A reform-minded Romanian judge has been suspended from the judiciary over videos he posted on the social-media platform TikTok, a move that sparked widespread criticism and a sharp reaction from the U.S. Embassy on December 14.

Cristi Danilet, a judge in the northwestern city of Cluj, was suspended on December 13 by Romania's Superior Council of Magistrates (CSM), a body tasked with ensuring the independence of the judiciary, over two videos he posted on TikTok last year.

In one of the videos, Danilet, a martial arts practitioner, performs a martial arts exercise, while in the second he is cutting a garden hedge.

A CSM commission ruled that the videos amounted to “behavior that affects the image of the justice system.”

The decision can be appealed.

Danilet, who has a sizable social-media following, has for years been critical of Romania's corruption-ridden judiciary and promoted reforms.

Observers say Danilet's suspension amounts to a warning aimed at reform-minded judges who intend to run for a position on the CSM next year.

The U.S. Embassy in Bucharest said it was “deeply concerned" about Danilet's suspension.

“An independent justice that respects the rule of law is essential for any prosperous democracy,” the statement said, adding that President Joe Biden recently said at the Summit for Democracy that “democracy does not happen by accident.”

Romania, one of the poorest and most corrupt EU member states, saw massive protests in 2017 and 2018 against controversial judicial reforms pushed forward by the then-government led by the leftist Social Democratic Party (PSD).

That government was toppled in a no-confidence vote in 2019 but is currently back in power in a coalition with the center-right National Liberal Party (PNL).

With reporting by RFE/RL's Romanian Service

Lilia Chanysheva, the former leader of a regional organization for jailed Kremlin critic Aleksei Navalny, says she is preparing for the worst in her trial on extremism charges, but believes it would have been “a bigger tragedy” had she opted to flee the country before her arrest last month.

"I have always said, 'Do what you must do, no matter what,'" Chanysheva said in written answers to questions from RFE/RL on December 14. "Taking into consideration that I do not know even a single acquittal in politically motivated cases, I am preparing myself for the worst, but hope for the best."

Chanysheva was arrested in November in Bashkortostan’s capital, Ufa, on extremism charges in what legal experts have called an unusual prosecution that appears to target her retroactively for alleged crimes.

She was later transferred to a detention center in Moscow, where she is expected to remain in pretrial detention until at least January 9. In recent months, many associates of Navalny fled the country before they could be arrested. Navalny has been in prison since February.

"First days after the detainment I felt some calmness, a sort of a feeling that something that was supposed to happen happened,” Chanysheva said. “But now it is hard to stand separation from my husband. I am concerned about my parents. I miss my younger brother and his family.”

The 39-yer-old also worries that if she receives a lengthy prison term it will deprive her of being able to have children. She and her husband had been hoping for a pregnancy for six months prior to her detention, she said.

Chanysheva headed the local unit of Navalny's network of regional campaign groups until Navalny's team disbanded them after a Moscow prosecutor went to court to have them branded extremist. A court later accepted the prosecutor's appeal and labeled the national network extremist, effectively outlawing them.

Defense lawyer Vladimir Voronin said earlier that Chanysheva's arrest was the first of its kind since the movement was banned. The charges appear to be retroactive since the organization she worked for disbanded before it had been legally classified as extremist, he said.

Chanysheva, who has maintained her innocence from the first day of her arrest, does not know why she was the first among former associates of Navalny to be arrested after Navalny's networks were outlawed.

The case against her on a charge of "creation and leading an extremist group" is being investigated by the Investigative Committee's Main Directorate.

Navalny and associates Leonid Volkov, Ivan Zhdanov, Lyubov Sobol, and many others are also suspects in the case. Volkov, Zhdanov, and Sobol have fled Russia.

Chanysheva added that she regularly receives letters from relatives, other Russian citizens, and people in Europe and the United States.

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The letters come from students, teachers, pensioners, retired police officers, and journalists, she said, adding that it’s important to her that there are so many letters.

“Those are real people who express concerns about me and support me, help me feel that I am not alone and everything I did was right," Chanysheva said.

Chanysheva reiterated that she considers herself "a happy person" because she lives "in accord with myself" and she hopes free people “appreciate each moment of their lives and live in accord with themselves, too.”

She also expressed her thanks to everyone “for the support and for everything you do to free me.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin has again called for "immediate" talks with the United States and NATO over security guarantees as tensions mount over Ukraine.

Putin reiterated the demand in phone calls with his Finnish and French counterparts on December 14, the Kremlin said.

In recent weeks, Ukraine and its Western backers have accused Russia of massing troops near their common border as a possible prelude to an invasion as early as next month.

Russian officials deny Moscow is preparing any offensive, instead accusing Ukraine of provocation and insisting they have the right to move forces anywhere they want within their own country.

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In his call with Finnish President Sauli Niinisto on December 14, Putin "reiterated the need to immediately launch negotiations with the United States and NATO in order to develop international legal guarantees for the security of our country," the Kremlin said in a statement.

The two also discussed the crisis over Ukraine, the statement added.

Separately, the Kremlin said Putin told his French counterpart, Emmanuel Macron, in a phone call on the same day that Moscow wanted immediate talks with Western countries to prevent NATO's expansion further east.

• RFE/RL

Amid fears of a possible invasion, Ukrainian officials say more than 90,000 Russian troops have been deployed along its border -- including on the Crimean Peninsula, which Russia seized by force from Ukraine in 2014. Maxar Technologies, a satellite-imaging company, has released photographs that show the Russian troop buildup.

"The Russian president emphasized the importance of immediately launching international negotiations to develop legally fixed guarantees that would prevent any further NATO expansion to the east and the deployment of weapons to neighboring states, primarily in Ukraine, that threaten Russia," the Kremlin said in a statement.

