Senior French officials will host the Russian foreign and defense ministers for talks in Paris on November 12 on Ukraine, Russia's activities in West Africa, and the Iranian nuclear program, the French government announced on November 9.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian and Defense Minister Florence Parly will meet their Russian counterparts Sergei Lavrov and Sergei Shoigu on the sidelines of a conference on Libya, a French statement said.

The meeting will be the first in the so-called "2+2" format of foreign and defense ministers since last year's poisoning of opposition leader Aleksei Navalny brought relations between Russia and the West to a new low.

France canceled a similar meeting it was due to host with Lavrov and Shoigu in September last year in the aftermath of the poisoning.

Western countries accused Moscow of using a nerve agent to try to kill Navalny, and the European Union imposed sanctions on Russian officials following the incident.

Navalny and his supporters say the poisoning was carried out by Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) operatives at the behest of President Vladimir Putin in retribution for Navalny’s political activities. The Kremlin has denied any role in the incident.

Navalny was subsequently imprisoned earlier this year on charges that he and his supporters say are politically motivated.

However, French President Emmanuel Macron has long sought a dialogue with Putin, considering it unwise to shun Russia in the international arena.

"This meeting is part of the demanding dialogue that France continues with Russia," the statement from the French foreign and defense ministries said.

It said that the French ministers would notably raise concerns over Russian actions in Africa, where observers say Russian mercenaries are operating in an area where French troops are also deployed.

Based on reporting by AFP and TASS

The UN’s civil aviation agency has again delayed the results of a fact-finding mission into Belarus's’ diversion of a Ryanair flight in order to arrest a dissident journalist.

The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) said on November 9 that an investigative report on the incident will not be released until its next session in January next year.

The delay is “due mainly to the volume of data submitted and additional State certifications still be required,” it said.

The Montreal-based agency had been scheduled to release an interim report at the end of June, and a final report submitted in September for review this month.

Belarusian journalist Raman Pratasevich and his Russian girlfriend, Sofia Sapega, were detained in May when Belarus scrambled a military jet to escort their Athens-to-Vilnius flight to land in Minsk because of a bomb threat that proved to be false.

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Many countries called Belarus's action a "state hijacking."

Britain and the European Union responded by telling airlines to avoid Belarusian airspace and banning the country's flagship carrier Belavia.

Pratasevich and Sapega are currently under house arrest.

Pratasevich faces charges of being behind protests that followed a disputed presidential election in August 2020, an offense punishable by up to 15 years in prison.

He was a key administrator of the Telegram channel Nexta-Live, which has been covering mass protests denouncing the official results of the election, which handed strongman Alyaksandr Lukashenka a sixth presidential term.

The charges against Sapega are less clear.

Lukashenka has cracked down hard on the pro-democracy movement and civil society.

Thousands of people have been arrested, civil society groups shuttered, and media targeted as part of the sweeping clampdown, which has pushed most of the top opposition figures out of the country.

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The opposition and the West say the presidential vote was rigged.

The European Union, the United States, and other countries have refused to recognize Lukashenka and slapped a series of sanctions on his regime.

With reporting by AFP

An airplane carrying U.S.-trained Afghan pilots and other Afghan refugees has taken off from an airport in Tajikistan's capital, Dushanbe.

Earlier in the day, the U.S. Embassy to Tajikistan confirmed that 191 Afghan evacuees, including 143 pilots, were preparing to depart the Central Asian country to be relocated to the United States after nearly three months of detention.

The group will be taken to a third country for processing before being granted immigration rights to the United States, a U.S. Embassy representative told RFE/RL. The flight, organized by the U.S. government, left Dushanbe at 12.30 a.m. local time on November 10.

There are two women among the pilots, one of whom is pregnant.

"The U.S. Embassy is working to expedite their departure from Tajikistan," an embassy spokesperson said earlier.

The Afghan Air Force pilots fled to Tajikistan in military planes when the Taliban seized power in Kabul in mid-August, only to be detained at a sanatorium on the outskirts of Dushanbe.

The English-speaking pilots trained by the U.S. Air Force have been waiting for their documents to be processed to eventually be relocated in the United States.

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RFE/RL reported in October that the Taliban has pressured some of the pilots to return to Afghanistan by threatening to kill their relatives.

The group was the last one of U.S.-trained pilots who fled abroad and were expecting to be extricated.

In September, a U.S.-brokered deal allowed a larger group of Afghan pilots and other military personnel to be flown out of Uzbekistan.

KYIV -- A suspected guard from a notorious jail in the eastern Ukrainian city of Donetsk controlled by Moscow-backed separatists has been detained in Kyiv.

The press service of Ukraine's Security Service (SBU) told RFE/RL on November 9 that the detainee was suspected of "taking part in killing and torturing of illegally held Ukrainian citizens," and may be charged with the creation of a terrorist group, violation of the law of war, and human trafficking.

According to the SBU, the suspect's pretrial restrictions will be decided very soon.

Earlier in the day, Ukrainian writer and former RFE/RL contributor Stanislav Aseyev -- who spent 2 1/2 years in the separatist detention center known as Izolyatsia (Isolation) in Donetsk before he was released in December 2019 -- wrote on Facebook that "a main war criminal and a guard of Izolyatsia, Denys Kulikovskiy, aka Palych, was detained in Kyiv."

Separatists seized the premises of the former Izolyatsia factory and art center in Donetsk after they took control of the city and some of Ukraine’s Donetsk and Luhansk regions, commonly known as the Donbas, in 2014.

The exact number of inmates in the facility is unknown. Ukrainian nationals who were released from Izolyatsia as part of prisoner-swap programs said they were tortured by guards there.

The defunct industrial facility is also used by the separatists as a training facility and a depot for vehicles, military equipment, and weapons.

