The United States has slapped sanctions on about a dozen Iranian officials and entities accused of committing "serious" human rights abuses.

The sanctions announced on December 7 target government officials and organizations that Washington said have been involved in the repression of protesters and political activists, as well as prisons where activists have been held in brutal conditions.

Several Syrian officials were also placed on the U.S. Treasury Department's blacklist for their roles in political repression and chemical gas attacks, along with Uganda's military intelligence chief.

The announcement came ahead of the Washington-hosted virtual Summit for Democracy from December 9-10, billed by the State Department as a push to promote more free and open societies across the world.

“Consistent with the goals of this week’s Summit for Democracy, the United States is committed to using its full range of tools to counter serious human rights abuse and repressive acts across the world," Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement.

Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh said the U.S. sanctions “won't create leverage -- and [are] anything but seriousness & goodwill.”

"Washington fails to understand that 'maximum failure' and a diplomatic breakthrough are mutually exclusive," Khatibzadeh wrote on Twitter.

The Iranian sanctions single out officials and entities involved in brutal crackdowns on protests in 2009 and 2019, including special units of Iran’s Law Enforcement Forces and their commander, Hassan Karami.

Those blacklisted also included Gholamreza Soleimani, commander of the paramilitary Basij force, which the Treasury Department described as “one of Iran’s most important domestic security resources.”

The governor of Qods City, Leila Vaseghi, was also targeted “for issuing an order to the police and other armed forces during the November 2019 protests to shoot unarmed protestors, causing dozens of deaths or injuries.”

With reporting by Reuters

The regime of authoritarian Belarusian leader Alyaksandr Lukashenka says it will ban a wide range of food imports from European Union members states, the United States, and other countries starting next year in retaliation for sanctions imposed against Minsk.

The ban will concern imports from the EU, the United States, Canada, Britain, Norway, Albania, Iceland, Northern Macedonia, and Montenegro, the government said on December 7.

The measure, which is set to remain in force for six months starting on January 1, will cover foodstuffs such as meat, sausages, dairy products, vegetables, fruit, and salt.

Baby food and dietary items will be exempted.

The government said more products could be banned in the event of further Western sanctions.

The European Union, the United States, and other Western countries have imposed several rounds of sanctions on Minsk over Lukashenka's crackdown on pro-democracy protests against his disputed reelection in August 2020.

Last week, punitive measures were widened on officials and businesses for allegedly inciting a migration crisis at the EU’s eastern border.

Belarus has denied it has funneled migrants, mainly from the Middle East, to Belarus's border with Poland, Latvia, and Lithuania.

Thirteen people were killed and another seven were injured when a minibus collided with a truck in northern Ukraine, authorities say.

The accident took place at about 8 a.m. on December 7 in the Chernihiv region, according to the State Emergency Service.

The cause of the accident is not yet known.

Police opened proceedings under the article "violation of traffic safety rules, which resulted in the death of several people."

German federal prosecutors have demanded life in prison without parole for a Russian man accused of murdering a former Chechen commander in Berlin more than two years ago -- allegedly on the orders of Moscow.

The request was made to a Berlin court on December 7 after 14 months of trial of the man identified by prosecutors as Vadim Krasikov, who is accused of shooting dead Zelimkhan Khangoshvili, a Georgian citizen of Chechen ethnicity, in Kleiner Tiergarten Park in August 2019.

The suspect, who was arrested minutes after the killing, has claimed his innocence. He had traveled to Germany on a Russian passport issued under the name of Vadim Sokolov.

Federal prosecutors identified him as a "commander of a special unit of the Russian secret services FSB."

Summing up the case, prosecutor Lars Malkies told the court that the suspect “liquidated a political opponent as an act of retaliation."

His colleague, Nikolaus Forschner, said the accused had carried out a "state order to kill."

In an earlier hearing, the suspect told the court through his lawyer that he should be identified only as Vadim Sokolov, who is "Russian, single, and a construction engineer."

He said he knew “no one” named Krasikov.