Putin made similar demands during virtual talks with U.S. President Joe Biden last week and in a phone call with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on December 13.

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European Union foreign ministers met on December 13 in Brussels to coordinate a sanctions response against Moscow if it launches a new military invasion of Ukraine.

The EU has already imposed several rounds of sanctions on Russia over its forcible seizure of Ukraine's Crimea region in March 2014 and over Moscow’s backing of separatists in eastern Ukraine in an ongoing conflict that has killed more than 13,200 people since April 2014.

Finland, which shares a 1,340-kilometer border with Russia, is not a member of NATO, but has in recent years increased its bilateral defense and military cooperation with the United States and its neighbors Sweden and Norway.

Last week, the Finnish government agreed to buy 64 Lockheed Martin F-35A fighter jets to replace its aging fleet of combat planes in a 10 billion euro ($11.3 billion) deal -- the country's largest-ever military purchase.

With reporting by AFP and Reuters

A bill that would allow Russia's regional leaders to serve more than two consecutive terms in office and abolish the title of president in the autonomous Russian republic of Tatarstan has been approved after two final readings by the lower chamber of the Russian parliament.

The bill was approved by 330 lawmakers in the State Duma on December 14, with 89 members voting against the bill and two abstaining.

Lawmakers representing the Communist Party and A Just Russia voted against the bill.

The bill must be approved by the parliament's upper chamber, the Federation Council, and then signed into law by President Vladimir Putin.

The bill was proposed in September by lawmaker Nikolai Klishas, who said then that the bill envisions the establishment of a single, unified name for posts held by regional leaders and would abolish titles such as president for republics inside Russia. That move would affect Rustam Minnikhanov, the president of the republic of Tatarstan.

In October, Tatarstan's parliament voted to reject the Duma bill on the grounds that it would violate the constitution of the Russian Federation.

A U.S.-based analyst, Paul Goble, commenting on the bill's approval, told RFE/RL that "Russia should not be called a federation" now.

"Putin has gutted the few provisions that remained from the 1993 constitution already. What he is doing now is attacking the few remaining symbols,” Goble said.

“The reality has already been changed. But he is doing so in such a clumsy and heavy-handed way that the Kremlin leader is going to produce exactly what he doesn't want -- more resistance in the regions and republics and even a revival of talk about separatism."

BISHKEK -- The ousted first president of independent Kyrgyzstan, Askar Akaev, has arrived in Bishkek for the second time since August for questioning in connection with an investigation into possible corruption around one of the world's biggest gold mines.

Akaev's relatives told RFE/RL that the ex-president arrived in Bishkek on December 14 for at least five days to answer questions from the State Committee for National Security (UKMK) regarding the Kumtor gold mine.

There were no official statements regarding Akaev's arrival in Bishkek.

It is Akaev's second trip to the post-Soviet Central Asian republic since he fled peaceful pro-democracy rallies in 2005. His first trip in early August was also related to the investigation of the Kumtor gold mine case.

Kumtor has been a target of financial and environmental disagreements for years and is currently the subject of an ongoing battle for control between the Kyrgyz state and the mine's operator, Canadian Centerra Gold.

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The UKMK said in July that Akaev and another exiled former Kyrgyz president, Kurmanbek Bakiev, had been added to the international wanted list as part of the Kumtor corruption probe.

According to the UKMK, Centerra Gold paid bribes to top Kyrgyz officials, including Akaev, Bakiev, and another former president, Almazbek Atambaev, who is currently jailed in another case.

Akaev fled to Russia during the so-called Tulip Revolution in 2005. He was president from 1990 to 2005. Since his departure, he has avoided returning to Kyrgyzstan, even for the burial of close relatives.

Bakiev has been in exile in Belarus since being toppled by anti-government protests in 2010.

The giant Kumtor gold project has been the focus of international attention since a new Kyrgyz government moved to temporarily take over operations at the mine in what President Sadyr Japarov said was a necessary move to remedy environmental and safety violations.

In May, the Kyrgyz government approved a law allowing it to take control for up to three months of any company that operates under a concession agreement in Kyrgyzstan if that firm violates environmental regulations, endangers the local environment or the lives of people, or causes other significant damage.

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Centerra has called the Kyrgyz actions "wrongful and illegal" and said in July that it had filed additional arbitration claims against the government in Bishkek over Kumtor.

Many Kyrgyz lawmakers have expressed concerns about the lack of transparency of the operations at Kumtor after the Kyrgyz government took the gold mine under its control in May.

On December 13, at a parliamentary session, Kyrgyz Finance Minister Almaz Baketaev was unable to answer a lawmaker's question on the amount of gold produced at Kumtor while it's under government control and where and for what price it has been sold.

On September 22, Kyrgyz Prime Minister Akylbek Japarov told RFE/RL that after the Kyrgyz government took over the gold mine, Kumtor produced 4.1 tons of gold, bringing $62 million to the state treasury. Three days later, UKMK chief Kamchybek Tashiev said that Kyrgyzstan had made $90 million in profit via Kumtor's operations after the government took over the gold mine.

Earlier this year, Kyrgyz authorities arrested several former officials and current lawmakers in connection with the case.

A panel of experts of the Council of Europe human rights body has assessed that recent amendments to Hungarian legislation related to sex-education programs in schools and the presentation of sexual content in the media are discriminatory and violate international human rights standards.

The government of right-wing Prime Minister Viktor Orban passed the changes in June, drawing sharp criticism from the European Commission and members of the LGBT community who say they stigmatize sexual minorities and stifle discourse on sexual orientation.

