The United States has warned Mali against deploying Russia-backed Vagner Group forces, saying a reported deal between the country and the private military contractor would divert money away from efforts to fight terrorism and could ultimately destabilize the region.

Vagner Group forces “will not bring peace to Mali, but rather will destabilize the country further," State Department spokesman Ned Price said in a statement on December 15.

Price described the United States as “alarmed” by the potential deployment of Vagner Group forces in Mali under the deal, which the statement says would cost $10 million per month.

The statement notes that Yevgeniy Prigozhin, a Russian businessman and close associate of President Vladimir Putin who is believed to run the Vagner Group, is sanctioned by the United States, Britain, and the European Union “in connection with his dealings with the Russian Federation's Ministry of Defense and his efforts to subvert U.S. democratic processes.”

Putin has said the Vagner Group does not represent the Russian state and is not paid by it. He has also said private military contractors have the right to work and pursue their interests anywhere in the world as long as they do not break Russian law.

Price said countries that have Vagner Group deployments within their borders "soon find themselves poorer, weaker, and less secure.”

He cited Libya, the Central African Republic (CAR), Ukraine, and Syria as examples. In these countries the Vagner Group "stoked conflict and increased insecurity and instability, causing the deaths of local soldiers and civilians and undermining national sovereignty -- all while depleting the national treasury and diverting essential resources that could have been used to build the capabilities of the countries’ own armed services.”

Price added that engaging the Vagner Group “could put at risk” the contributions of more than 20,000 international peacekeepers and troops who serve in Mali at no cost to the government.

In a separate move on December 15, the EU said it would suspend its training mission for soldiers in CAR because of fears the mission could get tied up in violations of international law by Russian mercenaries, including many with the Vagner Group.

The European Union Training Mission in Central African Republic (EUTM RCA) says its job has been complicated by the presence of hundreds of Russian operatives who have arrived since 2018 and have been working in close coordination with the army of the CAR.

With reporting by Reuters

A Russian woman who worked with supporters of jailed Russian opposition politician Aleksei Navalny in the central city of Saratov says she has received political asylum in the Netherlands.

Olga Kuznetsova wrote on Instagram on December 15 that she had obtained asylum but didn’t say when. It was not clear when she left Russia.

Kuznetsova worked as a volunteer for a group of Navalny's supporters in Saratov. She said that officers of the Federal Security Service (FSB) in the summer of 2020 tried to recruit her as an informant. When she refused, she was threatened with criminal prosecution.

Later that year law enforcement officers searched her home. Her bank accounts were then frozen, and she was questioned after she took part in a seminar organized by the pro-democracy organization Open Russia.

Many of Navalny’s former associates have fled the country fearing arrest after a Moscow court in June labeled all organizations associated with him as extremist.

Last week, Aleksandr Chernikov, the former head of Navalny's network of regional campaign groups in Russia's far-western exclave of Kaliningrad, said that he and his family were in the United States, where they had asked for political asylum.

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According to Chernikov, Russian investigators questioned him twice in "a case concerning extremism" after the June ruling, which effectively outlaws all organizations associated with Navalny.

In October, the former head of Navalny's network of regional campaign groups in the Siberian city of Novosibirsk, Sergei Boiko, who is also a member of the Novosibirsk City Council, wrote on Twitter that he and his family would not return to Russia from a business trip to an unspecified country because he feared persecution.​

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Boiko said he decided not to return to Russia after the arrest of the former chief of Navalny’s support group in the city of Ufa, Lilia Chanysheva.

Chanysheva was arrested in November in the Bashkortostan on extremism charges. She was later transferred to a detention center in Moscow, where she is expected to remain in pretrial detention until at least January 9.​

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Jailed Former Chief Of Navalny's Team In Ufa Says Fleeing Russia Would Have Been Worse Than Arrest

In another case last month, the chief of Navalny's network of regional campaign groups in St. Petersburg, Irina Fatyanova, said she had left Russia for an unspecified country. Fatyanova also said that she decided to leave Russia after the arrest of Chanysheva.

Navalny has been in prison since February, while several of his other associates have been charged with establishing an extremist group.

DUSHANBE -- Tajik President Emomali Rahmon on December 15 appointed his third daughter, Ruhshona Rahmonova, to be the country’s ambassador to Britain.

Several other close relatives of Rahmon, who has nine children, occupy important official positions or control lucrative businesses in Tajikistan -- one of the poorest former Soviet republics in Central Asia.

Rahmon has ruled Tajikistan since 1992. Rights groups and opponents say he tolerates little dissent and suppresses his critics.

In 2016, his daughter Ruhshona, who is in her late 30s, was given a senior position at the Foreign Ministry in Dushanbe following a period of activity at the Tajik Embassy in London.

She is married to businessman Shamsullo Sohibov, who is known for having used the family’s influence to amass a reportedly immense fortune.

Rahmon’s 34-year-old son, Rustam, is the mayor of the capital, Dushanbe, and chairman of the Majlisi Milli, Tajikistan's upper house of parliament.