Khangoshvili, 40, had fought Russian troops in Chechnya.

He had previously survived several assassination attempts and continued to receive threats after fleeing in 2016 to Germany, where he had been granted asylum.

Based on reporting by dpa and AFP

The United Nations’ top court has ordered both Armenia and Azerbaijan to work to prevent racial hatred and discrimination and ease their feud following last year's war between the South Caucasus neighbors over the breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh region.

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) also told Azerbaijan on December 7 to protect Armenian prisoners from the conflict and to stop the desecration of Armenian cultural heritage.

The Hague-based court’s orders are pending a full case review of the dispute, which could take years to resolve. However, the judges have no real means of enforcing their orders.

Yerevan and Baku have both requested that the ICJ take emergency measures against alleged breaches of a UN treaty banning racial discrimination.

The two former Soviet republics "shall refrain from any action which might aggravate or extend the dispute before the court or make it more difficult to resolve," ICJ chief Judge Joan Donoghue said.

In a statement sent to RFE/RL, the Foreign Ministry in Baku said Azerbaijan "will comply with the measures indicated by the court related to preventing racial discrimination, which reaffirm existing treaty obligations that Azerbaijan takes seriously and is committed to upholding."

There was no immediate comment from the Armenian government.

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

A six-week war erupted last year that claimed more than 6,500 lives. The fighting ended with a Russia-brokered cease-fire under which Armenia ceded territories it had controlled for decades to Azerbaijan. Border tensions have since remained high, with the worst renewed deadly fighting taking place last month.

The ICJ on December 7 ordered Azerbaijan to "protect from violence and bodily harm" all Armenian prisoners from the conflict and ensure they are treated lawfully, and to prevent the "vandalism and desecration" of churches and other Armenian cultural heritage.

Both Azerbaijan and Armenia must "take all necessary measures to prevent the incitement and promotion of racial hatred and discrimination" against the other, it ruled.

The order involved "officials and institutions" in Azerbaijan and "organizations and private persons" in Armenia.

The ICJ threw out Azerbaijan’s request to make Armenia stop laying land mines and to hand over maps of mines, saying that it was not covered by the International Convention On All Forms Of Racial Discrimination (CERD).

During hearings in October, Armenia accused Azerbaijan of fueling a "cycle of hate," while Baku accused Yerevan of "ethnic cleansing."

The ICJ orders come days after Azerbaijan announced on December 4 that it had freed 10 Armenian soldiers captured during deadly border clashes in mid-November.

In return, Armenia handed over maps detailing the location of minefields.

The swap came after Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenia's Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian agreed to ease tensions on November 26 at a meeting in Russia's Black Sea resort of Sochi.

With reporting by AFP

BISHKEK -- Kyrgyzstan's election commission has announced the final preliminary results of last month's parliamentary elections following the manual count of all ballots, with six parties set to enter the new legislature.

According to the results released by the Central Election Commission (BShK) on December 7, three pro-government parties won seats in the Jogorku Kenesh (Supreme Council): Ata-Jurt (Fatherland) Kyrgyzstan, Yntymak (Harmony), and Ishenim (Trust).

Butun (United) Kyrgyzstan, Alyans (Alliance), and Yiman Nuru (Ray of Faith) also passed the 5 percent threshold to get in. Butun Kyrgyzstan has been in the opposition, while the other two parties have been affiliated neither with the government nor the opposition. However, Alyans on December 6 announced it would side with the opposition in parliament.

The final official results of the elections are to be announced no later than 20 days after the polls, which will falls on December 18.

Four opposition parties that failed to pass the 5 percent barrier -- Ata-Meken (Homeland), Azattyk (Liberty), the Social Democrats, and Uluttar Birimdigi (Union of Ethnicities) -- have accused the BShK of fraud and called for a new vote.

At issue was a glitch during the counting in which technical problems caused a tabulation monitor at the commission to suddenly show that several opposition parties had fallen below the 5 percent threshold.

The BShK and President Sadyr Japarov have insisted that the glitch was not intentional and affected only data displayed on the screen without affecting the results themselves.