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In an opinion published on December 14, the constitutional law experts of the Venice Commission concluded that the amendments "fail to comply with the positive obligation of Hungary to ensure that the educational system provide children with objective and non-biased information on gender identity and sexual orientation," according to a statement.

The amendments contribute to creating a "threatening environment" in which LGBT children can be subject to bullying and harassment, the panel said.

They "leave space only for one-sided and biased teaching, opening doors to stigmatization and discrimination" of LGBT people, it added.

The experts also regretted that the reform was adopted "in a rushed manner, without consulting civil society and the political opposition."

The laws in question set limits on schools' teaching about homosexuality and transgender issues as well as the depiction of LGBT content in the media, ostensibly as a measure to prevent child abuse.

Orban says the measures aim to protect children and families and does not target adults.

The European Commission, the EU's executive, has launched two separate legal proceedings against Hungary's government over what it called infringements on LGBT rights.

Critics say Orban's ruling Fidesz has stepped up its anti-LGBT campaign as part of an ongoing drive to depict itself as the guardian of Christian values against Western liberalism that also included blocking migrants from transiting Hungary and closing down privately owned liberal media institutions.

The amendments were proposed by the government ahead of parliamentary elections next year in which Fidesz may be vulnerable to a newly united opposition.

With reporting by Reuters

Serbia has taken a step toward its goal of joining the EU by opening talks on four policy areas, but European officials warn Belgrade that progress in the process still depends on continued reforms and normalizing relations with Kosovo.

To be eligible to join the 27-country EU, applicant states must bring their laws and regulations into line with the bloc's standards through negotiations in 35 policy areas, or chapters, including finance, agriculture, transport, energy, social, and justice policy.

On December 14, Serbia was allowed to open talks on climate change and environment, energy, transport policy, and trans-European infrastructure networks -- the first time the Balkan country has opened four chapters at once.

Belgrade has now opened 22 negotiating chapters since its membership talks began in 2014.

"Serbia is taking yet another very important step forward joining the European Union," EU Enlargement Negotiations Commissioner Oliver Varhelyi said following the intergovernmental conference with Serbia in Brussels.

Gasper Dovzan, state secretary at the Slovenian Foreign Ministry, whose country is currently holding the presidency of the EU Council, said that the Serbian government "prioritized EU-related reforms and delivered on a number of important commitments, in particular on taxation and energy."

But "further efforts are needed," Dovzan said, citing judiciary independence, media freedom, and the fight against corruption and organized crime.

"Serbia's progress on the rule of law and the normalization of relations with Kosovo remains essential and will continue to determine the overall pace of the negotiations," he added.

Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in 2008 after a 1998-99 conflict between ethnic Albanian separatists and Serbian forces. The war ended after a 78-day NATO air campaign drove Serbian troops out, and a peacekeeping force moved in.

Kosovo's independence has been recognized by more than 100 countries including the United States and all but five of the EU member states. But Serbia still considers the territory a southern province and is supported by Russia and China.

EU-mediated talks between Pristina and Belgrade to settle their differences have stalled.

YEREVAN -- Neighbors Turkey and Armenia have announced that they will appoint special envoys on mending relations that have been strained for decades.

Yerevan and Ankara have never established formal diplomatic ties. Turkey, a key regional ally of Turkic-speaking Azerbaijan, has kept its border with Armenia closed since the 1990s, due to what it said was Armenia's occupation of Nagorno-Karabakh and surrounding regions.

Tensions have simmered for years over Nagorno-Karabakh, an ethnic Armenian region internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan that broke away from Baku's control in the early 1990s.

In autumn 2020, Armenia and Azerbaijan fought a six-week war over the disputed region, which claimed more than 6,500 lives and ended with a Russian-brokered cease-fire under which Armenians ceded territories they had controlled for decades to Azerbaijan.

Amid continued border tensions between Armenia and Azerbaijan, with sporadic deadly fighting taking place, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev are expected to meet later on December 14 in Brussels for talks hosted by European Council President Charles Michel.

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Armenia is ready for the process of normalizing relations with Turkey "without preconditions," Armenian Foreign Ministry spokesman Vahan Hunanian said on December 14.

Hunanian confirmed that Yerevan will appoint a special representative in order to normalize relations with Turkey, a day after a similar announcement by Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu.

"We will respectively nominate with Armenia special representatives for normalization." Cavusoglu told Turkish lawmakers, adding, "We will also start Yerevan-Istanbul charter flights in the coming period."

Mainly Armenian-populated Nagorno-Karabakh declared independence from Azerbaijan amid a 1988-94 war that claimed an estimated 30,000 lives and displaced hundreds of thousands of people.

Armenia and Turkey signed an accord in 2009 to normalize relations that would have led to the opening of their shared border, but the deal was not ratified.

Their relationship has also been strained by the World War I-era mass slaughter and deportation of Armenians by Ottoman Turks. Armenia insists the massacres amount to genocide, which Turkey vehemently rejects.

With reporting by RFE/RL's Armenian and Azerbaijani services

MOSCOW -- A court in Moscow has fined investigative website The Insider for failing to mark its materials as being produced by a "foreign agent," a mandatory requirement for those added to the state's controversial registry.

The Taganka district court on December 14 ordered The Insider to pay 1 million rubles ($13,600) for the lack of labels on its materials. The group was added to the "foreign agent" registry in July.

The Insider's chief editor, Roman Dobrokhotov, has said the website will not mark its materials with the "foreign agent" disclaimer because The Insider is registered in Latvia and is not obliged to follow Russian law.

Russia's "foreign agent" legislation requires nongovernmental organizations that receive foreign assistance and that the government deems to be engaged in political activity to be registered, to identify themselves as "foreign agents," to submit to audits, and to label their content with an intrusive disclaimer or face fines.