Russia has provided military, economic, and political support to separatists in the Donbas since 2014. Despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, Moscow maintains it is not involved in Ukraine's domestic affairs.

More than 13,200 people have been killed during more than seven years of fighting between the separatists and Ukrainian forces.

The European Council has partially suspended its visa-facilitation agreement with Belarus over the "hybrid attack" Minsk has launched against the European Union by fostering a migrant crisis along the Poland-Belarus border.

The suspension of parts of the agreement will not affect ordinary citizens, the European Council said in announcing the move on November 9.

However, Belarusian officials will no longer be able to waive requirements for documents or be privy to reduced visa-application fees.

"We strongly condemn and reject the continued instrumentalization of migration by the Belarus regime," said Slovenian Interior Minister Ales Hojs, who chairs the Home Affairs Council.

"It is unacceptable for Belarus to play with people's lives for political purposes. Today's decision shows once again our joint commitment to continue countering this ongoing hybrid attack."

The decision came after Poland on November 9 closed a crossing along its border with Belarus after migrants on the Belarusian side attempted to break through a fence to enter the EU country.

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Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki wrote on Twitter on November 9 that "the stability and security of the entire EU is at stake," due to the migrant crisis, which has left as many as 4,000 migrants stranded along the Poland-Belarus border.

The massing of people at the border escalates a crisis that has been going on for months, with the EU accusing Belarusian strongman Alyaksandr Lukashenka of flying migrants from the Middle East and Africa to Minsk and then sending them to its borders with EU members Lithuania, Latvia, and Poland.

Lukashenka denies the accusation.

The creators of a YouTube channel that broadcasts an online series about a fictional chairman of the executive committee of the Russian Far Eastern city of Ussuriisk say a probe has been launched against them.

Producer Andrei Klochkov said on November 9 that police searched his home and homes of his team members last week, saying that they are suspected of "major hooliganism."

Members of the team have not been charged with any crimes.

According to Klochkov, the probe is related to one of the series' episodes issued in September, in which the main character of the show, the fictional Vitaly Nalivkin, shoots a grenade launcher but misses the target and hits a campaign billboard of the ruling United Russia party.

The video was released shortly after local elections were held in the country.

A woman who played the role of an Interior Ministry spokeswoman in the video, Larisa Krivonosova, was subsequently sentenced to 10 days in jail for illegally wearing a police uniform.

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Police said she was jailed for a parole violation.

Last month, the 43-year-old Krivonosova received a three-month sentence for what police called a parole violation. Police said she had been released on parole in 2017 after serving an unspecified amount of time for the "premeditated infliction of health damage." There were no further details given concerning the charge.

The satirical online show about Nalivkin mocks the everyday life of ordinary people and the behavior of local authorities in Russian provinces.

Earlier this year, Andrei Neretin, who plays the role of Nalivkin in the show, was sentenced to five days in prison and fined for "minor hooliganism" after an episode about a corrupt police officer was posted on YouTube.

MOSCOW -- One of Russia's top human rights lawyers has been added to a Russian registry of "foreign agents" along with four associates.

Ivan Pavlov, who has defended jailed opposition politician Aleksei Navalny, his organizations, and journalist Ivan Safronov, was added to the list by the Justice Ministry on November 8.

Maksim Zagovora, Valery Vetoshkin, Yelena Skvortsova, and Maksim Olenichev -- former members of Pavlov's team known as Komanda 29 -- were also added to the list.

The Russian government uses the designation to label what it says are foreign-funded organizations that are engaged in political activity, as well as people linked to them.

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The "foreign agents" laws require those designated to register with the authorities and label their content with an intrusive disclaimer, with criminal fines for not doing so.

The label has led to several NGOs, media organizations, and other groups to shut down as they lose revenue from spooked advertisers.

The designation also restricts other media from citing a "foreign agent" organization without including a disclaimer.

Among the more recent additions is the Russian LGBT Network, Russia's largest gay and lesbian support group, which was added to the list on October 19.

Pavlov wrote on Telegram that the ministry's move proves that his team's work is important to promote "freedom of speech and information."

"My work has always been based on law, openness, and irony. By labeling us as foreign agents [the authorities] are trying to protect themselves from the openness and irony, of which they seem to be scared most of all," Pavlov's Telegram statement said.

In April, Pavlov became a suspect in a criminal case on the disclosure of data with regard to the cases of his client, Ivan Safronov. Pavlov called the case politically motivated.

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In September, Pavlov fled Russia and is currently residing in Georgia.

Safronov, a former journalist and adviser to the head of Russian space agency Roskosmos, was arrested and charged with high treason in July 2020 on allegations that he had passed secret information to the Czech Republic in 2017 about Russian arms sales in the Middle East.

Safronov has rejected the accusations against him and many of his supporters have held pickets demanding his release, saying that all case materials have been deemed classified as part of the cover-up.

Russian authorities have launched a massive crackdown on dissent in recent months, jailing dozens of opposition members, activists, and regular citizens under the guise of charges widely considered to be falsified.

YESSENTUKI, Russia -- Prosecutors are seeking lengthy prison terms for seven people who led protests in Ingushetia against a change to the administrative boundaries between the Russian North Caucasus regions of Chechnya and Ingushetia.

Lawyer Magomed Kuriyev told RFE/RL on November 8 that prosecutors asked a court in the city of Yessentuki, in the Stavropol region, to sentence Malsag Uzhakhov, Akhmed Barakhoyev, and Musa Malsagov to nine years each; Barakh Chemurziyev, Bagaudin Khautiyev, and Akhmed Nalgiyev to eight years each; and Zarifa Sautiyeva to 7 1/2 years in prison.

All the defendants are leaders or leading members of a group called the Ingush National Unity Committee that the Russian authorities labeled as an extremist organization and banned in July 2020.

