutch newspaper says Russian authorities have expelled its correspondent who has lived in the country since 2015 -- the second such decision against a Western journalist in months.

The De Volkskrant daily said in its report on November 3 that its correspondent Tom Vennink's residence permit in Russia was canceled two days earlier due to what authorities called "two administrative violations."

According to the newspaper, Vennink was informed that he was barred from entering Russia until January 2025 and ordered to leave the country in three days.

Russia's Interior Ministry explained the decision by citing two alleged violations -- Vennink's failure to inform authorities in Moscow in a timely manner about his new address in 2019, for which he was ordered to pay a fine, and the journalist visiting the Far Eastern Chukotka Peninsula in January 2020 without obtaining preliminary permission from the region's authorities.

"It is a mystery to us why the Russian government has decided this now," De Volkskrant's Editor in Chief Pieter Klok said, adding that in previous years "such administrative violations were never an obstacle to extending the residence permit."

In an interview with RFE/RL’s Russian Service, Vennink said “there were already some issues” in getting a new accreditation from the Foreign Ministry.

“I [usually] get an accreditation for one year. But [last] time, I only got an accreditation for seven weeks. And there was no explanation for this given to me,” he said from Amsterdam.

SEE ALSO:

BBC's Longtime Russia Reporter Forced Out, Still Questioning 'Security Threat' Label

The Dutch Foreign Ministry expressed regret about the Russian authorities' decision.

"It is not acceptable for the Netherlands if a journalist has to leave a country against his will. Press freedom is a great asset," outgoing Dutch Foreign Minister Ben Knapen said.

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In its report about the expulsion of its correspondent, De Volkskrant wrote that Dutch-Russian relations have been tense since the downing of MH17 by a Russian-made Buk surface-to-air missile fired from territory controlled by Moscow-backed separatists in the east of Ukraine, killing all 298 people aboard, mostly Dutch citizens, in 2014.

The plane was on its way from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur.

The newspaper also said that the decision to deport Vennink came days after an appeals court in the Netherlands ruled that Ukraine has legal control over a trove of ancient artifacts from Crimea that was on loan to a Dutch museum when Russia seized the peninsula in 2014.

The decision was hailed by Ukraine and slammed by Russia.

On November 5, the Dutch Supreme Court is expected to rule in a long-running conflict over the defunct Yukos oil company, in which the Russian government and former shareholders are facing each other.

An adviser to the Supreme Court ruled earlier this year that the Permanent Court of Arbitration had correctly concluded that Russia owes 47 billion euros ($54.4 billion) to the former shareholders of the energy giant.

"There are a lot of problems, diplomatic problems, and it is possible that Russia has decided to expel me because of this," Vennink told RFE/RL.

In late August, Russian authorities expelled a BBC correspondent, Sarah Rainsford, after Moscow accused London of discriminating against Russian journalists working in the United Kingdom.

The British broadcaster called Rainsford’s expulsion an assault on media freedom, while Rainsford wrote: "Russia is entering a dark period in which it no longer pretends to be a democracy."

With reporting by De Volkskrant and Mark Krutov from RFE/RL's Russian Service

The number of coronavirus infections in Ukraine has exceeded 3 million with more than 70,000 deaths, the Health Ministry said on November 4, as Eastern Europe continues to struggle with a surge in COVID-19 cases amid low inoculation rates prompted by vaccine skepticism and disinformation.

The ministry said it had registered a record daily high of 27,377 new coronavirus infections over the past 24 hours, exceeding the previous high of 26,870 on October 29.

RFE/RL's Coronavirus Coverage

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

The country of some 40 million people also reported 699 new coronavirus-related deaths.

Ukraine, one of Europe's poorest countries, has been hit by a huge rise in infections with the more contagious Delta variant.

The spike in new infections and deaths prompted authorities to implement strict restrictions and urge people to get vaccinated. But the tough restrictions have sparked protests.

More than 1,000 people rallied in central Kyiv on November 3. Demonstrators gathered near the parliament building and blocked roads, holding posters reading, "No to vaccination," "Say no to COVID passports," and, "Say no to COVID genocide."

No incidents were reported amid a strong police presence.

