Dutch prosecutors said on December 20 that the 298 victims of the 2014 downing of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 over eastern Ukraine "didn't stand a chance" once a rocket hit the aircraft, as they began their closing arguments in the closely watched trial.

MH17 was shot down on its way from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur by a Russian-made Buk surface-to-air missile fired from territory controlled by Moscow-backed separatists in the east of Ukraine, killing all passengers and crew.

The four suspects -- Russians Sergei Dubinsky, Oleg Pulatov, and Igor Girkin, as well as Ukrainian Leonid Kharchenko -- are being tried in absentia for involvement in the tragedy. Only one of the suspects, Pulatov, is represented by lawyers at the trial.

All four are accused of being key figures among Russia-backed separatists battling Ukrainian government forces in a conflict that has killed more than 13,200 people since April 2014.

A team of international investigators concluded in May 2018 that the missile launcher used to shoot down the aircraft belonged to Russia's 53rd Anti-Aircraft Missile Brigade.

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In their closing arguments, prosecutors said evidence such as photos, intercepted telephone conversations, videos, and witness statements shows that the accused procured the Buk missile and fired it on July 17, 2014.

However, they added, they probably intended to hit a Ukrainian military jet.

Recalling the incident, Prosecutor Berger Thijs looked back at the moment when Ukrainian air traffic control lost contact with flight MH17.

Berger said the passengers "did not stand a chance" as the cockpit was detonated by the blast.

"At that moment, a warhead from a Buk missile detonated to the left of the cockpit, shrapnel and missile parts pierced the left of the cockpit and the accompanying blast does the rest," he said, adding: "The passengers of flight MH17 didn't stand a chance."

A sentencing demand was expected on December 22 at the end of the 20-month trial, which is being held in the Netherlands because the plane departed from there and 196 of the victims were Dutch.

A verdict is likely to be handed down late next year.

Based on reporting by Reuters and dpa

U.S. authorities have unveiled the formal charges against Kremlin-linked Russian businessman Vladislav Klyushin, who was extradited from Switzerland to the United States last week over his alleged involvement in a global scheme to trade on hacked confidential information.

The Attorney’s Office in the District of Massachusetts said in a statement on December 20 that four other Russian nationals who remain at large were also charged as part of the scheme, which it said netted tens of millions of dollars in illegal profits.

Klyushin, 41, was arrested in Switzerland on a U.S. warrant in March and was extradited to the United States on December 18.

He was charged with “conspiring to obtain unauthorized access to computers, and to commit wire fraud and securities fraud, and with obtaining unauthorized access to computers, wire fraud and securities fraud," the U.S. statement said.

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Klyushin is set to appear in federal court in Boston later on December 20.

In an e-mail sent to RFE/RL, his Swiss lawyer, Oliver Ciric, described the case as politically motivated and argued that the real reason he was sought was "the nature of his work for and contacts within the Russian government."

"The U.S. intelligence had attempted to recruit Mr Klyushin in the past and only after he refused such cooperation had he been indicted and arrested," he added.

There were no immediate comments from U.S. officials about Ciric's allegations.

The Russian Embassy in Bern has called the Swiss decision to extradite him “another episode in Washington's ongoing hunt for Russian citizens in third countries.

Klyushin owns M13, a Russian company that offers media monitoring and cybersecurity services. According to Russian opposition media, he is close to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s first deputy chief of staff, Aleksei Gromov.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office said two of Klyushin’s co-defendants -- 35-year-old Ivan Ermakov and Nikolai Rumiantcev, 33 -- have been charged with “conspiring to obtain unauthorized access to computers, and to commit wire fraud and securities fraud and with obtaining unauthorized access to computers, wire fraud and securities fraud.”

In 2018, U.S. courts charged Ermakov, a former officer in Russia’s GRU military intelligence, for his alleged role in hacking and disinformation operations related to the 2016 U.S. presidential elections, and for similar activity targeting international anti-doping agencies, sporting federations, and anti-doping officials, it said.

The two other suspects, Mikhail Vladimirovich Irzak 43, and Igor Sergeevich Sladkov, 42, have been charged with “conspiracy to obtain unauthorized access to computers, and to commit wire fraud and securities fraud, and with securities fraud.”

“The integrity of our nation’s capital markets and of its computer networks are priorities for my office,” Acting United States Attorney Nathaniel Mendell said.

“Today’s charges show that we, the FBI, and our other law enforcement partners will relentlessly pursue those who hack, steal and attempt to profit from inside information, wherever they may hide.”

KYIV -- Ukrainian authorities have placed Petro Poroshenko under formal investigation for high treason, accusing the former president of links to financing Russia-backed separatists fighting government forces in the country’s east.

The State Investigation Bureau said on December 20 that it suspected Poroshenko of "committing treason" and supporting the activity of "terrorist organizations," referring to the separatists controlling parts of Ukraine’s eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk.

During his presidency, Poroshenko helped the separatists to sell some 1.5 billion hryvnia ($54 million) worth of coal to Kyiv in 2014-15, it said in a statement.