The activists are charged with the creation of an extremist group and assaulting law enforcement officers.

The charges stem from an authorized demonstration in March 2019 held in Ingushetia's capital, Magas, to protest the closed-doors deal reached in September 2018 to settle an Ingush-Chechen boundary dispute.

The protest continued the following day without the authorities' permission and was violently dispersed by police. More than 50 people were detained, and charges were filed against at least 10 people.

Ingush opponents of the deal say that the region's land was unjustly handed over to Chechnya, whose strongman leader, Ramzan Kadyrov, has been accused of interfering in the affairs of neighboring Ingushetia and Daghestan.

Russia has posted a new daily record for COVID-19 deaths as health officials scramble to meet the demand for hospital beds to treat patients during the current wave of infections.

The anti-coronavirus crisis center said on November 9 that 1,211 deaths were recorded over the previous 24 hours, with 39,610 new cases being detected.

With records for cases and deaths being set on almost a daily basis, hospitals have been filling up with patients, putting a strain on the country's health-care system.

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Vladimir Chulanov, an infectious-disease specialist who often works with the Russian Ministry of Health, noted on November 9 that some 300,000 beds had been deployed for use by COVID-19 patients, some 30,000 more than at any point during the pandemic. He added that more than 1 million people were being treated on an outpatient basis.

The country recently introduced a paid holiday from October 30 to November 7 in an effort to lessen workers' exposure to COVID-19. Stay-at-home orders were issued for older adults and businesses are required to have 30 percent of their staffs work from home.

Russia has several domestically produced vaccines, but only about one-third of the population is vaccinated.

The country has recorded more than 8.87 million coronavirus infections and just under 250,000 related deaths.

But critics and some health experts have accused officials of skewing the numbers to cover up a much higher death count, making the situation in hospitals even more precarious, they say.

With reporting by TASS and Interfax

Ex-President Petro Poroshenko says he has sold two television stations to current and former employees to comply with a controversial new law targeting Ukraine's wealthiest individuals.

Poroshenko, a billionaire who served as president from 2014 to 2019, said in a November 8 video statement posted on the website of his party, European Solidarity, that he was "forced" to sell the channels following the signing of a bill known as the anti-oligarch law.

He also accused his successor, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, of seeking to limit freedom of speech.

"The main reason why they came up with the so-called 'law on oligarchs'...is for the [office of the president] to take full control of the media," said Poroshenko, who is considered a competitor for the 2024 election.

Zelenskiy, a political novice, defeated Poroshenko in a landslide in 2019 on a promise to curtail the power of magnates who for decades have wielded outsized influence over government, business, and the media, stunting Ukraine's growth.

Ukrainian activists say the tycoons use their media assets -- which in many cases are loss making -- to attack opponents and pursue their own personal business and political agenda.

Zelenskiy on November 5 signed a new law that provides a definition for an oligarch based on several criteria including wealth in the tens of millions of dollars, monopolistic-like control of an industry, possession of media assets, and political activity.

Those who meet the criteria -- which will be determined by a government body Zelenskiy heads -- would be barred from financing political parties or taking part in privatizations.

"There can be no other option but to dismantle the oligarchic system. Without this, it is simply impossible to overcome poverty in Ukraine and fully join the European community," he said after signing the bill.

With reporting by Todd Prince

Former U.S. Marine Trevor Reed has begun a hunger strike at the Russian prison where he is serving a nine-year sentence.

Attorneys Sergei Nikitenkov and Viktoria Buklova told the Interfax news agency on November 9 that their client had been on hunger strike for four days to protest violations of his rights, including his "illegal" placement in solitary confinement in September.

His family said in a statement that Reed was protesting his "arbitrary detention" and "flagrant violations of his basic human rights and his rights under Russian law."

The Federal Penitentiary Service's (FSIN) directorate in Mordovia on November 9 rejected the lawyers' statement, saying Reed continued to consume food.

"Employees of the correctional facility have not violated any regulations related to interaction with the named inmate," the FSIN said.

Reed is incarcerated in Mordovia, a region about 350 kilometers east of Moscow with a long reputation for hosting Russia's toughest prisons, including Soviet-era labor camps for political prisoners.

Reed, who is from Texas, was sentenced in 2020 after being arrested and charged with assaulting two Russian police officers in 2019. The U.S. government and Reed deny the allegations and questioned the fairness of the judicial proceedings.

Reed is one of several Americans to face trial in Russia in recent years on charges that their families, supporters, and in some cases the U.S. government, have said appear trumped-up.

Another former U.S. Marine, Paul Whelan, was sentenced by a court in Moscow to 16 years in prison in May 2020 on espionage charges condemned by the United States as a "mockery of justice."

Whelan, who like Reed maintains his innocence, is also currently serving his prison term in a prison in Mordovia.

The United States has been pushing Russia to release Whelan and Reed.

With reporting by Interfax and Reuters

A senior official of the World Health Organization (WHO) has expressed doubts about Turkmenistan's denial of a coronavirus presence within its borders.

Catherine Smallwood, a WHO senior emergencies officer, told the BBC on November 8 that "from the scientific point of view, it's unlikely that the virus is not circulating in Turkmenistan."

Smallwood's comments represent the first public challenge by the WHO to Turkmenistan's claim that is COVID-free.

Turkmenistan has insisted that the country has no cases despite reports that hospitals are filling up with sick patients and deaths from suspected coronavirus cases are soaring across the country.

Smallwood said that the government of the tightly controlled former Soviet republic "has a long history of suppressing data and a long history of punishing people who expose the truth."

However, Smallwood told the BBC that the health body could not "call into question" whether a country was following its legal obligations to provide transparent information pertaining to global health crises.