Just days after The Insider was labeled a "foreign agent," Moscow police searched Dobrokhotov's apartment and that of his parents as well. His passport was confiscated, but he still managed to leave the country.

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Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) in September said an arrest warrant had been issued for Dobrokhotov.

Dobrokhotov is accused of illegally crossing the border into Ukraine in August, "bypassing the established checkpoints," the FSB said.

The statement added that Dobrokhotov faced criminal prosecution and up to two years in prison if convicted of the offenses.

With reporting by Interfax and Reuters

MOSCOW -- Russia's Supreme Court has resumed a hearing into a request by federal prosecutors to shut down one of the post-Soviet world's oldest and most prestigious human rights organizations, Memorial International.

Judge Alla Nazarova started the hearing on December 14 after a 20-minute delay. The initial phase of the hearing saw the court study basic registration documentation from Memorial International, after which the prosecutor-general's request to shut down the group and other documents in the case will be studied.

The case was initiated by prosecutors under the controversial "foreign agent" law, which is increasingly being used by officials to shut down civil society groups and independent media in Russia.

Rights activists say that there are no legal grounds to liquidate the organization, which has been devoted since the late 1980s to researching and memorializing the crimes of the Soviet Union, as well as to promoting human rights in Russia and the former Soviet republics. They say the prosecutor-general's demand to shut down Memorial International is "a politically motivated decision."

Memorial has characterized the actions of Russian authorities as "political pressure" and countered that "there are no legal grounds for liquidation."

The United States and European Union have called on Russia to stop the move to shut down Memorial.

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Russia's so-called "foreign agent" legislation was adopted in 2012 and has been modified repeatedly. It requires nongovernmental organizations that receive foreign assistance and that the government deems to be engaged in political activity to be registered, to identify themselves as "foreign agents," and to submit to audits.

Later modifications of the law targeted foreign-funded media, including RFE/RL's Russian Service, six other RFE/RL Russian-language news services, and Current Time.

Russian Prosecutor-General Igor Krasnov, meanwhile, claims that Memorial International was added to the registry of "foreign agents" for systematically violating the law by failing to appropriately label its materials -- one of the requirements for those on the registry.

Russia's most prominent lawyers -- Genri Reznik, Maria Eismont, Mikhail Biryukov, Grigory Vaipan, Anastasia Garina, Tatyana Glushkova, Tamilla Imanova, Natalya Morozova, and Natalya Sekretaryova -- are representing Memorial International at the hearing.

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'Destroying Our Memory': Russia's Embattled Civil Society Rallies To Oppose Memorial Shutdown

Dozens gathered in front of the Supreme Court building in Moscow on December 14 to support the rights organization.

Police detained at least one picketer who appeared separately outside the court holding a sign saying: "Hands off Memorial! Free political prisoners!"

A separate claim by Moscow authorities targets the Memorial Human Rights Center, the local group that works under the umbrella of Memorial International.

In a joint statement on November 18, two Russian Nobel Peace laureates, Mikhail Gorbachev, the last Soviet leader, and Novaya gazeta newspaper editor-in-chief Dmitry Muratov, said attempts to close Memorial had "caused anxiety and concern in the country, which we share."

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Russian Nobel Laureates Warn Against Closure Of Memorial Rights Group

Marija Pejcinovic Buric, the secretary-general of the Council of Europe, a pan-European rights body, said earlier that the "foreign agents" legislation "stigmatizes" NGOs, media, and individuals and "has had a repressive impact on civil society in Russia over recent years."

MOSCOW -- Prominent Russian film director Sergei Solovyov, whose movies in the late 1980s became symbols of Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev's reforms, has died at the age of 77.

Solovyov's relatives said late on December 13 that the director, screenwriter, producer, and actor died of a heart attack.

Solovyov made more than 30 movies over his career, including One Hundred Days After Childhood, which received the Silver Bear prize in Berlin in 1975 for best director and The Stray White And The Speckled, which won a special award at the Venice Film Festival in 1986.

Solovyov's most prominent film, Assa, made in 1987, became a significant event for Soviet citizens, as its soundtrack included songs by the legendary Soviet rock musicians Viktor Tsoi and Boris Grebenshchikov, whose music was officially banned in the country before that.

Solovyov survived a stroke last year and had several surgeries, after which he was rarely seen in public.

A UN agency has confirmed that an Arctic temperature record of 38 degrees Celsius was reached in eastern Siberia during a prolonged heatwave last year that fanned wildfires across northern Russia's forests and tundra, further raising fears about the intensity of global warming.

The record was hit on June 20, 2020, in the town of Verkhoyansk, which is located 115 kilometers north of the Arctic Circle in the northern part of Sakha Republic (Yakutia), the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said in a statement on December 14.

Temperatures have been measured there since 1885.

"This new Arctic record is one of a series of observations reported to the WMO Archive of Weather and Climate Extremes that sound the alarm bells about our changing climate," said WMO Secretary-General Petteri Taalas, adding that a temperature record of 18.3 degrees Celsius was recorded in the Antarctic last year.

The average temperatures across Arctic Siberia reached up to 10 degrees Celsius above normal "for much of summer last year," the WMO said, "fueling devastating fires, driving massive sea-ice loss, and playing a major role in 2020 being one of the three warmest years on record."

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The WMO announcement comes after Russia vetoed a UN Security Council resolution on December 13 formally linking climate change and global security that was supported by a majority of UN member states.

Hungarian authorities say seven migrants were killed and four other people injured after the vehicle they were traveling in crashed into a house near the border with Serbia.

The incident took place late on December 13 in the southern village of Morahalom, when the driver of the car refused to stop for a police check and tried to escape at high speed, police said.

The vehicle, which had a Serbian license plate and was carrying 10 migrants, then crashed into a house and rolled over.