Only about 17 percent -- or 7.6 million people -- have been fully vaccinated with four available shots from Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna, AstraZeneca, and Sinovac.

Some Ukrainians prefer to pay for fake vaccination certificates, and police have opened hundreds of cases into false inoculation documents.

SEE ALSO:

COVID-19 Vaccines: The East/West Divide

Vaccinations have become mandatory for some state employees, and in areas with high infection rates, such as Kyiv, only vaccinated people or those with negative COVID-19 test results are allowed into restaurants, gyms, and on public transport.

Last week, the government also started requiring proof of vaccination, recovery from infection, or negative COVID-19 tests for people boarding airplanes, trains, and long-distance buses.

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'They Don't Believe COVID Exists': Ukraine Battles New Wave Of Virus, Public Misinformation

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Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko told RFE/RL this week that a large number of people are getting severely sick and that the capacity of hospitals is more than 80 percent full.

With hospitals reaching full capacity, the Health Ministry predicts that the greatest load on medical facilities will fall from mid-November until the beginning of next year.

Widespread vaccine skepticism has been blamed on a lack of trust in state institutions and on disinformation that spreads on social media.

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy last week pleaded with Ukrainians to ignore fake news and get inoculated.

"Switch off social networks and turn on your brain," Zelenskiy said.

With reporting by RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service, AP, AFP, and Reuters

Russia on November 4 registered a new record number of daily COVID-19 deaths for the third day in a row.

Russia's coronavirus task force reported a record high of virus deaths -- 1,195 -- despite the imposition of a nationwide workplace shutdown and the introduction of restrictions in several regions.

It also reported 40,217 new infections in the past 24 hours, including 6,305 in Moscow.

Several Russian regions have opted to extend a one-week workplace shutdown that took effect nationwide on October 30 in response to a surge in infections.

SEE ALSO:

Bruises, Bedsores, Vomit, And Feces: Disguised As A Medic, Desperate Russian Enters COVID Ward To Comfort Dying Grandmother

Authorities in the Kursk and Bryansk regions, which border Ukraine; the Chelyabinsk region near the Ural Mountains; Tomsk in Siberia; and the western region of Smolensk said on November 3 that their shutdowns would continue after November 8.

The Novgorod region already announced on November 1 that it was extending its shutdown by a week.

President Vladimir Putin gave regional authorities the option of extending the workplace shutdown.

Moscow authorities, meanwhile, said businesses there would reopen on November 8. Other measures, including a requirement that companies have at least 30 percent of their staff work from home, would remain in place, Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said.

"The spread of the disease has stabilized in terms of its detection and its severe forms requiring hospitalization," the RIA Novosti news agency quoted Mayor Sergei Sobyanin as saying.

With reporting by Reuters, AFP, and AP

The UN Security Council extended a peacekeeping force in Bosnia-Herzegovina in a unanimous vote on November 3 that came after any mention of the office of an international peace envoy was removed from the text of the resolution to win support from Russia and China.

The vote authorizes the 600-strong European Union-led peacekeeping force, known as EUFOR, for another year.

The removal of any reference to the Office of the High Representative came after its current occupant, Christian Schmidt, said in his first report to the Security Council that the Balkan nation faces an “existential threat” from separatist actions by Bosnia Serbs.

Schmidt’s report warned that the prospects for further division and conflict in Bosnia “are very real" and said threats by Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik to withdraw Serb troops from the Bosnian Army and create a separate Serb force and other moves would "ultimately undermine the state’s ability to function and carry out its constitutional responsibilities.”

Schmidt, who assumed the Office of the High Representative in August, did not brief the council on November 3 in what diplomats said was another move to placate Russia and China. But UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres sent his report to the 15 members of the Security Council.

Russia has long backed Republika Srpska’s request to shut down the Office of the High Representative, which was set up as part of the 1995 peace deal to ensure compliance with civilian aspects of the accords.

During the debate on the resolution, Russia's UN Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia accused Western representatives of having a "dismissive attitude" toward Bosnia's sovereignty.

There was a "lack of desire to step outside of the image of a guardian of Bosnia and Herzegovina” who has a right to dictate how Bosnians are to build their state and govern their country, he said.

Nebenzia told the council that Moscow believes the high representative was appointed “in violation of international law" and strongly objected to the report from what he called “a private person” being circulated to council members.