Smallwood, who led the only official WHO coronavirus mission to Turkmenistan in July 2020, said it was more important to "build a dialogue" with countries.

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While officially denying the presence of the coronavirus, Turkmen authorities have taken unprecedented health measures in an apparent attempt to prevent the spread of the disease.

Turkmenistan's government earlier this week extended restrictions usually imposed to stem the spread of COVID-19.

The measures requiring private shops and restaurants to close, and street vendors to cease their activities were set to end on November 1, but the authorities extended them for two weeks. Weddings, burials, or other ceremonies will also remain banned across the country.

After visiting Turkmenistan in 2020, Smallwood said her team had not seen or heard anything that would contradict the government's assertion that coronavirus does not exist in Turkmenistan.

However, Smallwood did recommend that the authorities take "critical public-health measures in Turkmenistan, as if COVID-19 was circulating" in the country.

With reporting by the BBC

Ukraine has reported a record daily number of coronavirus deaths as Brussels is expected to remove it from the bloc's "white list" of travel-safe countries.

Ukraine on November 9 registered 833 coronavirus-related deaths over the previous 24 hours, 40 more than the previous record high announced just days earlier.

More than 3.1 million coronavirus infections and over 73,000 deaths have been reported in Ukraine.

Earlier this week, RFE/RL reported that the spike in cases in Ukraine had led EU ambassadors to decide to remove the country from its safe-travel list of third countries.

Removal from the list would mean that EU member states would be advised to reimpose entry bans on Ukrainian residents, particularly those who are not vaccinated, except for essential purposes.

With reporting by Reuters and BBC

TBILISI -- Opposition parties in Georgia are planning more protests after jailed former Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, who has been on a hunger strike for more than a month, said he had been abused by guards at a prison hospital.

Some representatives and supporters of opposition parties spent the night at the government administration building in Tbilisi after rallying on Freedom Square on November 8. Several hundred people were in the area in the morning on November 9, and police set up metal barriers, RFE/RL's Georgian Service reported.

At the rally, Nika Melia, the leader of the United National Movement (ENM), announced the main opposition party's three demands: the transfer of Saakashvili to a civilian clinic, his release from detention, and a repeat of municipal and mayoral elections.

The rally was preceded by Saakashvili's transfer from a prison in Rustavi to the Gldani prison clinic amid concerns about his health.

Saakashvili on November 8 said he had been verbally and physically abused by guards when he arrived at the clinic. He said in a letter released through his lawyer that they punched him on the neck and dragged him by his hair on the ground.

In a letter posted on Facebook, Saakashvili said he will only see his own doctors and will not cooperate with medical staff at the prison.

Saakashvili's lawyers and personal doctor say the 53-year-old former president's condition is deteriorating and have demanded that he be transferred to a private clinic outside the prison system.

The government has rejected these demands, saying that if necessary, he would be transferred to a prison hospital.

Saakashvili's supporters and activists of ENM have been protesting his incarceration outside the Rustavi prison where he began a hunger strike after being detained on October 1 upon his return from eight years in self-exile to campaign for the opposition ahead of local elections.

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On November 8, supporters rallied in the central Freedom Square in Tbilisi, demanding Saakashvili's release and his transfer to a civilian hospital.

Earlier on November 8, Saakashvili vowed to continue his hunger strike "until death," while the Penitentiary Service issued a video over the weekend showing the former president eating unspecified items and drinking from a bottle in the detention center's medical room.

In an earlier statement on Facebook, Saakashvili called on his supporters and opposition politicians to focus on what he called "stolen elections and returning the government to the Georgian people" instead of focusing on his hunger strike.

"I returned [to Georgia], voluntarily became a hostage, and intended to stay on hunger strike until death to contribute into liberation our country, to its efforts to preserve its European path...," Saakashvili said.

Meanwhile, on November 5, Justice Minister Rati Bregadze said Saakashvili also consumed porridge in addition to juice.

A day later, the Penitentiary Service issued a video showing the former president eating some food and drinking what the service said was juice in a medical room in the detention center in Rustavi, and issued the video to prove it.

Saakashvili then announced that day that he had stopped receiving vitamins and juice in protest.

Saakashvili, who was president from 2004 to 2013, left the country shortly after the presidential election of 2013 and was convicted in absentia in 2018 for abuse of power and seeking to cover up evidence about the beating of an opposition member of parliament.

Saakashvili has said the charges against him are politically motivated.

The ENM was outpolled decisively by the ruling Georgian Dream party in the October 3 nationwide municipal and mayoral vote.

The opposition has said that Georgian Dream, founded by billionaire and Saakashvili's rival Bidzina Ivanishvili, rigged the runoff on October 30. Georgian Dream won the mayoral races in the country's five biggest cities as a result of the vote.

Georgia has been plagued by political paralysis since parliamentary elections in 2020.

With reporting by AFP

Poland has accused Belarus of staging an “attack” on its eastern border and Russian President Vladimir Putin of orchestrating an intensifying migration crisis to destabilize the European Union as hundreds of migrants remained trapped in the open in freezing temperatures at the bloc's eastern frontier.

Polish authorities bolstered the border on November 9 as the migrants gathered on the Belarusian side of the frontier after attempting to break through razor-wire fencing the previous day to enter EU-member Poland.

In recent months, thousands of migrants from the Middle East, South Asia, and Africa have attempted to illegally enter Poland and fellow EU members Latvia and Lithuania from Belarus.

The EU has accused 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.

"This attack which Lukashenka is conducting has its mastermind in Moscow, the mastermind is President Putin," Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki told an emergency session of the Polish parliament on November 9.

"The Belarusian regime is attacking the Polish border, the EU, in an unparalleled manner," Polish President Andrzej Duda said at a news conference in Warsaw earlier in the day.