Those injured included the driver and three migrants.

Police said the driver was detained, and that proceedings against him would be launched for people trafficking and causing a fatal accident.

The so-called Balkan route to wealthier European Union countries is used by migrants and refugees escaping conflict, hardship, and persecution.

The number of migrants illegally entering the EU by crossing the Western Balkans has almost doubled this year, the bloc's border agency Frontex said in August, with the majority coming from Syria and Afghanistan.

Based on reporting by Reuters and Halasinfo

A court in Belarus has delivered verdicts and harsh sentences to a group of bloggers, opposition activists, and the husband of exiled opposition leader Svyatlana Tsikhanouskaya, all of whom were rounded up by security officials before a controversial presidential election that saw authoritarian ruler Alyaksandr Lukashenka claim a sixth term in power despite widespread belief that the vote was rigged.

Rights groups consider all six of those who were sentenced on December 14 behind closed doors in the southeastern city of Homel to be political prisoners, with the 173-day trial, one of the longest in Belarus’s history, widely condemned as a sham.

The United States and the European Union condemned the sentences.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement that “politically motivated convictions are further evidence of the regime’s disregard for these international obligations as well as for the human rights and fundamental freedoms of Belarusians.”

EU foreign affairs spokesman Peter Stano also condemned the "harsh and unfounded" prison terms.

"These sentences are part of the ongoing brutal and systematic repression of all independent voices in Belarus," Stano said. "The EU strongly condemns these continued, flagrant violations of human rights and fundamental freedoms by the Minsk regime."

The crackdown on the pro-democracy movement has only intensified since mass protests erupted in the wake of Lukashenka's August 2020 reelection, which is not recognized by the opposition and the West.

Popular video blogger Syarhey Tsikhanouski, who intended to run against Lukashenka before being disqualified and ultimately arrested ahead of the election, was sentenced to 18 years in prison by the court for organizing mass disorder, inciting social hatred, impeding the activities of the Central Election Commission, and organizing activities that disrupted social order.

A picture from the courtroom showed a defiant Tsikhanouski with his back turned to the judge while the sentence was being read out. He later shouted out, "Long live Belarus!" one witness who was inside the courtroom told RFE/RL's Belarus service.

After being disqualified, his political novice wife, Tsikhanouskaya, mobilized voters and won the election, according to the opposition and Western countries.

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Tsikhanouskaya has been living in exile in Lithuania since fleeing Belarus after the election due to concerns about her safety and that of the couple's two children.

"The very existence of these people is a crime for the regime. They're repressed for wanting to live in a free Belarus," Tsikhanouskaya said in a tweet immediately after news of the verdict broke.

"The dictator publicly takes revenge on his strongest opponents. While hiding the political prisoners in closed trials, he hopes to continue repressions in silence. But the whole world watches. We won't stop," she added.

Another blogger, Ihar Losik, who is also an RFE/RL consultant, was handed a sentence of 15 years.

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Losik, who is among hundreds of political prisoners caught up in the crackdown, has been held in pretrial detention since June 2020. He was initially charged with allegedly using his popular Telegram channel to "prepare to disrupt public order" ahead of the August election.

In April, he tried to slit his wrists and launched a four-day hunger strike after being informed of new, unspecified charges. He had previously launched a six-week hunger strike to protest the original charges.

Losik's wife angrily chided officials from the judiciary for having "trampled on every piece of legislation, all legal norms, even though your job is to protect them."

But she saved her harshest words for Lukashenka, excoriating him for trying to look "so brave" in state media.

"It is interesting that while you are allegedly fighting against such terrible threats, you have no guts to meet with one ordinary girl, a loving wife and mom,” she told RFE/RL's Belarus Service.

“Let's meet and I will tell you what our family goes through thanks to your subordinates, how it feels to live through my husband’s two hunger strikes, to learn that he tried to commit suicide right in front of one of your so-called investigators. You said you do not fight women, but my case and the cases of dozens of female political prisoners prove otherwise."

RFE/RL President Jamie Fly called Lukashenka's treatment of Losik and other journalists “reprehensible.”

"The closed-door trial he and his co-defendants have endured for the past five months has been an outrageous travesty of justice. We again call on the Lukashenka regime to stop their assault on news organizations and journalists and bloggers like Ihar and let him return to his wife and daughter," Fly said ahead of the verdict.

Among the other defendants in the trial, former presidential candidate Mikalay Statkevich received a prison sentence of 14 years, opposition activist Uladzimer Tsyhanovich 15 years, activist Artsyom Sakau 16 years, and another activist, Dzmitry Papou, 16 years.

• RFE/RL's Belarus Service

Hundreds of people widely considered to be political prisoners are being held in harsh conditions in Belarusian prisons. A small group of volunteers is doing what it can to lift their spirits with the Free Postcards project.

The defendants, who have been in pretrial detention since their arrests, are accused of various alleged crimes, including organizing mass disorder, inciting social hatred, impeding the activities of the Central Election Commission, and organizing activities that disrupt social order. It’s unclear why some of the defendants are being tried together or the reason for the trial being held behind closed doors.

In the wake of the election, tens of thousands of people were detained and human rights activists say more than 800 people are considered political prisoners.

Independent media, opposition social-media channels, and civil society groups have also been harassed and shut down, while much of the opposition is either in prison or exile.

One opposition figure, Maryya Kalesnikava, was sentenced to 11 years in prison in September for conspiracy to seize power, calls for action to damage national security, and calls for actions damaging national security by trying to create an extremist group.

Kalesnikava was snatched from the streets of Minsk days earlier by masked men along with two staffers. The three were driven early the next day to the border, where authorities told them to cross into Ukraine.