The 56-year-old politician, who is now a lawmaker, faces up to 15 years in prison if convicted.

The ex-president gave no immediate comment on the announcement, but Oleksander Turchynov, a senior member of his European Solidarity party, said the accusation was “fabricated” on the instructions of President Volodymyr Zelenskiy.

Poroshenko's party said he had left the country for a planned trip.

The accusations against Poroshenko are related to similar charges against pro-Russia lawmaker Viktor Medvedchuk, who has been under house arrest since May. Medvedchuk's political party, the second largest in parliament, denies wrongdoing.

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Zelenskiy succeeded Poroshenko as president after defeating him in a 2019 election.

The war in eastern Ukraine has claimed more than 13,200 lives since April 2014. Kyiv banned trade with the breakaway regions in 2017.

Ukraine faced an acute shortage of resources after the separatists seized territory on which the country's main coal mines were located.

With reporting by AFP and Reuters

ORAL, Kazakhstan -- Police in the Kazakh city of Oral have launched an extortion investigation into an activist after she was hospitalized in grave condition following a suicide attempt amid what she called a pressure campaign imposed on her by police for her activism on municipal housing.

Neighbors of Nadezhda Solodovnikova told RFE/RL that she was taken to hospital on December 19 after she drank extremely concentrated vinegar.

The Western Kazakhstan regional health directorate confirmed that Solodovnikova was being treated for "an extreme poisoning" in an intensive care unit of a hospital in Oral.

Oral city police officials told RFE/RL on December 20 that a probe had begun into Solodovnikova's actions, which may be deemed as an attempt to use suicide "as an act of extortion."

A day before the hospitalization, Solodovnikova issued a video statement saying that local authorities and law enforcement were pressuring her over her active participation in rallies and other actions demanding Oral city administrators officially recognize dozens of families as owners of apartments where they were "temporarily" moved 10 years ago after inspections had officially condemned their previous dwellings.

Police in Oral have detained Solodovnikova several times in the past over the rallies and pickets.

Poland and Lithuania have joined Ukraine in calling for stronger sanctions against Russia, with Polish President Andrzej Duda saying that “everything must be done” to prevent potential Russian military aggression against Ukraine.

In a joint statement issued after their December 20 meeting in the western Ukrainian village of Huta, the Lithuanian, Ukrainian, and Polish presidents “called upon the international community to step up sanctions on the Russian Federation over its ongoing aggression against Ukraine and once again urged the Kremlin to de-escalate the situation by withdrawing its troops from the Ukrainian borders and temporarily occupied territories.”

The trilateral summit, which was part of the Lublin Triangle regional forum, comes as Kyiv and its Western backers accuse Russia of massing about 100,000 troops near its border with Ukraine as a possible prelude to an invasion as early as next month.

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

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Addressing a press conference after the meeting, Polish President Andrzej Duda said he was “absolutely against any policy of concessions to Russia.”

It is “absolutely undesirable to yield to such an ultimatum, to such blackmail," he added.

“Our common task is to deter the threat posed by Russia and defend Europe from Russia's aggressive policies,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said, while his Lithuanian counterpart, Gitanas Nauseda, said that any attempts by Russia to draw “red lines” are “unacceptable in Europe in the 21st century.”

The bloc has urged Russia to de-escalate the current situation and engage in renewed diplomacy instead of conflict, threatening strong new sanctions in coordination with Britain and the United States if there were any attack.

Russia denies it has plans to launch an offensive and has issued a series of demands about Ukraine’s potential membership in NATO and the alliance's activities near its western border.

Ukraine and another former Soviet republic bordering Russia, Georgia, are seeking to join the Western military alliance -- which Moscow vehemently opposes.

U.S. and European officials have called some of the Russian proposals unacceptable and said Russia cannot "dictate" terms to NATO.

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Moscow “must step back from the actions that it has taken in recent years,” the Polish president said, noting that Russia “de facto occupies” parts of Ukrainian and Georgian territory.

Russia and Georgia fought a brief war in 2008 and Russian troops have since remained in the Georgian regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

"In 2008, there was an attack on Georgia. Six years passed. In 2014, there was an attack on Ukraine. A few more than six years have passed, and here we have the current situation. Seven years have already passed since 2014. Russia has once again gathered strength. Russia is once again flexing its muscles," Duda said.

With reporting by AP

Belarus claims a group of people has damaged the facade of its embassy in London and physically assaulted some of its diplomats, "seriously" injuring one of them.

London's Metropolitan Police force said officers were called to a reported disturbance outside the diplomatic mission on the evening of December 19, where “a member of staff reported he had been assaulted and was left with a facial injury.”

One man was detained nearby, it said on December 20, adding that the investigation is continuing.

Posts on social media show there was a small demonstration outside the Belarusian diplomatic mission on the day the incident took place.

According to the Belarusian Foreign Ministry, the injured diplomat required "urgent medical assistance” and was diagnosed with a broken nose, a light concussion, and a broken tooth following the "attack."

The ministry said the alleged attackers were thought to belong to “the radical emigre group Nadzeya."