"We currently have a camp of migrants who are blocked from the Belarusian side. There are about 1,000 people there, mostly young men. These are aggressive actions that we must repel, fulfilling our obligations as a member of the European Union," he said.

Hundreds of migrants shivered in freezing temperatures and huddled around campfires on the Belarusian border with Poland overnight in front of razor-wire fences and lines of Polish border guards blocking their entry into the European Union.

On November 9, Lithuania became the second EU country to declare a state of emergency at its border with Belarus and at camps hosting migrants who arrived from there.

The parliament in Vilnius declared the state of emergency, which begins at midnight local time on November 9 and will a month, allowing border guards to use "mental coercion" and "proportional physical violence" to prevent migrants from entering Lithuania.

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Poland has already imposed a state of emergency at the border and increased the number of soldiers and guards to 20,000. Lawmakers have also approved the building of a $407 million wall on its eastern border.

The Polish government posted videos on Twitter on November 8 showing migrants using what appeared to be logs, spades, and other instruments to try to get past a razor-wire border fence.

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A spokesman for Poland's special services, Stanislaw Zaryn, said Belarusian security personnel were "firing empty shots into the air, simulating dangerous events."

"We also know the Belarusian authorities are helping migrants to destroy the border barriers. We see how they bring them tools to cut wires... to destroy the fence," he added.

Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki wrote on Twitter on November 9 that "the stability and security of the entire EU is at stake," and blamed the migrant crisis along the border as a "hybrid attack" orchestrated by Belarus.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said he had spoken to Duda about the situation.

"Belarus using migrants as a hybrid tactic is unacceptable," Stoltenberg tweeted. "NATO stands in solidarity and all our allies in the region.”

Lukashenka's government, which is backed by Russia, denies manufacturing the migrant crisis and accuses Poland and the EU of violating human rights by refusing to allow the migrants apply for asylum.

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The Belarusian Defense Ministry called the allegations from Poland "unfounded," while the Foreign Ministry issued a statement warning Warsaw "against any provocations.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Lukashenka talked about the refugees at the Polish and Lithuanian borders, the Kremlin press service said on November 9.

In response to the crisis, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on November 8 called on EU member states to “finally approve the extended sanctions regime on the Belarusian authorities responsible for this hybrid attack.”

The EU will explore how to sanction, including through "blacklisting third country airlines that are active in human trafficking,” she said.

The EU said on November 9 that it was pressing more than a dozen countries to prevent migrant flights leaving for Belarus to attempt getting into the bloc. Among those countries were Iraq, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Lebanon, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Turkey, and Georgia.

Brussels has already pushed Iraq to halt flights to Minsk, the EU said.

Meanwhile, the EU has suspended its visa-facilitation agreement with Belarus over the situation. The suspension of parts of the agreement will apply to Belarusian officials and not affect ordinary citizens, the European Council said on November 9.

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

The Kyiv Post, Ukraine's largest, independent English-language newspaper, has suddenly shut its operations after more than a quarter-century amid a dispute between the owner and journalists.

Adnan Kivan, the Kyiv Post publisher and a real-estate businessman, announced the abrupt closure on the paper's website on November 8, saying it would be temporary. He did not give a reason for the closure, though it did not appear to be financial.

"One day, we hope to reopen the newspaper bigger and better," Kivan said in the statement.

However, reporters at the Kyiv Post said in a joint statement that the sudden closure comes on the heels of Kivan's attempt to "infringe" on their editorial independence.

"We consider the cessation of publication and the dismissal of the paper's staff to be an act of vengeance by Adnan Kivan," the newsroom said in a statement.

The reporters said that Kivan had announced three weeks ago that he would expand the Kyiv Post by launching a Ukrainian-language publication under the same name.

Kivan handpicked an editor to oversee the new product, raising concerns among the staff that he was attempting to curtail their independence.

Kivan could not be immediately reached for comment.

The Kyiv Post has been critical of Ukraine's leadership at times, highlighting slow progress on Western-backed reforms, including the crucial fight against corruption.

The paper was an important source of information for Ukraine's expat community, including foreign embassy staff.

Roman Waschuk, Canada's ambassador to Ukraine from 2014 to 2019, told RFE/RL the paper was "feisty" in its coverage, "with no punches pulled."

The staff said in their statement that Kivan's plans to relaunch with new staff was an attempt to get rid of "inconvenient" journalists.

RFE/RL e-mailed Kivan's company, Kadorr Group, seeking a response to the Kyiv Post staff's statement, but did not immediately receive an answer.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy's spokesman, Serhiy Nykyforov, quickly rejected speculation that the administration had been putting pressure on Kivan over the Kyiv Post's critical coverage.

"Today's news came as much of a surprise to us as it did to everyone else," he said in a statement on Facebook.

42nd Richest

Like many other media owners in Ukraine, Kivan is among the country's richest people.

In 2021 Forbes ranked him 42nd in their annual list of the wealthiest Ukrainians, with a net worth of $240 million.

Kadorr Group says it owns commercial real estate in Ukraine valued at more than $800 million. Kivan's firm also invests in agriculture and media.

In contrast to most on Ukraine's rich list, Kivan did not grow up in the former Soviet Union. He was born in Syria and moved to Soviet Ukraine in the early 1980s to attend university.

He claims to have made his first millions importing goods into the Soviet Union from Egypt before switching to the export of Ukrainian steel to Africa and the Middle East.

He began investing in real estate in Odesa, the popular Ukrainian Black Sea resort known for its endemic corruption, in the mid-2000s, registering Kadorr in 2010.

He has built dozens of residential high-rise apartment buildings in and around Odesa over the years.

Kivan has had various partners on projects, including several with Hennadiy Trukhanov before he become mayor of Odesa starting in 2014.