Security officers reportedly failed to deport Kalesnikava because she ripped her passport into small pieces after they arrived in the no-man's-land between Belarus and Ukraine. Her two associates entered Ukraine, but with no valid passport, Kalesnikava remained in the country and was subsequently detained.

In late September, she won the Vaclav Havel Human Rights Prize awarded annually by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) to honor "outstanding" civil society action in the defense of human rights.

Russia has vetoed a United Nations Security Council resolution that sought to formally link climate change and global security.

The resolution, drafted by Niger and Ireland, called for "information on the security implications of climate change" to be addressed by the Security Council.

The measure also asked UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to make climate-related security risks "a central component" of conflict-prevention and peacekeeping strategies.

The text won support from 12 of the council's 15 members on December 13. India voted no and China abstained.

Veto-wielding Russia voted no to block the resolution.

"Only the [Security Council] can ensure the security impacts of climate change are integrated into the critical work of conflict prevention and mitigation, peacekeeping, and humanitarian response," the U.S. ambassador to the UN, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, wrote on Twitter.

"Russia let the world down by vetoing a resolution backed by a majority of UN member states," she said.

The resolution was long overdue and only a "modest first step," Irish Ambassador Geraldine Byrne Nason said.

Her counterpart from Niger, Abdou Abarry, called opposition to the draft "short-sighted."

Following the vote, Niger and Ireland denounced the veto power given to permanent Security Council members the United States, Britain, France, Russia, and China, calling the rule created during the UN's post-World War II founding "an anachronism."

"This council will never live up to its mandate for international peace and security if it does not adapt. It must reflect the moment we are now living in, the threats to international peace and security which we now face," they said.

Opponents of the resolution said the UN already had bodies devoted to addressing climate change and it doesn’t belong on the agenda of the Security Council, where the issue could become politicized.

The Russian mission to the UN said in a statement that the resolution was aimed at "coercing" the council to examine conflicts and threats to international peace and security through a one-dimensional "climate lens."

"It was a generic proposal to establish this automatic link while neglecting all other aspects of situations in countries in conflict or countries lagging behind in their socioeconomic development," the statement added.

The resolution would have been used "to gain leverage in the council to impose a particular vision with regard to fulfillment of climate commitments and ultimately to initiate putting any country on the council's agenda under the climate pretext since climate-related issues are felt all over the world," it said.

With reporting by AP, Reuters, and TASS.

Iran has accused Western parties to its 2015 nuclear deal of "persisting in their blame game," after European diplomats involved in ongoing negotiations aimed at reviving the agreement said Tehran was putting forward new proposals that are "inconsistent" with the accord.

During a visit to Indonesia on December 14, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the United States was preparing "alternatives" with allies in case the talks in Vienna on reviving the deal to curb Iran's nuclear ambitions failed.

The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), under which Iran curtailed its nuclear activities in exchange for a lifting of global sanctions, began unraveling in 2018 when former U.S. President Donald Trump pulled out of the deal and reimposed sanctions, prompting Tehran to exceed limits imposed under the pact.

The talks between Iran and the remaining parties to the agreement -- Britain, France, Germany, China, and Russia -- were resumed in Vienna on November 29 after a five-month hiatus, with the United States participating indirectly.

No apparent progress has been made in the talks, with diplomats from France, Britain, and Germany -- known as the E3 -- saying in a joint statement on December 13, "We are losing precious time dealing with new Iranian positions inconsistent with the JCPOA or that go beyond it."

"Without swift progress, in light of Iran’s fast-forwarding of its nuclear program, the JCPOA will very soon become an empty shell," they warned.

Iran's chief negotiator at the talks, Ali Bagheri, responded to the statement on December 14, saying on Twitter, "Some actors persist in their blame game habit, instead of real diplomacy."

Iran "proposed our ideas early, and worked constructively and flexibly to narrow gaps," Bagheri wrote, adding that "diplomacy is a two-way street."

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President Joe Biden says the United States is ready to rejoin the JCPOA provided Iran resumes observing the deal's conditions. Among other things, Iran is demanding the lifting of all U.S. sanctions and guarantees that Washington will not withdraw from any future agreement.

U.S. officials say they won't allow Iran to draw out negotiations while continuing to advance its nuclear program, warning that Washington will pursue other options if diplomacy fails.

"We continue in this hour, on this day, to pursue diplomacy because it remains at this moment the best option, but we are actively engaging with allies and partners on alternatives," Blinken said on December 14.

The top U.S. diplomat referred to the E3 statement, which he said noted that "time is running out, that Iran is still not engaged in real negotiations."

There has been growing Western concerns over Iran's nuclear advances in its uranium enrichment program, which is a possible pathway to a nuclear bomb.

Iranian officials have maintained the country’s nuclear program is for peaceful purposes.

The United Nations' nuclear watchdog has repeatedly said it has no indication that Iran currently has a secret nuclear-weapons program.

But the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is asking Tehran to allow access to a centrifuge-parts-production site near Karaj, which it said would restore its ability to fully monitor Iran's nuclear program.

Tehran refuses to allow the IAEA access, with the head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization, Mohammad Eslami, saying on December 14 that the agency's demands were beyond safeguards and unacceptable to Tehran.

"Karaj...is outside of safeguards.... We act within the framework of safeguards and NPT (Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty) and do not accept anything else," Eslami said, according to the semiofficial news agency ISNA.

With reporting by Reuters and AFP

BISHKEK -- Kyrgyz authorities have detained four individuals, including a woman and a police official, suspected of kidnapping a Turkish businessman for ransom.

The State Committee for National Security (UKMK) said late on December 12 that the group allegedly stopped a Turkish businessman at the Bishkek airport on his arrival on December 1 and took him to a police station at the airport.