A Facebook group with the same name as the radical group Nadzeya said it had “nothing to do with yesterday's disgusting incident.”

The group appears to support the Belarusian political opposition amid an ongoing violent crackdown on dissent following last year’s disputed presidential election that handed authoritarian ruler Alyaksandr Lukashenka a sixth consecutive term. Opposition politicians and activists say the vote was rigged.

The West has refused to recognize Lukashenka as the legitimate leader of Belarus, and imposed several rounds of sanctions on his regime.

Western countries also accuse Belarus of having engineered a migrant influx at its border with EU members Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland by letting thousands of people in and encouraging them to cross into the bloc.

Belarus’s Foreign Ministry said it had summoned the U.K. charge d'affaires in Minsk and lodged a “strong protest.”

It demanded a thorough investigation into the incident and said the perpetrators of the alleged attack must be brought to justice.

Russia says it is expelling two German diplomats from Moscow in a tit-for-tat move following Germany's expulsion of two Russian diplomats after a court in Berlin convicted a Russian man last week of fatally shooting a former Chechen militant in Berlin on the Kremlin's orders in 2019. Berlin had expelled two Russian diplomats in response.

"The German Ambassador was informed about the declaration of two diplomatic employees from the German Embassy in Russia as 'personae non gratae' as a symmetrical response to the aforementioned unfriendly decision of the Government of the Federal Republic of Germany," the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement on December 20.

It gave no date for when the German diplomats needed to leave Russia.

The Russian move “does not come as a surprise, but, in the view of the federal government, it is completely unjustified," the German Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

"Today's decision by Russia's Foreign Ministry puts renewed strain on the relationship," the ministry added.

On December 15, the second criminal division of the Higher Regional Court in Berlin sentenced a Russian national named as Vadim Krasikov, aka Vadim Sokolov, to life in prison over the murder of Tornike Kavtarashvili, aka Zelimkhan Khangoshvili, in a Berlin park in August 2019.

In handing down the sentence, Judge Olaf Arnoldi ruled that the murder was an act of "retaliation" against the 40-year-old victim, an ethnic Chechen of Georgian nationality, for being a Kremlin opponent.

Prosecutors had alleged that the gunman was an officer in Russia's FSB secret service.

Hours after the verdict, Germany declared two Russian diplomats personae non gratae, with Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock saying that Russian involvement in the murder was a "serious violation of German law and the sovereignty of the Federal Republic of Germany."

The Russian Foreign Ministry at the time denounced the "unfriendly" action by Berlin, and said Moscow would respond with "retaliatory measures."

MINSK -- A court in Minsk has sentenced a blogger to 18 months in a maximum security penal colony for her participation in protests against the government of authoritarian ruler Alyaksandr Lukashenka.

Among the charges for disrupting public order in August 2020, Volha Takarchuk, a 36-year-old blogger and mother of two young children, allegedly "blocked traffic" and "shouted slogans."

She was sentenced on December 20 as the court followed the sentencing request of prosecutors in the case.

“If each of us falls silent, it will be what it was before: everyone in the kitchen quietly hated power, condemned it, but sat and did nothing. I don't want to live on my knees,” she said in a video recorded in January in case she was ever arrested and held in detention.

Protests erupted in Belarus after Lukashenka, in power since 1994, was declared the winner of an August 2020 election that opponents say was rigged. The West has refused to recognize Lukashenka as the legitimate leader of Belarus.

Tens of thousands of people have been detained and human rights activists say more than 800 people are now in jail as political prisoners amid a sometimes violent crackdown by officials on dissent.

Independent media and opposition social media channels have been targeted as well.

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.

Lukashenka has denied any wrongdoing with regard to the presidential vote 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.

BISHKEK -- Charges in the high-profile Kumtor gold-mine case against the ousted first president of independent Kyrgyzstan, Askar Akaev, have been dropped, his associate says.

Bekbolot Talgarbekov told RFE/RL on December 20 that Akaev, who traveled to Bishkek last week for the second time since August for questioning in connection with the Kumtor investigation, had left the country for Moscow after he was interrogated at the State Committee for National Security (UKMK).

The UKMK has yet to issue an official statement on Akaev. There were no official statements regarding Akaev's December 14 arrival in Bishkek either. Akaev's relatives told RFE/RL last week that he came to the Central Asian nation's capital "for at least five days."

It was Akaev's second trip to the former Soviet 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.

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Kumtor, one of the world's largest gold mines, has been at the heart 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.

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, but since his departure had 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 over 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 lives of people, or causes other significant damage.

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.

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

PRAGUE -- The Prague-based MEDIUM-ORIENT news agency has been fined in Russia for failing to follow the requirements of Russia's controversial "foreign agent" law.

Islam Tekushev, the editor in chief of the online Caucasus Times journal founded by MEDIUM-ORIENT, told RFE/RL that he was informed on December 20 of a ruling a week earlier by the Taganka district court to fine the journal 500,000 rubles ($6,730) for violating the law on "foreign agents."