One of the Tajik leader’s other daughters, Ozoda Rahmon, is his chief of staff, while her husband, Jamoliddin Nuraliev, is the first deputy chairman of the central bank.

Iran and the UN's nuclear watchdog have announced an agreement on replacing damaged cameras at an Iranian nuclear complex amid Western warnings that talks with Tehran on reviving a 2015 nuclear deal were “rapidly reaching the end of the road.”

The Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) had been seeking to replace the cameras, one of which Iran claims was damaged in a June attack that it blames on Israel.

The IAEA "will soon install new surveillance cameras at Iran's Karaj centrifuge component manufacturing workshop under an agreement reached today by Director-General Rafael Mariano Grossi and the Head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, Mohammad Eslami," an IAEA statement said on December 15, calling this "an important development."

It added that the two sides "will continue to work on remaining outstanding safeguards issues with the aim of resolving them."

The IAEA has sought the monitoring of activities at the centrifuge-parts-production site near Karaj that was hit by the alleged Israeli act of sabotage.

Iran said one of four IAEA cameras there was destroyed in the attack, and it later removed all the cameras.

Tehran has refused to allow the IAEA access, citing an ongoing investigation into the incident.

"In a gesture of goodwill, Iran is allowing the IAEA to install new cameras to replace those damaged in a sabotage operation" against the Karaj nuclear site, said Iran's Nour news agency, which is seen as close to the Islamic republic's Supreme National Security Council.

"This is a voluntary action by Iran to end misunderstandings in its relations with the IAEA," it said.

The breakthrough came a day after Britain, France, and Germany -- the three European powers that are part to the agreement together with China and Russia -- said that talks with Iran to revive the 2015 nuclear deal are “rapidly reaching the end of the road.”

The comments suggest talks between Iran and the remaining parties to the agreement are nearing collapse some two weeks after they resumed in Vienna after a five-month hiatus, with the United States participating indirectly.

The 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), under which Iran curtailed its nuclear activities in exchange for the 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 gradually exceed limits imposed under the pact.

Trump's successor, Joe Biden, says the United States is ready to rejoin the JCPOA provided Iran resumes observing the deal's conditions.

The remaining parties to the deal are holding their seventh round of talks in Vienna, but no apparent progress has been made due to what Western officials say is Tehran's reneging on compromises reached in the previous six sessions. Iran's new positions and demands come after hard-line cleric Ebrahim Raisi was elected president in June.

Considerable gaps remain between Iran and the other parties over the speed and scope of sanctions relief and technical aspects of how and when Iran will reverse its nuclear steps.

Iran is demanding the lifting of all U.S. sanctions in a verifiable process. Washington has said it would remove sanctions “inconsistent” with the JCPOA if Iran resumed compliance, but there are questions over how the Biden administration can remove the Trump-imposed sanctions.

The United States has also implied that sanctions on Iran for terrorism or human rights abuses would remain in place.

With reporting by Reuters, dpa, and AFP

Iran's parliament passed legislation on December 15 to raise teachers' salaries following several days of countrywide protests and a strike that impacted the Islamic republic's education system.

The legislation had initially obtained emergency approval on December 14 following a three-day strike by thousands of teachers and educators that culminated with hundreds of demonstrators gathering in front of the parliament building in Tehran on December 13 to protest unfair labor conditions. Police used violence against the strikers and arrested several people.

Measures passed by legislators on December 15 guarantee that teachers will earn about 80 percent of the salaries of university faculty members, one of the protesters' demands.

Lawmaker Alireza Monadi, who heads parliament's education committee, told the semiofficial Iranian Labour News Agency (ILNA) that a teacher would earn a minimum of about 80 million rials ($267) per month if the legislation is enacted, compared with an average of around 60 million rials now.

Education Minister Yousef Nouri promised on December 14 that the law, which had been repeatedly introduced in parliament in recent years but failed to pass, would be swiftly implemented after its approval, the state news agency IRNA reported.

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During rallies held in several cities outside Tehran, teachers also demanded the release of colleagues detained by police, according to Iranian news outlets and rights groups.

"I have no information how many were arrested but I will definitely follow up the cases of arrested teachers," Monadi was quoted as saying by ILNA.

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 by the government and lawmakers to fulfill their promises to improve their livelihoods.

Security forces have sometimes responded using heavy-handed tactics and arresting some participants.

The wave of protests come amid high unemployment and soaring inflation exceeding 40 percent over the past year as the impact of government mismanagement and financial sanctions imposed by the United States over Iran’s nuclear program cripple the economy.

​With reporting by Reuters

Russia has presented the United States with a set of proposals for binding Western security guarantees during a meeting with U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Karen Donfried in Moscow on December 15, the Kremlin said.

Donfried, who traveled to Moscow after holding talks with officials in Kyiv on a major Russian troop buildup near Ukraine, said in a video posted on Twitter that the United States will share Russia's proposals with its allies and partners.