There, all his belongings, including valuables, were confiscated and he was taken blindfolded to a house where he was kept against his will for five days.

The kidnappers demanded $3 million ransom for the businessman's release, the UKMK said.

According to the UKMK, the kidnapping was organized by the businessman's friend and business partner.

One of the suspects is the chief of the aviation transportation directorate of the Interior Ministry at Bishkek's airport.

MOSCOW -- Four defendants in a high-profile case involving almost 400 kilograms of cocaine found on the premises of the Russian Embassy in Argentina in 2018 have been found guilty.

A jury at the Dorogomilov district court in Moscow on December 13 convicted alleged mastermind Andrei Kovalchuk; the former maintenance department chief at the embassy in Argentina, Ali Abyanov; and businessmen Vladimir Kalmykov and Ishtimir Khudzhamov of buying and storing at the embassy school in Buenos Aires cocaine that they planned to sell in Europe.

The convicted men face up to 25 years in prison each.

None of the defendants is or was a diplomat.

In February 2018, Argentinian Security Minister Patricia Bullrich said 389 kilograms of cocaine were found in bags seized in December 2016, following a tip from the Russian ambassador and three Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) officers.

The cocaine was replaced with flour and the luggage was flown in 2017 to Russia, where two men were arrested when they came to pick it up, Bullrich said at the time.

The FSB said earlier that three suspects had been detained in Russia and two in Argentina in what both countries said was a joint operation.

They said the alleged mastermind -- later identified as Kovalchuk, a former technical worker at the Russian Embassy in Argentina who then resided in Germany -- was wanted under an international arrest warrant.

Germany extradited Kovalchuk to Russia in July 2018.

Russia's Foreign Ministry said later that Kovalchuk had never worked either for the ministry or for the Russian Embassy in Argentina.

In August 2018, Bullrich said all 389 kilograms of the confiscated cocaine were burned in a crematorium in Buenos Aires.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has warned Russian President Vladimir Putin that any "destabilizing action" by Moscow against Ukraine would be a "strategic mistake" with "significant consequences," a spokesman said.

Johnson "emphasized" to Putin in a December 13 phone call that Britain is committed to "Ukraine's territorial integrity and sovereignty," the spokesman said, adding that the prime minister "expressed the United Kingdom's deep concern over the build-up of Russian forces on Ukraine's border, and reiterated the importance of working through diplomatic channels to deescalate tensions and identify durable solutions."

Johnson's remarks echoed concerns expressed by foreign ministers from the Group of Seven leading economies about Russia's buildup of military forces on its border with Ukraine. The G7 ministers urged a diplomatic solution to the standoff.

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Russian media quoted the Kremlin on December 13 as saying that Putin and Johnson agreed to continue talks through different channels.

The phone call came amid high tensions between Russia and Ukraine. Officials in Kyiv say they fear a possible Russian invasion.

Russia, which seized Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula in 2014 and backs pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine, denies it has any such plan.

Mutual recriminations between Russia and Ukraine have been rising for weeks.

Washington says it believes Russia may be planning to use alleged "provocations" by Ukraine to justify military aggression.

Ukraine on November 26 accused Russia of being behind an alleged coup plot against President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, which the Kremlin denied.

Based on reporting by RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service, Reuters, AP, AFP, RIA Novosti, and TASS

NUR-SULTAN -- Kazakh President Qasym-Zhomart Toqaev has awarded close associates and relatives of his predecessor, Nursultan Nazarbaev, who continues to wield power ahead of the 30th anniversary of the former Soviet republic's independence.

The presidential administration said on December 13 that Nazarbaev's daughter, lawmaker Darigha Nazarbaeva; writer Sabit Dosanov, who is related to Nazarbaev by marriage; a relative of Nazarbaev's nephew, Serikzhan Seitzhanov; poet and composer Myrzatai Zholdasbekov, who is the author of a song praising Nazarbaev, and several of Nazarbaev's closest associates were awarded state orders and medals.

The announcement comes amid an ongoing crackdown on opposition and rights activists across the country, many of whom have been detained on charge of violating laws on public gatherings in recent weeks.

Local activists say that the incarcerations are connected to the upcoming Independence Day on December 16, a date that coincides with two sensitive anniversaries in modern Kazakh history: the 1986 anti-Kremlin demonstrations in Almaty, known as the Zheltoqsan revolt, and a deadly 2011 police crackdown on protesting oil workers in the southwestern town of Zhanaozen when at least 16 oil workers died.

After ruling the country with an iron fist for almost 30 years, Nazarbaev announced his decision to retire in March 2019 and picked Toqaev as his successor

A day after his resignation, the name of the Kazakh capital was changed to Nur-Sultan to honor Nazarbaev, which sparked protests across the country.

Nazarbaev continues to wield considerable influence as chairman of the Security Council and enjoys almost limitless powers as "elbasy" -- leader of the nation.

Under Toqaev, Kazakhstan continues to clamp down on freedom of speech and harass opposition members.

A Swiss court has published its decision to allow the extradition of a Kremlin-linked Russian businessman to the United States.

The Federal Criminal Court in Zurich on December 13 made public its November 16 ruling that upheld a previous rejection of Vladislav Klyushin's argument that he was a victim of a U.S. political campaign to prosecute him on trumped-up insider-trading charges.

The court also said it had no reason to question the independence of the U.S. judicial system and that U.S. authorities had presented sufficient grounds for seeking to try Klyushin.

Oliver Ciric, Klyushin's lawyer, questioned whether the Swiss court gave the case adequate consideration.

"We filed an appeal on December 6. We consider that the Swiss Federal Criminal Tribunal didn't fully review the political case argument," he said in an e-mail to RFE/RL.