Russian media regulator Roskomnadzor added the media group, which is registered in the Czech Republic, to the list of "foreign agents" a year ago.

According to Tekushev, all materials published by the Caucasus Times had been appropriately marked as produced by an outlet added to the "foreign agents" registry after Roskomnadzor officially accused the journal in October of failing to do so.

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Tekushev, who is a former RFE/RL employee, added that his media outlet was most likely fined for the absence of the "foreign agent" mark on older archived materials, which he said need time to be located and marked.

Russia's “foreign agent” legislation was adopted in 2012 and has been modified repeatedly despite repeated criticism within Russia and abroad as being an unjustified assault on independent media and civil society.

It requires nongovernmental organizations that receive foreign assistance and are deemed by the government to engage in political activity to be registered, to identify themselves as “foreign agents,” and to submit to audits.

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Later modifications of the law targeted foreign-funded media.

Lawyer Lidia Anasova said the court's ruling will be appealed at the Moscow City Court as the law on "foreign agents" violates the norms of the European Convention on Human Rights.

Oleg Orlov of the Moscow-based Memorial Human Rights Center, which was also labeled a foreign agent, said the main goal of authorities in targeting MEDIUM-ORIENT is to "restrict journalists' activities" in the Caucasus.

In 2017, the Russian government added RFE/RL’s Russian Service, six other RFE/RL Russian-language news services, and Current Time, the Russian-language network run by RFE/RL in cooperation with VOA, on the list.

At the end of 2020, the legislation was modified to allow the Russian government to place individuals, including foreign journalists, on its “foreign agents” media list and impose restrictions on them. Several RFE/RL journalists have since been added to the list.

MINSK -- A Russian citizen has gone on trial in Minsk for his alleged actions against the rule of Belarusian strongman Alyaksandr Lukashenka.

The trial of 21-year-old Yegor Dudnikov started on December 20. He faces up to 12 years in prison if convicted.

According to the Minsk-based Vyasna (Spring) human rights group, Judge Syarhey Khrypach ruled that the trial will be held behind closed doors "to prevent the spread of extremist materials."

Crisis In Belarus

Read our coverage as Belarusian strongman Alyaksandr Lukashenka continues his brutal crackdown on NGOs, activists, and independent media following the August 2020 presidential election.

Dudnikov was arrested in May and eventually charged with inciting hatred and calling for actions to hurt Belarus.

The charges stem from Dudnikov allegedly taking part in preparing online materials in connection with unprecedented mass rallies in Belarus protesting official results of the August 2020 presidential election that handed Lukashenka a sixth consecutive term in office.

Investigators say that from January until May, Dudnikov placed at least 55 posts about the protests on the Telegram channel administered by the so-called Groups of Civic Self-Defense of Belarus (OGSB), an organization labeled as extremist and banned in Belarus in the aftermath of the protests.

Dudnikov said earlier that police severely beat him after they arrested him on May 5.

Dudnikov is one of dozens in Belarus who have faced trial in recent months after authorities brutally suppressed dissent in any form following last year's presidential election.

Rights activists and opposition politicians say the poll was rigged to extend Lukashenka's 26-year rule. Thousands have been detained during countrywide protests and there have been credible reports of torture and ill-treatment by security forces. Several people have died during the crackdown.

Many of Belarus's opposition leaders have been arrested or forced to leave the country, while Lukashenka has refused to negotiate with the opposition.

The United States, the European Union, and several other countries have refused to acknowledge Lukashenka as the winner of the vote and imposed several rounds of sanctions on him and his regime, citing election fraud and the police crackdown.

With materials provided by the Vyasna human rights center

Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) kicked off five days of military maneuvers across the country's south on December 20, state television reported, amid continued tensions with the West over Tehran's nuclear program.

The IRGC's aerospace division, ground troops, and naval forces joined in the exercises, with maritime forces set to maneuver in the strategic Strait of Hormuz, state TV said.

The exercises come days after talks in Vienna to revive Tehran's nuclear deal with world powers were suspended.

Israel has repeatedly threatened unilateral action against Iran's nuclear program, which Tehran says is for strictly peaceful purposes.

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Gholamali Rashid, a top IRGC commander, vowed a harsh response to any Israeli military action against Iran.

Iranian forces will launch “a crushing attack on all bases, centers, paths, and space used to carry out the aggression without delay,” the semiofficial Mehr news agency quoted Rashid as saying.

“Any threat to Iran’s nuclear and military bases by the Zionist regime is not possible without the green light support of the United States," he said.

Earlier on December 20, residents of Bushehr, some 700 kilometers south of Iran’s capital, Tehran, reported seeing a light in the sky and hearing loud explosions near the Bushehr nuclear power plant.

An official told Iran's semiofficial Fars news agency that the sounds were the result of an air-defense exercise that involved antiaircraft firing.

Based on reporting by Reuters and AP

Iran has executed a Kurdish man convicted of armed rebellion despite international appeals that his life be spared, activists said on December 20.