However, a full hand count of the ballots was ordered in an attempt to allay the complaints raised by the opposition.

SEE ALSO:

Democratic 'Blackout'? Latest Kyrgyz Parliamentary Elections Can't Escape Controversy

According to the preliminary results announced by the BShK on December 7, Ata-Jurt Kyrgyzstan won 17.3 percent of vote, Ishenim 13.63 percent, and Yntymak 10.99 percent in the November 28 elections.

Butun Kyrgyzstan had 7.04 percent, Alyans 8.34 percent, and Yiman Nuru 6.15 percent.

Azattyk leader Ismail Isakov said his party planned to join other opposition parties that failed to enter the legislature to set up a "people's parliament" that would "propose ideas to the government."

Street protests in the former Soviet republic have sparked government ousters three times in the past two decades, including after disputed parliamentary elections last year that swept Japarov to power after he was sprung from prison.

The Central Asian country adopted a new constitution in a referendum in April that lowered the number of seats in parliament from 120 to 90, and changed the system of voting for candidates, with 54 seats being selected by party list and the remaining 36 in single-mandate districts.

A gunman has opened fire in a government services center in Moscow and killed two people, after being told to wear a face mask, local authorities and media said. Four people were also reported wounded.

Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin wrote on VKontakte that the deadly shooting took place at the Ryazansky documentation service center on December 7.

"The killer was detained. I express condolences to the wounded people and the families of the deceased ones. Doctors are doing everything to aid the wounded people," Sobyanin wrote.

Deputy Mayor Anastasia Rakova said those killed in the incident included a security officer and an administrator of the center.

Those wounded were in serious condition, Rakova said.

Media reports quoted witnesses and officials of the documentation services center as saying that the man pulled a gun and started shooting after he was confronted by security inside the premises because he refused to wear a mask, as required by city authorities to stem the spread of COVID-19.

The reports identified the shooter as a 45-year-old Muscovite.

The Investigative Committee said it had launched a probe into "murders" and "illegal firearm possession."

With reporting by TASS, Interfax, and Shot

Talks between world powers and Iran regarding Tehran's controversial nuclear program will resume on December 9 in Vienna, according to the country's semiofficial Tasnim news agency.

The negotiations aimed at resurrecting the stalled 2015 nuclear deal under which Iran agreed to curbs on its nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief got off to a rocky start last week.

The United States, which left the agreement in 2018 but is open to rejoining the pact under President Joe Biden, has accused Iran of not being seriously interested in a new deal.

And Germany, a member of the P5+1 group that signed on to the original deal, said on December 6 that it had reviewed Tehran's proposals for restarting the accord "and concluded that Iran had violated almost all compromises found previously in months of hard negotiation."

The proposals were "not a basis for a successful end to talks," a spokeswoman for Germany's Foreign Ministry said, adding that Berlin expected Iran to return to international negotiations with "realistic" bargaining positions.

Iran, which has refused to participate in direct talks with Washington, has said that there can be no new deal unless all punitive sanctions imposed against Tehran are lifted.

Based on reporting by Tasnim, dpa, and Reuters.

Lithuanian lawmakers have extended the state of emergency at the Baltic nation's border with Belarus and at camps hosting migrants who arrived from there as it tries to stem the flow of people into the European Union through the bloc's eastern flank.

The measure approved by the Seimas, Lithuania's parliament, extends the state of emergency in place within 10 kilometers of the border and in migrant camps until January 14.

The goal of the measure is to "prevent possible provocations at border checkpoints" the Interior Ministry said.

Belarus is engaged in a bitter diplomatic standoff with the West over Alyaksandr Lukashenka's crackdown on dissent since a disputed election in 2020 and what the European Union has called his "weaponization" of Middle Eastern migrants to create a crisis on Belarus's border with EU members Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland.

The European Union, United States, and other Western powers last week imposed a fifth round of sanctions on Lukashenka and his elites over alleged rights and other abuses.