Ukraine and its Western backers have raised concerns that Russia may be preparing an invasion of its neighbor, something Moscow has denied.

The Kremlin, which says that a new eastward NATO enlargement would threaten Russia, has demanded guarantees that the alliance will not expand further eastwards or deploy advanced weaponry in Ukraine and other countries that border Russia.

Washington and Kyiv have repeatedly said that no one has the right to veto Ukraine's desire to join the Western alliance.

NATO says its activities are defensive and meant to discourage new Russian aggression after Moscow in 2014 illegally annexed Ukraine's Crimea region and has been backing pro-Russian separatists who seized a swath of eastern Ukraine that same year.

"American representatives were literally today handed concrete proposals in our Foreign Ministry that are aimed at developing legal security guarantees for Russia," Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov told reporters.

"We are ready to start negotiations on this crucial issue immediately," Ushakov told reporters.

Donfried met Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov for talks in the ministry earlier on December 15.

With reporting by Reuters and TASS

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has ordered Russia to pay compensation to four victims of domestic violence, including Margarita Grachyova, whose husband used an ax to cut off her hands four years ago.

According to the ECHR's December 14 decision, the Russian government must pay more than 370,660 euros ($418,000) to Grachyova to cover her past and future medical expenses and moral and physical sufferings.

The judgment also said that three other victims of domestic violence -- Russian women Natalya Tunikova, Yelena Gershman, and Irina Petrakova -- must receive compensation of 25,000 euros ($28,200) each.

“The case concerned acts of domestic violence, including death threats, bodily injuries and one case of severe mutilation, which the applicants sustained at the hands of their former partners or husbands, and the domestic authorities’ alleged failure to establish a legal framework for combating acts of domestic violence and bringing the perpetrators to account,” the ECHR's judgment said.

The ECHR unanimously held that there had been violations of Article 3 (prohibition on inhuman and degrading treatment) and Article 14 (prohibition on discrimination) of the European Convention on Human Rights in relation to the victims.

Grachyova told RFE/RL on December 15 that the most important thing for her in the ECHR's ruling was that the court ordered Russia to adopt laws against domestic violence.

"I cannot celebrate yet because Russia may appeal the ruling,” Grachyova said. “I am happier over ECHR's other decision. I hope our country will hear the European court and the measures to protect domestic violence victims will be implemented."

In December 2017, Grachyova's husband, Dmitry Grachyov, from whom she was separated at the time, took her to a forest near the city of Serpukhov in the Moscow region, where they lived, used an ax to cut off her hands, and brought her to a hospital. Doctors managed to surgically reattach her left hand after finding it in the forest, while her right hand was replaced by a bionic prosthesis.

Dmitry Grachyov was later sentenced to 14 years in prison, and a police officer who ignored Grachyova's previous complaints of attacks by her husband was fired.

Grachyova divorced Dmitry Grachyov and remarried. She now lives with her new husband in St. Petersburg. They have three children -- two from the marriage with her previous husband, and one with her new husband.

Her ordeal sparked a public outcry across Russia and a new wave of calls to criminalize domestic violence.

The ECHR declared in its December 14 judgment that women in Russia are in a situation of de facto discrimination when it comes to protection against the risk of domestic violence.

In February 2017, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a law that decriminalized some forms of domestic violence.

The law now categorizes as administrative offenses -- instead of criminal acts -- cases of domestic violence that result in pain but not bodily harm.

In the event of any danger to the victim’s health or in the case of repeat offenses, the perpetrator would face criminal charges.

A bill on preventing domestic abuse has been pending on the website of the Russian parliament's upper chamber, the Federation Council, since November 2019.

The extremely influential Russian Orthodox Church has campaigned against adopting the bill, claiming that it is “anti-family.”

With reporting by Meduza

The leaders of Russia and China sought to display a unified front in the face of both countries' increasingly tense relations with the West, hailing their "model" relations during a video call on December 15.

The two neighbors' ties with the West have been deteriorating in recent years over a wide array of issues and neither was invited to attend U.S. President Joe Biden's democracy summit last week.

The Kremlin said that President Vladimir Putin told his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, that "a new model of cooperation has been formed between our countries" that includes a "determination to turn our common border into a belt of eternal peace and good-neighborliness."

"I consider these relations to be a real model for interstate cooperation in the 21st century," Putin said.

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China has come under U.S. and European criticism for human rights abuses in the Xinjiang region and its suppression of political freedoms in Hong Kong as well as its increased military activity in the Indo-Pacific region.

Russia has also been at odds with the West over its assault on the political opposition and the free media and more recently over concerns that its massing of tens of thousands of troops near Ukraine is a prelude to an invasion of its neighbor.

Both China and Russia have rejected the Western criticism, with Moscow denying that it intends to invade Ukraine.

According to the Kremlin, Putin, who has demanded guarantees that NATO will not expand to Ukraine or deploy troops and weapons there, told Xi that talks with NATO and the United States are necessary to obtain legally binding security guarantees.