Klyushin, the owner of M13, a Russian company that offers media monitoring as well as cybersecurity services, was arrested in Valais Canton in March on the U.S. arrest warrant.

In the United States, Klyushin is suspected of making tens of millions of dollars along with accomplices by hacking into confidential information about listed U.S. companies.

Klyushin's extradition to the United States was approved in June after the Swiss Federal Office of Justice rejected a Russian request to extradite Klyushin to Moscow to face trial there.

The United States slapped Russia with sanctions in April for interfering in the 2020 U.S. presidential election, hacking, and supporting pro-Russian separatists in Ukraine.

The website of M13 says its services are used by the Russian presidential administration and government.

With reporting by Mike Eckel in Prague and Reuters

A court in Moscow has handed lengthy prison terms to two men after a jury found them guilty of killing the notorious crime kingpin Yaponchik (The Little Japanese) more than 12 years ago.

The Moscow City Court on December 13 sentenced Dzhambul Dzhanashia to 15 years, and Murtaz Shadania to 16 years in prison for the killing of Vyacheslav Ivankov.

The 69-year-old died in October 2009 from wounds he suffered in a sniper attack that occurred while he was leaving a restaurant in the Russian capital about three months earlier.

The Georgian-born Ivankov was a professional criminal and a crowned "thief-in-law," a title traditionally given among criminal groups in former Soviet republics to kingpins.

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Shortly before the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, he was unexpectedly released from prison in Russia where he had been serving a 14-year prison term for illegal firearm possession, forgery, and drug trafficking.

In March 1992, Ivankov moved to the United States, where he was arrested in 1995 and sentenced to 10 years in prison on charges of extortion, fraud, and illegally entering the country.

He was extradited to Russia after spending almost 10 years in the U.S. prison system. He was tried and acquitted on murder charges in Moscow.

Ivankov was buried on October 13, 2009, at Moscow's Vagankovo cemetery, the resting place of many notable Soviet and Russian luminaries. The funeral was widely covered by the media as hundreds of kingpins representing criminal syndicates from all over the former Soviet Union attended.

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Ivankov's assassination is thought to have been part of an ongoing gang war between Ivankov's close associate, notorious Moscow crime boss Aslan Usoyan, also known as Ded Khasan (Grandfather Khasan), and Georgian crime boss Tariel Oniani.

Usoyan, 75 and also Georgian-born, was similarly shot dead by a sniper while leaving a Moscow restaurant in January 2013.

With reporting by Interfax and TASS

Teachers and educators in Iran are on strike for a third day in a row demanding salary rises, with police violence reported against protesters in Tehran.

Hundreds of protesters gathered in front of the parliament building on December 13 to protest against what they consider unfair labor conditions, and to demand the release of one of their colleagues who was detained during a similar demonstration two days earlier.

Video posted on social media showed scuffles during the rally as security forces apparently tried to detain one of the protesters.

Rasoul Bodaghi, a civil activist and member of the teachers union, was said to have been beaten by officers during his arrest on December 11.

In recent months, teachers and other educators have reportedly taken to the streets of Tehran, Yazd, Shiraz, Qom, Kerman, and dozens of other cities across Iran to protest against the failure of the government and lawmakers to fulfill their promises to improve their situations.

Security forces sometimes responded using heavy-handed tactics and arresting protesters.

The wave of protests come amid soaring inflation as the impact of government mismanagement and financial sanctions imposed by the United States over Iran's nuclear program decimate the economy.

MINSK -- Belarusian strongman Alyaksandr Lukashenka has replaced the long-serving chief of the Central Election Commission (TsVK) ahead of an expected referendum on constitutional amendments he initiated following unprecedented rallies across the country last year questioning the official results of a presidential election that declared him the winner.

Lidzia Yarmoshyna, 68, who ran the TsVK for 25 years and who has been accused by the Belarusian opposition of being behind many cases of election fraud, was replaced on December 13 by Ihar Karpenka, the leader of the pro-Lukashenka Communist Party of Belarus.

Yarmoshyna was appointed to the post in 1996 after Lukashenka removed her predecessor, Viktar Hanchar. Later in 1999, Hanchar disappeared along with businessman Anatol Krasouski. Their whereabouts are still unknown.

The Siberian-born, 57-year-old Karpenka used to be a lawmaker and deputy mayor of Minsk. In October 2012, he was elected as the first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Belarus.

Lukashenka promised to change the constitution a year ago amid mass protests following the August 2020 election that opposition leaders and the West say was rigged. He has pledged to hold the vote in February.

In September he said the changes "are aimed at making the constitution more harmonized and balanced by redistributing the powers of the president, the parliament, and the government and establishing a constitutional status for the All-Belarus People's Assembly."

But he gave no details of the draft constitution or the role that the All-Belarus People's Assembly would assume, and opponents have expressed doubt about the amendments, calling them a sham exercise to help him to cling to power after the opposition rejected his election victory.

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Opposition and public outrage over what they saw as a rigged vote sparked months of protests, bringing tens of thousands into the streets demanding Lukashenka step down and new elections to be held.

Security officials have cracked down hard on the demonstrators, arresting thousands, including dozens of journalists who covered the rallies, and pushing most of the top opposition figures out of the country.

Several protesters have been killed in the violence and some rights organizations say there is credible evidence of torture being used by security officials against some of those detained.

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Lukashenka has denied any wrongdoing with regard to the election and refuses to negotiate with the opposition on stepping down and holding new elections.

The European Union, the United States, Canada, and other countries have refused to recognize Lukashenka as the legitimate leader of Belarus and have imposed sanctions on him and several senior Belarusian officials in response to the "falsification" of the vote and the postelection crackdown.