Heidar Ghorbani was executed early on December 19 in Sanandaj prison in western Iran's Kurdistan Province, the Oslo-based Iran Human Rights (IHR) and the France-based Kurdistan Human Rights Network (KHRN) said, adding that neither his family nor his lawyer had been given prior warning.

Ghorbani's execution was carried out while his case was still under consideration at the Supreme Court.

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One of his relatives told the IHR on December 19, "They took us and showed us a grave that they said is Heidar. They buried him in Beheshte Mohammadi cemetery themselves and didn’t give us his body.”

Actvists say that Ghorbani, who had been jailed since October 2016, was convicted and sentenced to death last year in connection with the killing in 2016 of three men linked to the paramilitary Basij militia.

Ghorbani was found guilty of providing transport and logistical support for the killings, although the court verdict acknowledged he had never been armed.

UN human rights experts had voiced "serious concerns" that Ghorbani did not receive a fair trial and said he was tortured during pretrial detention. Rights group considered him to be a political prisoner.

Both the United Nations and Amnesty International called for his life to be spared, pointing to what Amnesty said had been "numerous violations" in his trial, which it said was "grossly unfair."

Videos posted on social media showed crowds gathering on December 19 in his hometown of Kamyaran in western Iran, chanting, "Martyrs don't die," despite a heavy security presence.

"Heidar Ghorbani was subjected to torture and sentenced to death without due process and any evidence against him," said Iran Human Rights Director Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam. "Heidar's death penalty is unlawful even under the Islamic republic's own laws."

With reporting by AFP

MOSCOW -- A retired Moscow police officer has been detained after holding a picket in the Russian capital's Red Square to demand the release of imprisoned opposition politician Aleksei Navalny and calling Russian President Vladimir Putin a "killer."

Former police Major Oleg Kashintsev was holding a poster saying "Free Navalny. Putin Is A Killer" when police detained him near the Kremlin on December 19.

Kashintsev was released several hours later after police charged him with a "violation of regulations on holding pickets" and "illegally wearing a police uniform."

Kashintsev worked in law enforcement for 18 years, including 14 years in the criminal investigation department at the Moscow police.

He left the police in 2019, protesting police pressure imposed on the country's opposition.

Kashintsev took part in several unsanctioned rallies to support Navalny in recent years.

Navalny is one of Putin's most prominent opponents. He was arrested in Moscow in January after returning from Germany, where he was treated for a near-fatal nerve-agent poisoning.

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

In February, Navalny was convicted of violating the terms of a suspended sentence related to an embezzlement case that he has called politically motivated. The remainder of Navalny's suspended sentence -- 2 1/2 years -- was then replaced with a real prison term.

A lawmaker in Russia's Far Eastern city of Magadan, who was implicated in a high-profile poaching case, has been found dead with gunshot wounds.

The Investigative Committee's directorate in Magadan told RFE/RL on December 20 that Aleksandr Kramarenko's body was found in his office late in the evening the previous day.

According to the directorate’s officials, investigators are interviewing Kramarenko's relatives, colleagues, and possible witnesses and analyzing recordings of CCTV cameras.

The local office of the ruling United Russia party refused to comment on the situation.

In June, the Investigative Committee launched a probe against Kramarenko after a photo taken in Chukotka, one of Russia’s most remote northern regions, was posted on Instagram.

The photo showed Kramarenko holding a hunting rifle and standing in the middle of a snowy field where what appeared to be almost 200 dead wild birds were arranged to spell out the words "Chukotka 2021" and a heart shape. Another photo shows the birds arranged in the shape of a pyramid.

Investigators said at the time that the damage caused by Kramarenko's alleged poaching of rare geese had been estimated to be around 700,000 rubles ($9,400).

The 59-year-old lawmaker insisted then that the picture was altered and the person in it was not him, but then changed his statement later, saying that the birds in the picture were actually stuffed dead birds preserved for a hunting school.

The United Russia party suspended Kramarenko's membership after the probe was launched against him.

Russian cosmonaut Aleksandr Misurkin and two Japanese space tourists have returned to Earth after spending 12 days on the International Space Station (ISS).

Russia's space agency announced their landing in Kazakhstan on December 20 in a statement on its website.

"The flight of the 'tourist' spacecraft 'Soyuz MS-20' has been completed," Roskosmos said.

NASA also announced that the trio had landed in Kazakhstan.

Misurkin, Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa, and his video producer, Yozo Hirano, had earlier bid farewell to the crew of the ISS and closed the hatch on the Soyuz MS-20 in preparation for their departure from the ISS.

Misurkin, online fashion tycoon Maezawa, and Hirano blasted into space on December 8 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. They were the first self-paying tourists to visit the ISS since 2009 and the first private Japanese citizens to visit space since journalist Toyohiro Akiyama traveled to the Mir space station in 1990.

Maezawa and Hirano documented their daily life aboard the ISS for Maezawa's YouTube channel. Their videos showed them performing mundane tasks in space, including brushing their teeth and drinking tea. One video explained how astronauts use the bathroom.

Their trip was one of several milestones this year for private space travel. Billionaires Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Richard Branson all made breakthrough commercial tourism flights in 2021.