Xi responded by saying he “understands Russia's concerns and fully supports our initiative to work out these security guarantees for Russia,” the Kremlin said.

According to Chinese state media, Xi in turn told Putin that "certain international forces" are currently interfering in the internal affairs of China and Russia under the guise of democracy and "brutally" trampling on international law and recognized norms of international relations.

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Xi also told Putin that China and Russia should make more joint efforts to safeguard each other's security interests.

Putin also confirmed he would attend Beijing's Winter Olympics.

The United States, Britain, Canada, and Australia are not sending political representatives to the Olympics over China's abuse of Uyghurs and other mostly Muslim minorities in Xinjiang.

Putin said both he and Xi opposed "any attempt to politicize sport and the Olympic movement," an accusation Moscow has repeatedly leveled at the West.

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Revelations of Russia's state-backed doping program at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi led to it being banned from international competitions. Russian athletes can only compete as "neutrals" if they can prove they haven't doped.

Officials, including Putin, are banned from attending international competitions unless invited by the leadership of the host country. Xi has invited Putin to attend.

"In February, we will finally be able to meet in person in Beijing," Putin said, calling Xi his "dear friend."

With reporting by Reuters and AFP

A court in Moscow has ordered the Memorial Human Rights Center -- one of the post-Soviet world's oldest and most prestigious human rights organizations -- to pay a 500,000 ruble ($6,800) fine for allegedly violating Russia’s controversial "foreign agent" legislation.

The December 15 ruling comes a day after Russia's Supreme Court resumed a hearing into a request by federal prosecutors to shut down Memorial International, the umbrella organization for the group.

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The moves are seen as part of a crackdown on civil society and critics of the government that has sparked widespread condemnation at home and abroad.

The Memorial Human Rights Center and International Memorial are among dozens of news outlets and rights organizations to have been labeled foreign agents.

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.

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Moscow’s Tver district court imposed the fine on the Memorial Human Rights Center because the OVD-Info human rights group posted on its website material related to fundraising for Memorial's activities that did not contain a "foreign agent" label.

OVD-Info co-founder Daniil Beilinson said the court rejected Memorial's argument that it cannot control what’s posted on another organization’s website.

Memorial's representatives also insist that the "foreign agent" label was added to all the materials related to the group on OVD-Info's website at the court’s request in August.

STRASBOURG, France – The daughter of jailed Russian opposition politician Aleksei Navalny has urged European Union governments to stand up to Russian President Vladimir Putin, as she collected the Sakharov Prize on his behalf during a ceremony in the French city of Strasbourg.

"I don't understand why those who advocate for pragmatic relations with dictators can't simply open some history books," Darya Navalnaya, a 20-year-old student at Stanford University in the United States, told the European Parliament on December 15 as she picked up the European Union's top human rights honor.

"The pacification of dictators and tyrants never works," she said in her speech, delivered 11 months after her father, one of Putin's most vocal critics, was sent behind bars in a case widely considered as being politically motivated.

The EU has imposed sanctions on Russian officials over both Navalny’s imprisonment and poisoning last year by what several European laboratories concluded was a military-grade chemical nerve agent.

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European lawmakers chose Navalny as the recipient of the annual Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought on October 20, saying he “has campaigned consistently against the corruption of Vladimir Putin’s regime.”

Navalny dedicated his prize “to all kinds of anti-corruption fighters around the world."

Navalnaya called the award "a signal to tens of millions of people, citizens of my country, who continue to fight for a better life for Russia.”

The 45-year-old anti-corruption crusader was jailed on January 17 after returning to Russia from Germany, where he was recovering from the poison attack in Siberia in August 2020.

Navalny has claimed his poisoning was ordered directly by Putin, which the Kremlin denies.

In February, a Moscow court ruled that while in Germany, Navalny had violated the terms of his parole from an old embezzlement case considered by human rights defenders as being politically motivated.

Navalny's 3 1/2-year suspended sentence from the case was converted to a jail term, though the court said he will serve 2 1/2 years in prison given time he had been held in detention.

More than 10,000 supporters of Navalny were detained across Russia during and after January rallies calling for his release. Many of the detained men and women were either fined or handed several-day jail terms At least 90 were charged with criminal misdeeds and several have been fired by their employers.

Earlier this year, Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK) and other groups associated with him were labeled as extremist and banned in Russia.

SLOVYANSK, Ukraine -- A court in Ukraine has sentenced a Ukrainian citizen to 11 years in prison over his alleged involvement in the conflict in the country's east alongside Russia-backed separatists.

The court in the eastern city of Slovyansk on December 15 found Viktor Mykhed guilty of creating and participating in a terrorist group, and involvement in the inhumane treatment of prisoners of war and civilians.

Investigators said Mykhed was a close associate of Igor Bezler, a commander of the separatists in Donetsk. They said he took part in escorting captured Ukrainian soldiers and shot propaganda video clips for the separatists, including a fake execution by shooting.

The defendant has rejected the charges against him and claimed he had been deprived of a fair trial. He said was not provided with enough time to get acquainted with the case file and that his request to have a translator from Ukrainian to Russian was ignored.