SEE ALSO:

Belarus Threatens 'Harsh' Response After EU And Allies Expand Sanctions

So far, more than 4,200 migrants have entered Lithuania this year.

Many of the thousands of Iraqis and other migrants from the Middle East hoping to travel to the West remain camped out in Belarus near the border.

Belarusian sources have said thousands have already been flown back to the Middle East since Turkey and other countries began cooperating more closely to thwart Minsk's alleged efforts to ship in migrants to put pressure on the EU border in retaliation for the sanctions.

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An announcement by Minsk airport on Telegram on December 7 showed a new repatriation flight to Iraq with 417 people expected on board was planned for departure later in the day.

Another flight to Syria is planned for December 8, it said.

"We estimate that the Lukashenka regime sent back about 3,000 migrants to Iraq and Syria, but considerably more, about 7,000, are still on the territory of Belarus," Polish intelligence services spokesman Stanislaw Zaryn told the PAP news agency on December 7.

With reporting by PAP and dpa

An online real estate service in Russia has started deleting advertisements with xenophobic elements after an RFE/RL report focusing on ads offering rentals "for Slavs only" was published last week.

CIAN.ru announced on December 6 that all individuals and companies who placed ads on the service's website with discriminatory texts must edit them and delete any improperly worded sentences by February 1, 2022.

The service added that, after this deadline, it will fix such texts on its own as it sees fit.

"We stand for equal opportunity for all CIAN.ru users and believe that this decision will become the industry standard" for the real estate market, the CIAN. statement said.

The announcement comes four days after RFE/RL's Idel.Realities published an investigative report revealing that more than 1,000 ads on renting apartments and houses on the CIAN.ru website noted that the properties could be rented by "Slavs only."

Lev Gudkov, deputy director of the pollster Levada-Center, told RFE/RL that xenophobia was on the rise across Russia as a result of government policies that "turned inaccessible slogans into accessible ones."

CIAN.ru's press service told RFE/RL on December 6 that the group's current goal was "to exclude content that discriminates the rights of some categories of users on the basis of their ethnicity, religion. etc."

Millions of Russian citizens are not Slavs, but represent different ethnic groups such as Turkic, Finno-Ugric, Mongol, Jewish, and many other ethnicities.

The Investigation and Protection Agency of Bosnia-Herzegovina (SIPA) says five former soldiers have been arrested in Sarajevo for committing crimes against Serb civilians who were prisoners of war between 1992 and 1994 during the Bosnian War.

SIPA said in a statement on December 7 that at least eight civilians were killed and more than 100 injured by the five soldiers, who are accused of unlawful imprisonment, torture, abuse, forced labor, and inflicting bodily and mental harm, along with murder.

The imprisoned civilians were being held illegally in wartime prison camps in a former school and in another partially built building in Sarajevo.

"The accused are charged with the murder of at least eight civilians who were imprisoned. Among the suspects are the direct perpetrators of the killings," the statement said.

It added that Serbian police were part of the operation as some of the victims now live in Serbia.

More than 100,000 people were killed in the Bosnian conflict, which ended with a U.S.-brokered agreement that divided the country and its administration largely along ethnic lines among Bosniaks, Serbs, and Croats.

This is the third operation to arrest war crimes suspects conducted by SIPA in the past two weeks.

SEE ALSO:

Bosnia Arrests Seven Suspects Over 1992 Massacre

On December 3, seven people were arrested and charged with participating in the killing of 22 Bosniaks, including seven children, in the village of Balatun nearly 30 years ago. At the time, the three suspects were members of the Serb police.

Four days before that, the agency arrested nine people in the northwestern town of Novi Grad who are suspected of crimes against humanity.

More than 100,000 people died in the war in Bosnia among the Bosniaks -- who are mostly Muslims --Serbs and Croats.

Bosnian Serbs besieged the capital, Sarajevo, during the conflict, but many Serbs also remained in the city and dozens were killed by Bosniak fighters who were in control.

Ethnic relations in Bosnia remain tense years after the war ended in 1995 in a U.S.-brokered peace agreement that created two entities within Bosnia -- one Bosnian Serb and the other Bosniak-Croat.