Trukhanov, who had a falling out with Kivan, was recently charged with illegally acquiring land plots among other crimes.

Kivan also teamed up on real-estate projects with Ihor Markov, an Odesa-based, Kremlin-leaning politician who fled Ukraine in 2014 after the toppling of former President Viktor Yanukovych.

As he built up his real-estate empire in Odesa, Kivan acquired the Channel 7 TV station. Two years after he expanded into Kyiv in 2016, he purchased the Kyiv Post.

Vera Zaporozhets, an Odesa-based investigative journalist who used to work at Channel 7, told the Kyiv Post in 2018 that Kivan would rein in criticism of the government.

Sasha Borovik, a former adviser to ex-Odesa Governor and former Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, told the Kyiv Post in 2018 that Kivan "uses his publications as a political resource and a tool in business competition."

Rights activists accuse Ukraine's wealthiest people of using their media assets to push their own business and political interests.

Upon purchasing the Kyiv Post, Kivan said in a statement he would respect the paper's legacy of editorial independence.

"Without independent journalism, full-fledged democratic development of any country is impossible," he said in March 2018.

With reporting by RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service

North Macedonian lawmakers will vote on November 11 on a motion of no confidence in the Social Democrat-led government.

Speaker Talat Xhaferi scheduled the vote after opposition leader Hristijan Mickoski of the right-wing Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization-Democratic Party for Macedonian Unity (VMRO-DPMNE) put forward the motion following Prime Minister Zoran Zaev's failure to make good of his promise last week to resign after his Social Democratic Union (SDSM) suffered a trouncing defeat in local elections.

The main battleground in the elections on October 31 was Skopje, where SDSM incumbent Mayor Petre Shilegov lost to Danela Arsovska of the VMRO-DPMNE.

Mickoski, who has called for early elections following SDSM's defeat in the local polls, argued that the opposition now had a slim majority in parliament, with 61 out of 120 lawmakers, that would be enough to overthrow the government.

The decisive factor will be a promised change of sides by the small BESA movement, a center-right ethnic Albanian party that is currently a coalition partner in Zaev's cabinet.

If the no-confidence motion passes on November 11, President Stevo Pendarovski will have to appoint another politician who can command a majority in parliament to form a new government.

Observers believe it is possible that neither Mickoski nor the SDSM will succeed. This would then result in new elections.

Zaev was elected prime minister in 2017 after 10 years of right-wing rule led by Nikola Gruevski, whose government was shaken by a wiretapping scandal revealed by Zaev.

In 2018, Zaev struck a deal with Athens to add the geographical qualifier "north" to the country's official name in order to distinguish it from the Greek province of Macedonia.

That was a precondition to paving the way for NATO and European Union membership, but the name change did little to settle grievances of other countries, including Bulgaria, which has sought to block the country's path to joining the EU.

With reporting by dpa

Armenians and Azerbaijanis have commemorated the first anniversary of the ending of their bloody six-week war in Nagorno-Karabakh in starkly different ways, highlighting the continued tensions over the breakaway region.

The peace deal that ended last year's war was hailed as a triumph in Azerbaijan, but the loss sparked months of massive protests in Armenia demanding Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian's resignation.

In Azerbaijan, tens of thousands of people rallied in the capital, Baku, to celebrate the country’s victory in the confrontation with Armenian forces that caused the deaths of some 6,000 people on both sides. It is unclear how many more prisoners remain in captivity on either side

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev declared November 8 as Victory Day to celebrate the capture of the strategic city of Susa (known as Shushi in Armenian) by Azerbaijani forces.

Two days after the city fell, Armenia was forced to accept a Russian-brokered truce that handed a significant part of Nagorno-Karabakh and surrounding regions it had occupied for nearly three decades back to Azerbaijan.

"All of Azerbaijan celebrates this glorious holiday," Aliyev told troops in Susa. "Azerbaijan has restored its territorial integrity and restored historical justice."

"We have shown the whole world that we are a great nation," Aliyev added.

As part of the celebrations in Baku, military marches were held as thousands of flag-waving people honored troops and remembered the roughly 3,000 Azerbaijani servicemen and 100 civilians killed in the war.

Meanwhile, in Armenia's capital, Yerevan, thousands of opposition supporters rallied in Freedom Square on November 8 calling again for Pashinian's resignation and demanding that the government make no additional concessions to Azerbaijan as the two countries engage in Russian-mediated diplomacy to fulfill the terms of the peace agreement.

Nagorno-Karabakh is internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan but had been under the control of ethnic Armenian forces since the end of a separatist war in 1994.

Tensions since the signing of the cease-fire have remained high, with reports of scattered exchanges of gunfire.

On November 8, one ethnic Armenian resident of Nagorno-Karabakh was killed and three others wounded by incoming fire from the Azerbaijani side, ethnic Armenian authorities said.

According to them, the four men came under fire while repairing water pipes just outside the Azerbaijani-controlled town of Susa.

With reporting by AP, RFE/RL's Azerbaijan Service, and RFE/RL's Armenian Service

An independent Polish journalist who earlier this year accused an Uzbek Foreign Ministry official of sexual harassment and pressuring her to write positive articles about the country, says she has been banned from entering the Central Asian state for unspecified reasons.

Agnieszka Pikulicka-Wilczewska tweeted on November 8 that she was stranded at a checkpoint along the Uzbek-Kazakh border, after Uzbek border guards refused to allow her to enter the country.

"I came to Uzbekistan over three years ago hoping that change was possible. I'm leaving convinced that under current government no systemic change will ever take place," Pikulicka-Wilczewska wrote on Twitter, questioning democratic reforms promised by Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoev, who was reelected last month.

The Uzbek government has been trying for some time to limit the activities of Pikulicka-Wilczewska.