More than 13,200 people have been killed during more than seven years of fighting between Ukrainian government forces and Kremlin-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine.

Parts of Ukraine's Donetsk and Luhansk regions, known commonly as the Donbas, have been under the separatists' control since April 2014, weeks after Russia forcibly annexed Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula.

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

A prosecutor has asked a court in Russia to sentence Yury Zhdanov, the 67-year-old father of Ivan Zhdanov, a close associate of jailed opposition politician Aleksei Navalny, to three years in prison on charges of fraud and forgery that he and his supporters reject as politically motivated.

The prosecutor made the request in a court in Russia's Arctic city of Naryan-Mar, on December 15, Yury Zhdanov's lawyer, Vladimir Voronin tweeted.

Earlier in the day, the court rejected Yury Zhdanov's request to be transferred to house arrest.

Zhdanov was arrested in late March and went on trial in October.

Ivan Zhdanov, the former chief of Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK), has accused Russia's presidential administration of trying to pressure him by arresting his father.

Yury Zhdanov is accused of recommending that the administration of a remote town in Russia's Arctic region -- where he worked as an official before retiring last year -- provide a local woman with a subsidized apartment, though it later turned out that the woman's family had previously received housing allocations.

The apartment was later returned to municipal ownership in accordance with a court decision and no one among those who made the decision was held responsible.

Navalny's FBK was known for publishing investigative reports about corruption among Russia's top officials, including President Vladimir Putin.

Earlier this year, FBK and other groups associated with Navalny were labeled as extremist and banned in Russia.

YESSENTUKI, Russia -- A Russian court has handed lengthy prison terms to seven people who led protests in Ingushetia against a change to the administrative boundaries between the Russian North Caucasus regions of Chechnya and Ingushetia.

On December 15, the court in the city of Yessentuki, in the Stavropol Krai region, sentenced Malsag Uzhakhov, Akhmed Barakhoyev, and Musa Malsagov to nine years each; Barakh Chemurziyev, Bagaudin Khautiyev, and Ismail Nalgiyev to eight years each; and Zarifa Sautiyeva to 7 1/2 years in prison.

The defendants were found guilty of creating an extremist group and assaulting law enforcement officers.

They 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 charges against them stemmed from an authorized demonstration in March 2019 held in Ingushetia's capital, Magas, to protest the closed-door 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 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.

BAKU -- Police in the Azerbaijani capital have violently dispersed protesters demanding the immediate release of hunger-striking opposition politician Saleh Rustamli.

At least 20 demonstrators were detained by officers during the December 15 rally in Baku, including Tofiq Yaqublu, a leading member of the opposition Musavat party, RFE/RL correspondents reported from the scene.

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Yaqublu and dozens of protesters were detained during a similar rally in Baku on December 1. The opposition politician and vocal government critic was later released, but he sustained multiple injuries while in police custody.

Five of those detained were sentenced to up to 30 days in jail on charges of violating pandemic regulations.

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Rustamli, a member of the opposition Popular Front of Azerbaijan Party (AXCP), has been on a hunger strike for 39 days to demand his release from prison.

Rustamli, who has lived in Russia since 1998, was arrested in 2018 when he visited Azerbaijan. He was subsequently sentenced to more than seven years in prison after a court found him guilty of money laundering for the alleged transfer of $420,000 to a bank account connected to the AXCP.

Rustamli has rejected all the charges against him, calling them politically motivated.

Human rights groups in Azerbaijan have recognized him as a political prisoner.

A leading member of the AXCP, Mammad Ibrahim, said on December 14 that seven opposition activists had joined Rustamli's hunger strike to demand that he be freed.

DUSHANBE -- A court in Dushanbe has handed a prominent Tajik man a long prison sentence over the brutal beating of his alleged "second wife" in a case being closely watched by Tajiks.

The victim, 32-year-old Madina Mamadjonova, died in hospital on December 15, the day after the sentencing, relatives and a hospital doctor told RFE/RL.

Following a closed-door trial, the court sentenced Parviz Davlatov to eight years in prison on charges that included torture and polygamy, before reducing the prison term to 5 1/2 years under an amnesty law, according to local media reports.

Davlatov works for MegaFon, a major mobile-phone operator in Tajikistan, and is the son of a former lawmaker who has also served as an adviser to authoritarian President Emomali Rahmon.

He was arrested in early November along with his wife, Aziza Davlatova, who was also charged with attempted murder.

Davlatova's trial, also held behind closed doors, is still ongoing, the Supreme Court told RFE/RL.

Mamadjonova, a resident of Dushanbe, was hospitalized on August 26 "unconscious, with grave injuries," and apparent signs of strangulation, according to doctors.

She later woke up from her coma, but was still unable to talk or walk.

Sources close to both families described Mamadjonova as "the second wife" of Davlatov. Having a second wife is not uncommon in Tajikistan, despite polygamy being banned in the Central Asian country.