A court in Moscow has ordered Google to pay another fine, this time 5 million rubles ($67,600), for violating the country’s rules on banned content.

The magistrate court of the Taganka district in the Russian capital handed down the decision on December 7, saying that Google had failed to delete banned content as instructed.

Later in the day, the court is expected to rule on three more protocols filed against Google that could see combined fines of up to 16 million rubles (almost $216,300) levied against the company.

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

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

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

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

Based on reporting by TASS and Interfax

MINSK -- Well-known Belarusian punk-rock musician Ihar Bantser, who has been in solitary confinement in a so-called open prison for almost two weeks, will spend another 10 days in isolation for unspecified reasons.

Bantser was sentenced in March to 18 months in an open prison for allegedly publicly insulting police by exposing intimate parts of his body during an anti-government rally. The sentence means that he lives under strict restrictions in a special dormitory and works at an industrial facility chosen by the state penitentiary service.

He was placed in solitary confinement on November 25 for recording a video for the online newspaper Meduza, where he showed the conditions in the open prison.

His relatives said on December 7 that they were not told why the isolation punishment was extended.

They also accused the open prison's administration of intentionally pressuring the leader of the Mister X punk group, who has refused to sign a letter asking for clemency from strongman Alyaksandr Lukashenka, who has ruled the country with an iron fist since 1994.

In all, Bantser has spent 70 days in solitary confinement since August.

Belarus has witnessed more than a year of unprecedented rallies and protest actions after Lukashenka was declared the winner of the August 9, 2020, election by a landslide amid allegations of widespread fraud.

Tens of thousands of people have been detained, hundreds beaten, several killed, and journalists targeted in the government crackdown.

Lukashenka and top officials have been slapped with sanctions by the West, which refuses to recognize him as the legitimate leader of the former Soviet republic.

The U.S. military has completed construction on a long-range radar for an Alaska-based missile-defense system that can track intercontinental ballistic missiles, the Pentagon says.

The Defense Department on December 6 said the system will also protect the United States against future threats such as hypersonic weapons.

The Defense Department said in 2015 that it was planning to deploy a new long-range radar in central Alaska that would help U.S. missile defenses better identify potential missiles launched by Iran or North Korea and bolster the capacity of interceptors in that state and in California.

"The Long Range Discrimination Radar [LRDR] has finished construction, and we can now begin the testing phase that will lead to the full operational use of this vital system. LRDR will allow Northern Command to better defend the United States from ballistic and hypersonic missile threats," said Vice Admiral Jon Hill, the Pentagon Missile Defense Agency director.

"Once fully operational, LRDR will provide unparalleled ability to simultaneously search and track multiple small objects, including all classes of ballistic missiles, at very long ranges," the agency said in a statement.

The system will be based at the Clear Space Force Station, about 300 miles north of the city of Anchorage.

Based on reporting by Reuters and Defense One

One person was killed and at least nine injured after an explosion in a mall in Uzbekistan's southern region of Surxondaryo.

The Central Asian nation's Emergencies Ministry said in a statement on Telegram that the blast hit the two-story building of the Indenim Mall in the center of the city of Denov at around 4 a.m. local time on December 7.

No cause has been given for the blast, but gas explosions are not uncommon in the Central Asian nation during the winter due to aging pipelines and infrastructure, as well as lax safety standards.

According to the statement, firefighters extinguished the fire in less than 30 minutes.

"As the result of the explosion, nine people were injured, and they were all hospitalized. One person was found dead under debris," the statement said.

A state commission led by Deputy Prime Minister Achilboi Ramatov arrived at the site and an investigation of the incident has started.

WASHINGTON -- Senator Bob Menendez (Democrat-New Jersey), the chair of the Foreign Relations Committee, and five other Senate Democrats called on the U.S. administration to press Uzbekistan’s leaders on human rights issues during an upcoming dialogue session.