The report is “an extreme biased and anti-Serb document the likes of which we haven't seen for a long time,” he said.

SEE ALSO:

UN's Tough New Bosnian Overseer Takes Up Post From Outgoing Inzko

U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield called for an end to “the heated rhetoric” from Dodik and agreed with Schmidt’s assessment that Dodik’s talk of Republika Srpska’s possible withdrawal from Bosnia is a “dangerous path” not only for Bosnia but for the wider Western Balkan region.

She also said Dodik's talk of drafting a new constitution for Republika Srpska “would pose a serious threat” to the Dayton accords, the 1995 peace deal that ended the war.

Thomas-Greenfield called for protection of the role of the high representative, whose office “serves as a foundation of stability for the country.” She also said Bosnia needs electoral and "limited constitutional" reform and stepped-up efforts to combat corruption so it can “move forward on its EU path.”

France's UN ambassador, Nicolas De Riviere, backed the high representative's role and condemned “all forms of questioning of the territorial integrity and the existence of Bosnia-Herzegovina as a state."

He called on the country's political leaders to overcome their divisions and make progress toward EU membership.

Sven Alkajal, Bosnia’s ambassador to the UN, said he agreed with Schmidt’s assessment that Bosnia currently is facing its greatest existential threat since the war.

He said Dodik’s plan is not only problematic and not possible under the existing constitution and would take Bosnia back 15 years.

With reporting by AP and Reuters

More than 1,000 people rallied in central Kyiv against Ukraine's tough COVID-19 restrictions aimed at stemming the spread of the coronavirus.

The November 3 rally comes as Ukraine has recently reported record numbers of daily coronavirus cases and deaths, prompting authorities to implement a raft of restrictions and call on people to get vaccinated.

Protesters gathered near the parliament building and blocked roads, holding posters reading, “No to vaccination,” “Say no to COVID passports,” and, “Say no to COVID genocide.”

There was a strong police presence. No clashes were reported.

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'They Don't Believe COVID Exists': Ukraine Battles New Wave Of Virus, Public Misinformation

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On November 2, Ukraine recorded 23,393 new confirmed coronavirus cases and 720 deaths, with health officials blaming the spread of the virus on widespread public hesitancy to get vaccinated.

Only about 17 percent of the country's 41 million people have been fully vaccinated with four available shots from Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna, AstraZeneca, and Sinovac.

The government made vaccinations against COVID-19 compulsory for some state employees by November 8 or have their salaries suspended.

Last week, the government also started requiring proof of vaccination, recovery from infection, or negative COVID-19 tests for people boarding airplanes, trains, and long-distance buses.

SEE ALSO:

COVID-19 Vaccines: The East/West Divide

In so-called “red zones” with high infection rates, vaccine certificates or evidence of a negative COVID-19 test are required to enter restaurants, cafes, gyms, entertainment venues, and shopping malls. Staff working in those places must also be vaccinated.

Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko told RFE/RL this week that a large number of people are getting severely sick and the capacity of hospitals is more than 80 percent.

With hospitals reaching full capacity, the Health Ministry predicts that the greatest load on medical facilities will fall from mid-November until the beginning of next year.

"The burden of this wave, or how great it will be for Ukraine, will depend on the responsible behavior of each of us," Deputy Health Minister Ihor Kuzin said.

Ukraine has recorded more than 2.9 million coronavirus cases and 69,000 deaths since the pandemic began.

With reporting by RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service, AP, and AFP

Ukraine says Russia has kept tens of thousands of troops near its border following military exercises, in what Kyiv described as part of Moscow’s attempts to exert pressure on its neighbor.

The number of Russian troops not far from the Ukrainian border and in areas controlled by Russia-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine now totals 90,000, the Defense Ministry said on November 3.

The ministry said specifically that units of the Russian 41st army remained in the Russian town of Yelnya, about 260 kilometers north of the Ukrainian border, after Russia’s armed forces recently held a series of large-scale drills.

"It should be noted that the Russian Federation periodically resorted to the practice of transferring and accumulating military units in order to maintain tensions in the region and political pressure on neighboring countries," it said.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in a conference call with reporters that Russia “maintains a troop presence on its territory wherever it deems necessary.”