Misurkin, a cosmonaut who spent six months on the ISS in 2017-18, traveled to space this time as a reporter for the Russian state news agency TASS. Misurkin was to report on the life and work of the station, and his reports, photos, and videos were to be available on the TASS website, the news agency said.

With reporting by AFP, AP, NASA.com, TASS and space.com

German Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht has called for harsher sanctions against Russia over its troop deployment on the Ukrainian border, saying those responsible for any aggression must face "personal consequences.”

Lambrecht told the German weekly Bild am Sonntag that Germany and its allies should put Russian President Vladimir Putin and his entourage "in our sights."

"We have to exhaust all the diplomatic and economic sanction possibilities. And all further steps should be agreed with our allies," she said.

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Lambrecht’s comments were published on December 19 as she visited German soldiers deployed in Lithuania as part of a NATO mission.

The visit comes amid growing concerns over regional security after Russia amassed some 100,000 troops near its border with Ukraine in what Washington says could be preparations for an invasion.

Germany provides about half of the 1,200 troops of the multinational NATO combat unit in Lithuania and leads the unit as a so-called framework nation.

In response to Russia's annexation of the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea in 2014, NATO strengthened the protection of its eastern flank. Joint combat units were stationed in the three Baltic states and in Poland as part of an "enhanced forward presence."

Lambrecht took up the post of defense minister this month in Germany's new government under Chancellor Olaf Scholz.

Based on reporting by dpa and AFP

A Russian court has handed a three-year suspended sentence to Yury Zhdanov, the father of Ivan Zhdanov, a close associate of jailed opposition politician Aleksei Navalny, in a corruption case critics say is politically motivated.

Zhdanov, who spent several months in pretrial detention, was released from custody after sentencing, his lawyer, Vladimir Voronin, announced on Twitter on December 19.

Prosecutors had asked for Zhdanov, 67, to be sentenced to three years in jail on charges of fraud and forgery. Zhdanov rejected the charges.

Zhdanov was arrested in late March and went on trial in Russia's Arctic city of Naryan-Mar in October.

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Navalny Urges Associates Who Have Fled Russia To Continue Anti-Corruption Work From Abroad

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 a remote town’s administration, where he worked as an official before his retirement 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, the FBK and other groups associated with Navalny were labeled as extremist and banned in Russia.

With reporting by Reuters

Switzerland has extradited Kremlin-linked Russian businessman Vladislav Klyushin to the United States, where he faces insider-trading charges, Swiss authorities reported on December 18.

Klyushin owns M13, a Russian company that offers media monitoring and cybersecurity services. He is accused in the United States of making tens of millions of dollars with accomplices via insider trading using hacked confidential information about listed U.S. companies.

The businessman was arrested in Switzerland in March on a U.S. warrant.

Russia said on December 19 that it was deeply disappointed with the Swiss decision to extradite Klyushin.

"We are forced to state that we are dealing with another episode in Washington's ongoing hunt for Russian citizens in third countries," the TASS news agency quoted Vladimir Khokhlov, a spokesperson for the Russian Embassy in Switzerland, as saying.

According to Russian opposition media, Klyushin is close to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s first deputy chief of staff, Aleksei Gromov.

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

Klyushin had argued in court that he was being targeted for “political reasons” and rejected the charges as baseless. But Swiss courts dismissed his appeal. The Federal Criminal Court in November upheld a previous rejection of Klyushin's argument that he was a victim of a U.S. political campaign.

Klyushin's extradition to the United States was approved in June after the Swiss Federal Office of Justice rejected a Russian request earlier 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.

Based on reporting by Reuters, TASS, and AFP

German ministers have reiterated EU warnings that Russia would face harsher sanctions in the event of military aggression against Ukraine, which they said could also prompt Berlin to rethink its cooperation with Moscow on the Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline.

The renewed warnings come as Kyiv and its Western backers accuse Russia of massing about 100,000 troops near its border with Ukraine as a possible prelude to an invasion as early as next month.

The European Union has imposed several rounds of sanctions on Russia over its seizure and illegal annexation 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.

The bloc has urged Russia to de-escalate and engage in renewed diplomacy over conflict, threatening strong new sanctions in coordination with Britain and the United States if there were any attack.

Russia denies it has plans to launch an offensive and has issued a series of demands about Ukraine’s potential membership in NATO and the alliance's activities near its western border.

In an interview published on December 19 as she visited German soldiers deployed in Lithuania, German Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht said Russia cannot "dictate" to NATO on regional security.

Those responsible for any Russian aggression against Ukraine must face "personal consequences,” Lambrecht also told the German weekly Bild am Sonntag.

"We have to exhaust all the diplomatic and economic sanction possibilities. And all further steps should be agreed with our allies."

Following Russia’s seizure of Crimea, NATO has strengthened the protection of its eastern flank, deploying joint combat units in the three Baltic states and in Poland as part of an "enhanced forward presence."

Germany leads the multinational NATO combat unit in Lithuania and provides about half of its 1,200 troops.