The case made headlines in Tajikistan, where the rich and powerful often evade justice, after prosecutors initially closed it without sending it to trial.

The decision backfired after women's rights activists took to social media to demand justice for the victim, sharing photos showing her horrific injuries.

Activists signed an open letter about the case to Rahmon's son, Rustam Emomali, who is mayor of Dushanbe, as well as to the prosecutor-general and the interior minister.

Suhrob Salimzoda, a deputy district prosecutor who had closed the case using a newly approved mass amnesty law, was dismissed from his post.

District police chief Zafar Ismoilzoda also lost his job, allegedly for mishandling the Mamadjonova investigation.

Davlatov's family is said to have high-placed political connections through his father, Davlatali Davlatzoda, a founder and the former first deputy chairman of President Rahmon's People's Democratic Party. He has held many other high-profile posts in Rahmon's government.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has told European Union leaders that Ukraine is ready for talks with Russia in any format but urged Western countries to keep pressure on Moscow through sanctions.

Zelenskiy spoke on December 15 in Brussels after meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on the sidelines of an EU summit.

Macron’s office said the meeting sought to find ways to restart negotiations in the Normandy format that involves France and Germany.

"The three leaders reaffirmed their commitment to this format of negotiations in order to find a lasting solution for the conflict and to preserve Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity," Macron’s office added.

Zelenskiy said at a news conference that Ukraine is ready for talks in the Normandy format or any other. He said his delegation also explained Ukraine’s belief about sanctions to its European colleagues.

“What our state cares about is a strong sanctions policy that comes before a likely escalation,” he said.

“Only this type of relations based on precautionary measures can really stop the military conflict that has been ongoing in the east of our country for eight years now,” he said.

Zelenskiy spoke after EU leaders met with members of the Eastern Partnership program as the bloc attempts to rescue its outreach to the former Soviet republics in the program amid heightened tensions with Moscow.

The Eastern Partnership program, which seeks closer cooperation between the EU and Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine, was to meet on December 15 with the 27 heads of the EU a day before a full EU summit.

The leaders of three of the countries -- Ukraine, Georgia, and Moldova -– have lobbied for the start to negotiations to formally join the bloc, but they are expected to win only reassurances of support.

The desire of Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine to join the bloc are complicated by territorial disputes with Moscow. That is especially true for Ukraine, where Russia-backed separatists are continuing a military conflict in its eastern territory that started in 2014, weeks after Russia illegally annexed Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula.

Georgia and Moldova also have Russian troops deployed in regions on their soil. In addition, Georgia is going through a political crisis, and Moldova's economy is suffering from a hike in gas prices that Brussels sees as orchestrated by Moscow.

Belarus suspended its participation in the Eastern Partnership in June after criticism from the EU of leader Alyaksandr Lukashenka's disputed 2020 reelection.

But the current buildup of Russian troops on Ukraine's border is the main issue alarming EU leaders. They have joined the United States in warning Russia against invading its neighbor. Though Moscow denies having any plans to do so, tensions remain high.

Zelenskiy also met with European Council President Charles Michel, saying afterward that Ukraine’s goal is full membership of the European Union.

The leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan are attending the summit but are not seeking EU membership. They met with Michel to discuss ways to overcome tensions and advance diplomacy following last year’s war between the two countries.

Zelenskiy said the atmosphere of the dialogue “was quite positive” and he congratulated the leaders of Azerbaijan and Armenia as well as Michel.

“We believe that something like this will also happen one day with the war between Ukraine and Russia -- between our countries,” Zelenskiy said.

With reporting by Reuters and AFP

Russian authorities say they have detained the main owner of a Siberian coal mine where an explosion killed dozens of people in November, along with three top managers.

In all, 51 people, including five rescue workers, were killed after an explosion ripped through the Listvyazhnaya mine in the Siberian region of Kemerovo on November 25.

The mine, opened in 2003, is part of SDS-Ugol, one of Russia's largest mining companies.

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'We Had It Coming With Methane': How 51 People Died In A Siberian Coal-Mine Tragedy

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The Russian Investigative Committee detained SDS-Ugol Chairman Mikhail Fedyaev, the company’s director-general, Gennady Alekseyev, its technical director Anton Yakutov, and the chief engineer of the coal mine, Anatoly Lobanov, the committee said in a statement on December 15.

They were charged with abuse of authority or violation of safety rules resulting in deaths, it said, adding that investigators will request pretrial custody for all of them.

Earlier this month, Fedyaev and Alekseyev told a televised meeting with President Vladimir Putin that they were ready to bear responsibility for the tragedy.

The mine director, Sergei Makhrakov, his deputy, the immediate site supervisor, and two state safety inspectors were previously arrested.

The Main Investigation Department of the Investigative Committee in Moscow is in charge of the probe.

According to the state Rostekhnadzor monitoring agency, the mine was inspected 127 times in 2021, as a result of which 914 violations were documented and work was stopped nine times. The most recent inspection took place the day before the explosion.