This spring, a massive buildup of Russian troops in the country’s west alarmed Kyiv and its Western backers and fueled fears of an escalation of large-scale hostilities. Moscow later said it ordered the troops back to base.

Relations between Kyiv and Moscow have plummeted since 2014, when Russia annexed Ukraine's Crimea Peninsula and a war broke out between Ukrainian government forces and Russia-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine. The fighting has claimed the lives of 13,200 people.

Earlier this week, the U.S. news outlet Politico reported that commercial satellite photos supplied by the U.S. space company Maxar Technologies showed around 1,000 military vehicles near the Russian town of Yelnya.

"Based on a review of recent satellite images, the equipment (which includes tanks, armored personnel carriers, self-propelled artillery, and associated support equipment) likely began arriving in the area in late September," Maxar said in an e-mailed comment.

At the time, Ukraine’s Defense Ministry said it had not observed any Russian military buildup near the border.

With reporting by AP, Reuters, and TASS

SOFIA -- A right-wing nationalist candidate in this month's presidential election has been detained and indicted over a weekend attack on an LGBT community center in the capital.

Boyan Rasate was detained for 72 hours and is facing charges of hooliganism and infliction of an injury, the Sofia City Prosecutor's Office said in a statement on November 3, three days after his legal immunity as a presidential candidate was lifted, opening the way for the prosecution.

Both crimes carry prison sentences.

Prosecutors said the 50-year-old Rasate did not admit any guilt and declined to make a statement.

SEE ALSO:

'He Hit Me And Just Kept Coming': Mob Allegedly Led By Bulgarian Presidential Candidate Attacks LGBT Center

On October 30, a group of about 10 men and women stormed and vandalized the Rainbow Hub, a venue for LGBT-related events in central Sofia. The Bilitis Foundation that runs the center accused Rasate of leading the attack.

Activist Gloria Filipova claimed she was punched in the face by Rasate, whom she recognized. She also said he was carrying a knife.

The assault was condemned by Bulgaria's leading political parties, 11 Western embassies, and human rights activists.

Born Boyan Stankov, Rasate is the founder of the Bulgarian National Union (BNS), which is no longer under his leadership. He is known for his rhetoric against the LGBT community and migrants.

He was detained late on November 2 as he was leaving the building of Bulgarian National Television, where he was participating in a program on the November 14 presidential election.

"The crimes committed stand out with their extreme audacity and disrespect for the democratic foundations of the state," prosecutors said in their statement.

In a tweet, the Council of Europe's commissioner for human rights, Dunja Mijatovic, urged Bulgarian authorities to conduct a swift investigation into the attack against Rainbow Hub, calling it “another worrying example of mounting threats against NGOs working for #equalrights for the LGBTI community.”

SEE ALSO:

Bulgarian Presidential Candidate Accused Of Attack On LGBT Center Loses Immunity

Amnesty International said in a statement that Bulgarian authorities must now amend the law to recognize homophobic violence as hate crimes.

Hate crimes are not specifically outlawed in Bulgaria, with the penal code treating them as acts of hooliganism.

“There is no doubt that the attack on the Rainbow Hub Community Centre was motivated by hatred, and this appalling incident has exposed the shortcomings of Bulgaria’s laws and justice system,” the London-based human rights group said.

UFA, Russia -- A court in Russia's Republic of Bashkortostan has sentenced noted activist Ramila Saitova to three years in a colony settlement after finding her guilty of calling for extremist activities.

The Kirov district court in Bashkortostan's capital, Ufa, handed down the verdict and sentence on November 3. Judge Azamat Bikchurin also banned Saitova from being an administrator for any online social networks for two years.

A colony settlement is a dormitory-like penitentiary located near an industrial facility where convicts work alongside the general public.

Saitova pleaded not guilty and her defense team said it will appeal the court's ruling.

The charge against the activist stemmed from her online posts in 2020 in which she called on the mostly Muslim-populated republic's residents to hold public gatherings to question what she called an "overwhelming number" of Orthodox Christian crosses in the region.

In some of her online posts, Saitova demanded Bashkortostan's government raise the issue of "returning land" that belonged to Bashkirs before it was made part of Russia's other regions.