Also on December 19, German Economic Affairs Minister Robert Habeck warned that the future of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline from Russia to Germany could face "severe consequences" if Russia attacked Ukraine.

Nothing can be excluded if there is a "new violation of the territorial integrity" of Ukraine, Habeck said in an interview with the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.

Lambrecht and Habeck took up their ministerial posts this month in Germany's new government under Chancellor Olaf Scholz.

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Nord Stream 2 is set to double the supply of natural gas from Russia to Germany, but the project has for years been dogged by delays and criticism from Germany's eastern EU allies, including Poland.

The United States and Ukraine oppose Nord Stream 2 on the grounds that it would endanger European energy security by increasing the continent’s reliance on Russian gas and deprive Ukraine of transit fees.

Habeck said that from a geopolitical point of view, “the pipeline is a mistake." It has, however, been built, he said.

The new German government already has threatened to block the pipeline from going into operation if Russia invades Ukraine.

"In the event of further escalation, this gas pipeline could not come into service," Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said.

The pipeline awaits approval from German regulators. The pipeline's Swiss-based Nord Stream 2 AG, the company that controls the pipeline, must submit documents to restart the certification process. The pipeline would then also have to be approved by the European Commission.

Germany's energy regulator said on December 16 that no decision on whether to allow the pipeline to be commissioned is expected in the first half of 2022.

Meanwhile, in Washington, lawmakers have not given up on imposing sanctions on Nord Stream 2 AG.

The U.S. Senate will vote next month on a bill to slap sanctions on Nord Stream 2 AG under an agreement reached on December 18 between Senator Ted Cruz (Republican-Texas) and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (Democrat-New York).

Cruz agreed to lift a hold on votes to approve several of President Joe Biden's nominees for ambassadorial posts in exchange for a guarantee of a vote on the sanctions bill by January 14.

The deal cleared the way for approval on December 18 of about three dozen ambassadors in votes by the Senate.

Cruz moved to block votes on nominees after the Biden administration in May waived sanctions against Nord Stream 2 AG, saying the project was already mostly built and as the administration sought to repair ties with Germany.

The controversial $11 billion pipeline was completed in September, and Russia has said it is ready to begin shipping gas.

With reporting by AP, Reuters, AFP, and dpa

The top Republican on the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee says the security proposals that Moscow has put forth in response to Western alarm over a Russian troop buildup near Ukraine are a clear sign that Russia is “trying to create a pretext for war.”

U.S. Senator Jim Risch (Republican-Idaho) said in a statement on December 18 that Russia’s proposals are not security agreements, but a list of concessions the United States and NATO must make to appease Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The proposals, laid out on December 17 by the Russian Foreign Ministry, call for an end to NATO’s eastward expansion and limitations on the alliance’s military activity in Eastern Europe, including cooperation with Ukraine and Georgia.

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“The Russian Federation made these demands with the full understanding they are impossible to accept,” Risch said. “Putin knows the United States and our 29 NATO allies do not, and will not, negotiate away the future of sovereign nations, like Ukraine, that must be able to make their own choices.”

Risch urges the Biden administration and all NATO allies to reject the demands but said the alliance should be prepared for Putin to use the rejection as an excuse for using military force. He also called on Congress and the administration to act before Russia escalates further.

Russia currently has about 100,000 troops near the border with Ukraine in what the United States says could be preparations for an invasion.

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The proposals, which would roll back many of the security advances NATO has made in Eastern Europe and former Soviet states since the late 1990s, come as tensions between Washington and the Kremlin reach a post-Cold War high amid Moscow’s attempts to carve out a sphere of influence in its near abroad.

A senior U.S. administration official on December 17 called some of the proposals “unacceptable” but said other aspects “merit some discussion.”

The official said the United States would consult with its allies and partners, including Ukraine, about the proposals before responding to Russia next week.

Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov called Washington and NATO's response to the security proposals discouraging and said he did not consider them unacceptable.

Ryabkov told the TASS news agency on December 18 that the aim is to hold talks exclusively with Washington.

Ryabkov expressed hope that the United States would enter into negotiations, saying the issue "is critically important for maintaining peace and stability."

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko said Russia has made clear it is “ready to talk about switching over from a military or a military-technical scenario to a political process."

Speaking on December 18, Grushko said if that doesn’t work out, Russia has signaled to NATO that it would “move over to creating counterthreats, but it will then be too late to ask us why we made these decisions and why we deployed these systems.”

Moscow and Kyiv have been at odds since 2014 when Russia annexed Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula and began providing military, political, and economic support to separatist formations in parts of eastern Ukraine.

Moscow denies direct involvement in the conflict in eastern Ukraine despite compelling evidence to the contrary.

With reporting by TASS

TBILISI -- An independent group of doctors has examined jailed former Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili and determined that his health has been seriously compromised as a result of "torture" and mistreatment he had allegedly experienced since his arrest in early October.

The doctors reported on December 18 that Saakashvili, 53, had developed several neurological conditions "as a result of torture, ill-treatment, inadequate medical care, and a prolonged hunger strike."