The U.S. House of Representatives has passed a bipartisan bill to ensure imports from China's Xinjiang region are not made with forced labor due to concerns about human rights abuses against the Uyghur Muslim minority.

The Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act passed by unanimous voice vote late on December 14, sending it to the Senate, where it is expected to be approved before getting President Joe Biden’s signature.

The legislation passed after lawmakers agreed on compromise wording that eliminated differences between bills introduced in the House and Senate.

“We agree with Congress that action can and must be taken to hold the People’s Republic of China accountable for genocide and human rights abuses and to address forced labor in Xinjiang,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said in a statement.

The United States accuses the Chinese government of running detention camps for Uyghurs and other Muslim groups in Xinjiang, where forced labor is used to produce everything from textiles to solar panels.

The United States, some other Western countries, and human rights groups accuse China of committing genocide against Uyghurs and other Muslim groups through mass internment, forced labor, population control, and the elimination of the minorities’ religious beliefs and culture. China denies the allegations, saying it runs “reeducation camps” to fight Islamist extremism.

The Uyghur legislation had been stalled for months due to bickering between Republicans and Democrats in the House and Senate.

Republicans had accused Biden's Democrats of stalling the legislation because it would complicate the president's renewable energy agenda. Much of the world’s solar panels are produced in Xinjiang.

Republicans also accused Democrats of bowing to lobbying from U.S. corporations, such as Apple and Nike, that reportedly profit from forced labor in Xinjiang. Democrats denied both charges.

The White House said it has already taken measures against China over the situation in Xinjiang and would continue to work at home and abroad to prevent the use of force labor.

“The administration will work closely with Congress to implement this bill to ensure global supply chains are free of forced labor, while simultaneously working to on-shore and third-shore key supply chains, including semiconductors and clean energy,” the White House said.

With reporting by Reuters

Germany has expelled two Russian diplomats after a court in Berlin convicted a Russian man of fatally shooting a former Chechen militant in 2019 in Berlin on Moscow’s orders.

Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said the expulsions were communicated to Russian Ambassador Sergei Nechayev during a meeting at the Foreign Ministry.

Russian involvement in the August 2019 murder of Tornike Kavtarashvili was a "serious violation of German law and the sovereignty of the Federal Republic of Germany," Baerbock said.

The second criminal division of the Higher Regional Court in Berlin noted the gravity of the attack by the 56-year-old suspect, named as Vadim Krasikov, aka Vadim Sokolov, in the murder of Tornike Kavtarashvili in the Kleiner Tiergarten park in August 2019.

The shooting, which took place a short distance from the chancellery and parliament, strained already tense Russian-German relations. The guilty verdict is expected to put the new German government under pressure to draw up an appropriate political response, though the judge said politics played no part in the court proceedings.

"Some media suggested that Russia or even [Russian President] Vladimir Putin are on trial here.... That's misleading: Only the convict is on the bench. But our task does involve considering the circumstances of the crime," he added.

Prosecutors said Krasikov, an alleged officer in Russia’s FSB secret service, approached Kavtarashvili, aka Zelimkhan Khangoshvili, on a bicycle and shot him with a pistol equipped with a silencer.

After the 40-year-old victim fell to the ground, prosecutors said Krasikov shot him in the back of the head before fleeing. Krasikov was arrested following the killing after witnesses said they saw him changing clothes behind a bush.

Prosecutors said Moscow ordered the murder because Khangoshvili was a commander of separatists in Russia’s North Caucasus region between 2000 and 2004.

Putin described Khangoshvili as a “bandit” and “terrorist.”

In the trial, federal prosecutor Nikolaus Forschner argued it was irrelevant whether Khangoshvili was actually a terrorist because as an asylum seeker in Germany since 2016 he posed no threat to justify “preventative killing.”

Forschner accused the Russian leadership of “radically disregarding the rule of law” and violating German sovereignty.

The Russian state's motive, prosecutors said, was retaliation as well as an effort to intimidate other Chechen asylum seekers by making them believe they are not safe from the tentacles of Russia's security apparatus.

A Russian Embassy statement called the court's ruling "biased and politically motivated" and said it further complicates Russian-German relations.

"The absurd statement that the Russian Federation was involved in this wrongful act was methodically imposed on the public throughout the trial, woven into the general anti-Russian background, but in the end, it was never confirmed by any convincing evidence. We raise grave concerns over the outcome, and such an unfriendly act won't be left unanswered."

Prosecutors said the operation was "obviously planned well in advance," with Russian authorities creating a cover identity of Vadim Sokolov and providing support on the ground.

The defense argued in court that the evidence presented by prosecutors was "highly questionable," as were allegations of Russian state involvement.

Defense lawyer Robert Unger pointed to a lack of witnesses to what happened before the crime and questions over the identity of the suspect.

With reporting by AFP, Der Spiegel, Tagesschau, dpa, and rbb24

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev held “significant” EU-mediated talks in Brussels, European Council President Charles Michel said.