In September 2020, she was sentenced to 10 days in jail after a court found her guilty of inciting ethnic hatred by questioning the presence of ethnic Armenians in Bashkortostan.

Dozens of human rights groups are calling on Turkey to halt plans to deport Turkmen activists to Turkmenistan, warning they could face persecution at home.

Turkmen activists residing in Turkey have faced increased pressure in recent months, with a number of reports suggesting some are being detained, placed in deportation facilities, and threatened with deportation to Turkmenistan.

“Taking into account that Turkmenistan has a long record of severely punishing peaceful critics of its government, forcibly returning activists to Turkmenistan would place them at grave risk of persecution, including a high risk of arbitrary arrest, torture, and even enforced disappearance in prisons,” 33 Turkmen and international human rights organizations said in a joint statement on November 2.

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Since last year, Turkmen citizens in Turkey have staged protests against authoritarian President Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov over his handling of the coronavirus pandemic, the country’s economic crisis, and restrictions on basic freedoms.

In recent years, Turkmenistan’s diplomatic missions have refused to renew and replace Turkmen citizens’ passports, instead forcing them to return to Turkmenistan in order to renew their Turkmen identity documents.

As a result of this policy, many Turkmen migrants cannot comply with the migration laws of the countries where they reside, including Turkey, according to the 33 human rights groups.

Travel restrictions introduced to stem the spread of the coronavirus have also exacerbated the problem, leaving thousands of Turkmen migrants with expired passports without access to employment, education, health care, and freedom of movement.

The situation prompted Turkmen migrants in Turkey to organize a group of civil activists who participated in peaceful rallies outside Turkmenistan’s diplomatic missions and shared their problems on social media.

Those who criticize Turkmen government policies have been subjected to threats, “presumably as a result of pressure from the Turkmen authorities or the law enforcement authorities of Turkey,” the human rights groups said.

In addition, there are reports that Turkmen supporters of Berdymukhammedov’s government have been threatening and attacking Turkmen civil activists in Turkey, as well as their family members in their homeland.

SEE ALSO:

Rights Watchdog Urges Turkey Not To Deport Turkmen Activists

Turkmen authorities have also reportedly drawn up a list of 25 individuals and handed it to Turkey, in an apparent attempt to quash criticism by having them detained and deported, the rights groups said.

While Turkey has long been sympathetic toward Turkmen migrants and had not penalized them because of expired passports, the rights groups said the situation recently changed as Ankara seeks to get Turkmenistan to join the Cooperation Council of Turkic Speaking States at the body’s next meeting in Istanbul on November 12.

Ahead of the meeting, “There has been an increasing number of reports of the arbitrary detention of Turkmen civil activists by the Turkish police, their placement in deportation facilities, and threats of their immediate deportation to Turkmenistan,” the rights groups said.

“Changes in the policy pursued by the Turkish authorities towards Turkey-based Turkmen activists have occurred, apparently, in response to requests by the Turkmen government, which seeks to put an end to its nationals’ civic activities abroad,” they said.

Uzbek authorities have restricted access to most social media and instant messaging platforms for violating the Central Asian country’s personal data legislation, a move felt almost immediately by users.

However, presidential spokesman Sherzod Asadov told local media on November 3 that access to all the sites would be restored soon and that the head of Uzbekistan’s communications regulator, O'zkomnazorat, Golibsher Ziyaev, had been dismissed for acting wrongly without any authorization.

Earlier in the day, O'zkomnazorat added seven social networks -- Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Moi Mir, Odnoklassniki, Telegram, and YouTube -- to its “register of violators” of a law in effect since April that requires Internet companies to store the personal data of Uzbek users on servers in the country.

Use of the social networks will be “limited in accordance with the established procedure until the identified deficiencies are eliminated,” it said in a short statement.

Internet users in Central Asia’s most populous country reported disruptions to the targeted websites as of November 3, including throttling or reduced speed when using the networks.

The move comes four months after Twitter, TikTok, VKontakte, Skype, and WeChat were put on the list.

WhatsApp services were said to be functioning normally.

The latest restrictions on information in Uzbekistan come after President Shavkat Mirziyoev won another term in an election last month.