Earlier in June, Uzbek authorities reluctantly extended the journalist's accreditation after international rights and media groups raised concerns over the issue.

SEE ALSO:

Uzbekistan Refuses To Prolong Accreditation Of Polish Journalist Who Complained Of Sexual Harassment

In early February, the Uzbek Foreign Ministry officially apologized to Pikulicka-Wilczewska, a former Al-Jazeera correspondent who also worked for The Guardian and Eurasianet, for the behavior of a ministry employee whom the journalist publicly accused of sexual harassment and pressuring her to write positive articles about the tightly controlled former Soviet republic.

The situation around the Polish journalist and ongoing crackdown on bloggers and independent reporters have put under question the democratization reforms Mirziyoev announced after he took over following the death of his authoritarian predecessor, Islam Karimov, in 2016.

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

The U.S. Justice Department has charged a Russian and a Ukrainian for their role in a July ransomware attack on the Florida-based software firm Kaseya that impacted up to 1,500 businesses around the world.

Attorney General Merrick Garland said on November 8 that the United States also seized $6.1 million of illicit proceeds from Russian ransomware hacker Yevgeny Polyanin, who remains at large.

The other suspected ransomware attacker, Ukrainian Yaroslav Vasinskiy, was arrested in Poland last month, and the United States has requested his extradition.

Vasinskiy will face U.S. charges for using the ransomware REvil, also known as Sodinokibi, which has been used in a series of attacks on U.S. and international businesses, governments, and other institutions.

The Treasury Department also said the two men faced sanctions for their role in ransomware attacks, as well as the virtual currency exchange Chatex.

"Unprincipled virtual currency exchanges like Chatex are critical to the profitability of ransomware activities, especially by laundering and cashing out the proceeds for criminals," the Treasury said.

In a coordinated action, the State Department also announced a reward of up to $10 million for information leading to the identification or location of anybody holding a leadership position in the Sodinokibi/REvil ransomware crime group.

The State Department also offered a reward of up to $5 million for information leading to the arrest and conviction in any country of any individual participating in Sodinokibi/REvil ransomware attacks.

REvil, a group of Russian-speaking hackers, has been blamed for a series of high-profile ransomware attacks, in which hackers encrypt victims' data and then demand cryptocurrency to regain access.

Ransomware has become a top priority for governments as the number and severity of cases has surged in recent years, impacting a wide array of industries from retail and food to health care and critical infrastructure.

According to the U.S. Treasury, ransomware payments in the United States so far have reached $590 million in the first half of 2021, compared to a total of $416 million in 2020.

Earlier on November 8, the European police agency said Romanian police arrested two individuals last week as part of a global crackdown on cybercriminals behind ransomware attacks.

The two were arrested last week on suspicion of deploying cyberattacks using ransomware from REvil, which is viewed as the successor of GandCrab malware, Europol said in a statement on November 8.

Police agencies from 17 countries with the support of Europol and the international police body Interpol were involved in the monthslong operation dubbed "GoldDust.”

The European police agency said that in recent months three other affiliates of REvil/Sodinokibi and two suspects connected to GandCrab were also arrested in the global sting on cybercriminals.

The three people were arrested in South Korea, Europe, and Kuwait.

The two arrested in Romania alone were responsible for around 5,000 infections, which pocketed around 500,000 euros ($580,000), Europol said.

"All these arrests follow the joint international law enforcement efforts of identification, wiretapping, and seizure of some of the infrastructure used by Sodinokibi/REvil ransomware family," Europol said.

Questions about the fate of the group emerged in July, when webpages linked to REvil disappeared from the dark web, sparking speculation about whether the move was the result of a government-led action.

With reporting by Reuters

A former Belarusian teacher has been sentenced to two years in prison over her posts on Telegram commenting on unprecedented rallies against strongman Alyaksandr Lukashenka that erupted after last year's controversial presidential election.

A court in the southern city of Mazyr on November 8 found Iryna Harashyna guilty of organizing and preparing activities that "blatantly" violate social order and illegal activities to gain private information.

Charges against Harashyna stemmed from her posts in a Telegram channel that was declared extremist by Belarusian authorities earlier this year.

The trial was held behind closed doors, and it is unknown how the defendant pleaded.

Also on November 8, the Supreme Court shut down the Belarusian Language Society.

Society Chairwoman Alena Anisim said after the ruling was pronounced that the group's two newspapers in the Belarusian language will have to stop operations now.

In recent months, Belarusian courts have branded several civil society and rights groups extremist, forcing them to shut down as part of a sweeping crackdown in the wake of mass protests triggered by the presidential poll, which Lukashenka said he had won by a landslide but which the opposition and West say was rigged.

On November 10 and 19, the Supreme Court is scheduled to rule on the possible liquidation of the Belarusian Popular Front opposition party and For Freedom movement, respectively.

Georgia will require people to present a COVID-19 "green pass" from December 1 to enter many establishments, the government says.

Prime Minister Irakli Gharibashvili announced the new policy on November 8 in a bid to encourage people to get vaccinated.

Adults 18 and over will receive a "green pass" if they are fully vaccinated, have recovered from COVID-19, or have taken a PCR test within the last 72 hours, or an antigen test within 24 hours.

RFE/RL's Coronavirus Coverage

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

Only people with a pass will be able to enter restaurants, open and closed spaces of cafes and bars, cinemas, theaters, operas, museums, concert halls, entertainment centers, casinos, spas, gyms, hotels, and resorts.

Visitors of such establishments will be required to have a pass, but not employees.

The pass will also not be required to use essential services such as public transport and some shops and services.

According to the National Center for Disease Control, 952,831 people -- or 26 percent of the population -- are fully vaccinated.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, a total of 755,046 infections and 10,509 deaths have been registered in Georgia.