One member of the group, psychiatrist Mariam Jishkariani, told the AFP news agency that the health problems were the result of "Saakashvili's psychological torture in prison, which could lead to his incapacitation if he is not given proper medical care."

She added that he had been wrongly given unspecified "antipsychotic drugs," which amounted to "pharmacological torture."

The examination by a group of seven physicians was organized by the nongovernmental Empathy Center.

Saakashvili himself has said he was subjected to death threats, sleep deprivation, and physical abuse while in custody.

Last week, the Georgian State Inspectorate announced it had opened an investigation into Saakashvili's allegations.

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The NGO Amnesty International has said Saakashvili’s treatment was "not just selective justice, but apparent political revenge," while the U.S. State Department has called on the Georgian government to "treat Saakashvili fairly and with dignity."

Saakashvili served as Georgia's president from 2004 to 2013. He was arrested shortly after returning to Georgia from self-imposed exile in Ukraine.

He conducted a 50-day hunger strike to protest his convictions on charges of abuse of office, which he says were politically motivated.

His arrest, coming amid a political crisis stemming from disputed parliamentary elections in 2020, spurred the largest anti-government protests in Georgia in a decade.

With reporting by AFP

The government of Moldova has criticized Russia's ambassador for attending the inauguration ceremony of the de facto president of the breakaway Moldovan region of Transdniester.

"The so-called presidential election in the Transdniester region is illegitimate and runs counter to the constitutional foundations of Moldova," the Foreign Affairs and European Integration Ministry said in a December 18 statement.

"The participation of the head of Russia's diplomatic mission in these activities is regarded by the Foreign Affairs and European Integration Ministry as an unfriendly action," the statement added.

Russian Ambassador Oleg Vasnetsov attended the December 17 swearing-in ceremony of Vadim Krasnoselsky as the de facto head of the unrecognized region. Krasnoselsky was proclaimed the winner of the unauthorized election held on December 12.

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Earlier, the chairman of Moldova's presidential pardons commission, Ion Guzun, wrote on Facebook that Vasnetsov should be declared persona non grata for attending the ceremony.

Transdniester gained de facto independence following a brief war in 1992. Russia maintains a military presence in the region despite the Moldovan government's repeated calls for Russian troops to be replaced by international peacekeepers.

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Russia has officially completed its obligations under the 2002 Open Skies Treaty and finalized its withdrawal from the agreement.

Moscow gave treaty signatories six months' notice of its intention to withdraw on June 18, following the withdrawal of the United States in November 2020.

The administration of U.S. President Donald Trump accused Russia of "flagrantly violating" the agreement.

Specifically, Washington said Russia had imposed flight restrictions over the Kaliningrad region, the area near its border with Georgia, and the North Caucasus region of Chechnya.

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The treaty allows signatories to conduct unarmed surveillance flights over the territory of other participants as a means of boosting mutual confidence and preventing misunderstandings. Thirty-three countries remain part of the agreement.

Russia has sent two nuclear-capable strategic bombers to patrol the western borders of ally Belarus, the authorities in Minsk say, amid heightened tensions across Eastern Europe.

The two Tu-22M3 bombers were accompanied by Su-30SM fighter jets from both the Russian and Belarusian air forces.

It was the third such mission in the area in the last month.

Tensions between Russia and the West have been heightened by a buildup of Russian troops in the region near the country's border with Ukraine.

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At the same time, Belarus's relations with the European Union are strained over a migrant crisis along its western border that the EU says was instigated intentionally by Minsk.

Officials in Kyiv have expressed fears that Moscow could use Belarusian territory to support an attack on Ukraine.

The United States and NATO have warned of "massive consequences" if Russia attacks Ukraine.

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However, British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace told the Spectator magazine on December 18 that it was "highly unlikely" NATO members would send troops to defend Ukraine from a Russian attack.

"It is not a member of NATO, so it is highly unlikely that anyone is going to send troops to Ukraine to challenge Russia," Wallace said. "We shouldn't kid people we would. The Ukrainians are aware of that."

Wallace added that Britain would continue helping Ukraine build up its own defense capabilities and again warned Moscow of "severe economic sanctions" -- including Russia's possible exclusion from the SWIFT international payments network -- if it attacked Ukraine.

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Meanwhile, German Economic Affairs Minister Robert Habeck said in an interview published on December 18 that the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline to deliver Russian natural gas to Germany could face "severe consequences" in the event of a Russian attack on Ukraine.

He added that "nothing can be excluded" if "there is a new violation of the territorial integrity" of Ukraine.

Habeck also said that "from the geopolitical point of view, the pipeline was a mistake."

Moscow and Kyiv have been at odds since 2014, when Russia seized the Ukrainian region of Crimea and began providing military, political, and economic support to separatist formations in parts of eastern Ukraine.

Moscow denies direct involvement in the conflict in eastern Ukraine, despite compelling evidence to the contrary.

Western analysts say Russia currently has about 100,000 troops positioned near its border with Ukraine.

With reporting by Reuters, AP, and AFP