Mirziyoev has positioned himself as a reformer since taking office following the death of his authoritarian predecessor, Islam Karimov, in 2016, releasing political prisoners and opening his country to its neighbors and outside world.

Human rights groups say the reforms have not gone far enough.

BISHKEK -- A court in Kyrgyzstan has refused to release jailed politician Ravshan Jeenbekov, who is registered as a candidate for parliamentary elections to be held later this month.

The Birinchi Mai district court in Bishkek on November 3 ruled that Jeenbekov must remain in pretrial detention, rejecting a request from his lawyer, Zamir Jooshev, that the court allow Jeenbekov to travel abroad to receive medical treatment for an illness related to problems with his liver.

Jeenbekov was arrested in December 2019 in a criminal case related to a violent two-day standoff four months earlier between security forces and supporters of former President Almazbek Atambaev that resulted in the death of a top security officer and more than 170 injuries -- 79 of them sustained by law enforcement officers.

Jeenbekov, Atambaev, and 12 other men and women are charged with murder, attempted murder, threatening or assaulting representatives of the authorities, hostage-taking, and the forcible seizure of power.

Atambaev is currently serving a prison term he received in another case related to the illegal release from prison of a notorious criminal kingpin in 2013.

During mass anti-government rallies in October 2020 sparked by controversial parliamentary elections that led to the resignation of the government, Jeenbekov was released from a detention center and placed under house arrest.

In early August, Jeenbekov was rearrested after a court ruled that he had violated the conditions of his house arrest.

Jeenbekov has rejected all of the charges, calling them politically motivated.

Kyrgyzstan's Committee for Civic Control human rights organization has recognized Jeenbekov as a political prisoner.

Jeenbekov was registered as a candidate for parliamentary elections scheduled for November 28.

A Belarusian cargo plane has crashed in southeastern Siberia, and it is feared that all nine people on board were killed, officials said.

The Antonov An-12 aircraft, owned by the Belarusian company Hrodno, crashed and caught fire near Irkutsk on November 3.

Russian news reports said the plane disappeared from radar after trying to make an approach for a second landing following a failed first attempt.

Previous reports quoted local officials as saying that seven people were aboard the aircraft.

Andrei Ryabovolov, the deputy chief of the Emergency Ministry’s directorate in the Irkutsk region, said that six bodies were found at the crash site, while rescue teams were looking for the rest.

Ryabovolov said that there were four Russian citizens, three Belarusian nationals, and two Ukrainians aboard the plane.

The cause of the crash was not immediately clear.

The Russian Investigative Committee, the country’s top state investigative agency, said it had opened a criminal case over violation of transport safety rules.

Based on reporting by TASS, Reuters, and AP

Poland accused Belarus of staging an armed “intrusion” into its territory and said on November 3 that it had summoned the Belarusian charge d'affaires to protest “deliberate escalation” on the border.

The incident comes as thousands of migrants from the Middle East and Africa in recent months have attempted to illegally enter Poland and fellow EU members Latvia and Lithuania from Belarus.

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 EU accuses Belarusian strongman Alyaksandr Lukashenka of flying in migrants and funneling them to the bloc's borders to retaliate against Brussels for sanctions imposed over a sweeping crackdown since last year’s disputed presidential election.

Poland's Foreign Ministry said "unidentified uniformed men armed with long guns" crossed the border overnight on November 1-2.

“Deputy Foreign Minister Piotr Wawrzyk forwarded an emphatic protest to the Belarusian side against the violation of the Polish state border, emphasizing that the actions taken by the Belarusian authorities in recent weeks have the increasingly evident hallmarks of a deliberate escalation,” the ministry said in a statement.

“He highlighted that Poland is determined to defend its borders and the external borders of the European Union,” it said, adding that Poland and its allies will oppose “illegal migration orchestrated by Minsk.”

Poland has imposed a state of emergency at the border, put up razor wire, and increased the number of soldiers and guards to stem the flow of migrants crossing from Belarus. Lawmakers last week also approved the building of a $407 million wall on its eastern border.

Last month, the Polish Border Guards said Belarusian forces fired shots -- possibly blank ammunition -- at its soldiers. In other cases, Poland accused Belarusian forces of destroying a razor-wire barrier on the border or encouraging migrants to do so.

With reporting by AP and Reuters