SARAJEVO -- Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik says he will move ahead with plans to withdraw the Republika Srpska, the Serbian-majority entity that makes up part of Bosnia-Herzegovina, from national institutions, brushing aside international concerns that such an agenda could spark a renewed conflict in the ethnically divided Balkan country.

After meeting on November 8 with U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Gabriel Escobar in Sarajevo, Dodik said that "neither I nor anyone called for war as an option at any time."

"We agree that stability and peace should be preserved," he added.

Escobar told reporters that he and all his interlocutors in the Bosnian capital agreed that "there will be no war" in Bosnia.

Noting that the Balkans is currently the fastest growing region of Europe, he called on Bosnian leaders to focus on European integration and economic development.

The Bosnian War ended in 1995 with the U.S.-brokered Dayton peace accords that created two entities in Bosnia, the Republika Srpska and the Muslim-Croat Federation. The country is still governed and administered along ethnic lines established by the agreement.

But Dodik, the Serbian representative in Bosnia's tripartite presidency, has been threatening to withdraw from state-level institutions, including Bosnia's joint judiciary, military, and tax administration, triggering growing concerns that Republika Srpska could secede from the rest of the country.

Calling his talks with Dodik productive, Escobar said that "the possibility is open to withdraw all those decisions related to the transfer of competencies [from the state level to Republika Srpska] so that we can continue working on economic development."

Escobar also met separately with lawmakers and the Croatian and Muslim members of Bosnia's presidency, Zeljko Komsic and Sefik Dzaferovic, who called the blocking of state institutions by Republika Srpska since July unacceptable.

In an interview with RFE/RL ahead of his trip to the Bosnian capital, Escobar warned that any moves to undermine the Dayton peace accords were "very detrimental and very destabilizing to the region."

SEE ALSO:

U.S. Diplomat Due In Bosnia Amid Serbian Threats To Withdraw From Institutions

Escobar said the reasons behind Dodik's move to weaken central institutions were corruption and his attempt to "look for ways to protect his power and his money."

The U.S. diplomat's comments came days after Christian Schmidt, the chief UN envoy to Bosnia, issued a stark warning that Dodik's threats to withdraw from state-level institutions represented an "existential threat" to the country's postwar peace deal.

SEE ALSO:

Bosnian Peace Deal 'At Risk Of Unravelling' Unless International Community Acts

The prospects for further division and conflict in Bosnia "are very real," Schmidt said in a report to the UN Security Council, warning that if the Bosnian Serb leader's threats materialize they would "ultimately undermine the state's ability to function and carry out its constitutional responsibilities."

TBILISI -- Jailed former Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, who has been on a hunger strike for more than a month, has been transferred to a prison hospital.

The Penitentiary Service said on November 8 that Saakashvili was transferred from the prison in the city of Rustavi to the Gldani prison clinic amid concerns about his health.

Saakashvili's lawyers and personal doctor say the 53-year-old former president's condition is deteriorating and have demanded that he be transferred to a private clinic outside the prison system.

The government rejected these demands, saying that if necessary, he would be transferred to a prison hospital.

Saakashvili's supporters and activists of his United National Movement (ENM), Georgia's main opposition party, have been protesting against his incarceration outside the prison in Rustavi where he began a hunger strike after being detained on October 1 upon his return from eight years in self-exile to campaign for the opposition ahead of local elections.

On November 8, supporters rallied in Tbilisi's central Freedom Square, demanding Saakashvili's release and his transfer to a civilian hospital.

Earlier on November 8, Saakashvili vowed to continue his hunger strike "until death," while the Penitentiary Service issued a video over the weekend showing the former president eating unspecified items and drinking from a bottle in the detention center's medical room.

In his statement on Facebook, Saakashvili called on his supporters and opposition politicians to focus on what he called "stolen elections and returning the government to the Georgian people" instead of focusing on his hunger strike.

"I returned [to Georgia], voluntarily became a hostage, and intended to stay on hunger strike until death to contribute into liberation our country, to its efforts to preserve its European path...," Saakashvili's Facebook statement said.

Meanwhile, on November 5, Justice Minister Rati Bregadze said Saakashvili also consumed porridge in addition to juice.

A day later, the Penitentiary Service issued a video showing the former president eating some food and drinking what the service said was juice in a medical room in the detention center in Rustavi, and issued a video to prove it.

Saakashvili then announced on that day that he was stopping receiving vitamins and juice in protest.

Saakashvili, who was president from 2004 to 2013, left the country shortly after the presidential election of 2013 and was convicted in absentia in 2018 of abuse of power and seeking to cover up evidence about the beating of an opposition member of parliament.

Saakashvili has said the charges against him are politically motivated.

The ENM was outpolled decisively by the ruling Georgian Dream party in the October 3 nationwide municipal and mayoral vote.

The opposition has said that Georgian Dream, founded by billionaire and Saakashvili's rival Bidzina Ivanishvili, rigged the runoff on October 30. Georgian Dream won the mayoral races in the country's five biggest cities as a result of the vote.

Georgia has been plagued by political paralysis since parliamentary elections in 2020.

A Russian court has ordered Google to pay 2 million rubles ($28,085) for violating the country's rules on banned content.

In recent months, Russian courts have ordered Google to pay fines totaling hundreds of thousands of dollars for failing to delete banned content on its search engine and YouTube.

Courts have also fined Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, Telegram, and TikTok on similar charges.

Google confirmed the November 8 fine, but gave no additional comment.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has accused social-media platforms and other tech giants of flouting the country's Internet laws, including a push to force foreign firms to open offices in Russia and store Russians' personal data on its territory.

Many critics say the push has nothing to do with "Internet integrity" and instead accuse the authorities of trying to quell dissent.

Based on reporting by Reuters