The trilateral meeting lasted more than four hours, stretching into the early morning of December 15 as the neighbors discussed ways to overcome tensions and advance diplomacy following last year’s war, Michel said following the talks.

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

Since then, there have been repeated deadly border skirmishes.

The flare-ups in violence have renewed international calls for the two neighbors to engage in a process of delimitating and demarcating their Soviet-era border, as well as reaching a broader agreement to bring stability to the South Caucasus region.

Aliyev and Pashinian agreed that “further tangible steps” need to be taken to reduce tensions and create a conducive atmosphere ahead of planned delimitation and demarcation talks, the European Council said in a statement.

Michel reassured both leaders of the EU’s commitment to work closely with Armenia and Azerbaijan “in overcoming conflict, creating cooperation and an atmosphere of trust, with a view to sustainable peace in the region ultimately underpinned by a comprehensive peace agreement,” the statement added.

In a possible breakthrough, Michel said Armenia and Azerbaijan had also agreed to begin a process to potentially restore communications infrastructure between the two countries, including a rail link with border and customs controls.

The meeting was the fifth face-to-face talks between the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan since last year’s war. The last direct talks were mediated by Russian President Vladimir Putin in Sochi on November 26.

Michel has been leading the EU’s diplomacy in the South Caucasus.

After phone calls with Michel last month, the Armenian and Azerbaijani leaders agreed to establish a direct communication line, at the level of their respective ministers of defense, to serve as an incident-prevention mechanism.

In last year's war, Baku gained control of parts of Nagorno-Karabakh as well as adjacent territories that had been under the control of ethnic Armenian forces since the end of a separatist war in 1994. Some 2,000 Russian troops were deployed to monitor the cease-fire.

Nagorno-Karabakh is internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan.

Three European powers said on December 14 that talks with Iran to revive the 2015 nuclear deal are “rapidly reaching the end of the road,” while Tehran accused Western powers of playing a “blame game."

The comments suggest talks between Iran and the remaining parties to the agreement -- Britain, France, Germany, China, and Russia – are nearing collapse some two weeks after they resumed in Vienna after a five-month hiatus, with the United States participating indirectly.

“Iran has walked back hard-fought compromises reached after many weeks of challenging negotiations, while at the same time presenting additional maximalist demands,” France's ambassador to the United Nations, Nicolas de Riviere, said at the world body, reading a joint statement from Britain, France, and Germany -- known as the E3.

“We are nearing the point where Iran’s escalation of its nuclear program will have completely hollowed out the JCPOA,” he added, referring to the formal name of the pact.

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The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), under which Iran curtailed its nuclear activities in exchange for the 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 gradually exceed limits imposed under the pact.

Trump's successor, Joe Biden, says the United States is ready to rejoin the JCPOA provided Iran resumes observing the deal's conditions.

The remaining parties to the deal are holding their seventh round of talks in Vienna, but no apparent progress has been made due to what Western officials say are Tehran's "maximalist positions" and reneging on compromises reached in the previous six sessions. Iran's new positions and demands come after hard-line cleric Ebrahim Raisi was elected president in June.

There remain considerable gaps between Iran and the other parties over the speed and scope of sanctions relief and technical aspects of how and when Iran will reverse its nuclear steps.

Iran is demanding the lifting of all U.S. sanctions in a verifiable process. Washington has said it would remove sanctions “inconsistent” with the JCPOA if Iran resumed compliance, but there are questions over how the Biden administration can remove a web of Trump-imposed sanctions. The United States has also implied that sanctions on Iran for terrorism or human rights abuses would remain in place.

Iran is also demanding guarantees that Washington will not withdraw from any future agreement, but Biden can’t commit to this because the nuclear deal is a nonbinding political understanding and not a legally binding treaty passed by Congress.

Meanwhile, Iran has rapidly advanced its nuclear program and gained technical knowledge that can’t be reversed.

Iran’s breakout time to produce the fissile material for one nuclear bomb is now only one month, if the government were to make a political decision to do so, according to the U.S.-based Arms Control Association.

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Iran has also limited access given to UN nuclear watchdog inspectors under the nuclear deal, restricting their visits to declared nuclear sites only. Iranian officials maintain the country’s nuclear program is for peaceful purposes, but the level of uranium enrichment is well beyond that needed for civilian use.

“Iran’s nuclear program has never been more advanced than it is today. This nuclear escalation is undermining international peace and security and the global nonproliferation system,” France's de Riviere said.

“Iran’s continued nuclear escalation means that we are rapidly reaching the end of the road,” he added.

Iran's chief negotiator at the talks, Ali Bagheri, said earlier on December 14 that “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 on Twitter, adding that "diplomacy is a two-way street."

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," U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said during a visit to Indonesia on December 14.

The top U.S. diplomat echoed concerns from Britain, France, and Germany, saying "time is running out, that Iran is still not engaged in real negotiations."

With reporting by Reuters

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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'I Can't Help Anyone From Jail': Former Navalny Coordinator In Novosibirsk Won't Return To Russia

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.”