In a letter made public on December 6, the senators said they recognized "Uzbekistan’s progress on human rights," but they urged the Central Asian nation to conduct sweeping reforms “as promised by President Shavkat Mirziyoev.”

Representatives from the two nations are due to meet later this month in the first Strategic Partnership Dialogue.

The senators said the meeting "offers a unique opportunity to establish respect for human rights as a fundamental component of the United States relationship with Uzbekistan."

In their letter, the senators singled out concerns over limits on free speech and the press and lack of progress toward political liberalization.

The letter, sent to the Secretary of State Antony Blinken, was also signed by Senators Chris Van Hollen (Maryland), Dick Durbin (Illinois), Kirsten Gillibrand (New York), Sherrod Brown (Ohio), and Ben Cardin (Maryland).

"Despite much-lauded reforms, Uzbekistan remains among the world’s most repressive countries, and at risk of reversing recent gains," the senators wrote in the letter.

"In the aftermath of the U.S. military withdrawal from Afghanistan, our bilateral relationship with Uzbekistan has become even more important to our interests and our values. As we increase our security and counterterrorism coordination we must also emphasize the importance of human rights in Uzbekistan and for our partnership."

The senators urged the U.S. administration to work with Tashkent to ensure the meaningful reform of Uzbekistan’s Criminal Code.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) last month said the October reelection of Mirziyoev to a second term, with no real opposition candidates allowed to run, coincided with “clear setbacks” on the country’s human rights record.

SEE ALSO:

Uzbekistan Clamps Down On Activists, Critics Ahead Of Presidential Election

Mirziyoev came under criticism for cracking down on his critics and activists ahead of the vote.

The Uzbek president is struggling to counter impressions that his government is sliding back toward the authoritarian habits of his long-reigning predecessor, Islam Karimov.

Mirziyoev did open up Central Asia's most-populous nation to foreign investment, improved Uzbekistan’s relations with its neighbors, and eased the Karimov-era restrictions on religious freedoms while also releasing dozens of political prisoners.

But, like his predecessor, Mirziyoev exercises virtually unrestrained political power in Uzbekistan and his relatives have been accused of using his political clout to amass wealth.

RFE/RL’s Uzbek Service reported on November 24 that police in the Tashkent capital region had forced dozens of practicing Muslims to shave off their beards, a practice in the Central Asian nation that has been criticized by domestic and international rights organization for years.

With reporting by AP and AFP

U.S. President Joe Biden warned Russian President Vladimir Putin that Russia would be hit with "strong economic and other measures" as punishment should Moscow launch an offensive against Ukraine, the White House said.

The two leaders held a video conference on December 7, their third direct talks since Biden took office in January.

The meeting came as already tense relations between Washington and Moscow are poised to plummet further over threats of a new potential invasion of Ukraine by Russian forces.

In recent months, Putin and other Russian officials have said, with increasing bluntness, that the prospect of Ukraine ever joining NATO was a “red line” that would be met with an unspecified response from Moscow.

Ukrainian officials have said as many as 90,000 Russian troops are deployed in regions near the Ukrainian border and on the Crimean Peninsula, which Russia seized in 2014. Last weekend, unnamed U.S. officials told The Washington Post and other U.S. news media that Russia was poised to use up to 175,000 troops in a multi-front offensive against Ukraine early next year.

The military buildup near Ukraine is one of the largest in years, setting off alarm bells in Ukraine and Western capitals.

SEE ALSO:

Talk Of War: Frontline Ukrainian Soldiers Respond To Invasion Warnings

"President Biden voiced the deep concerns of the United States and our European allies about Russia’s escalation of forces surrounding Ukraine and made clear that the U.S. and our allies would respond with strong economic and other measures in the event of military escalation," the White House said.

Biden also made no “commitments or concessions” on Putin's demands, the White House said.

The Kremlin said Putin told Biden that NATO was bolstering its military capabilities near Russia's borders and "making dangerous attempts to conquer Ukrainian territory.”

"Therefore, Russia is seriously interested in obtaining reliable, legally fixed guarantees that rule out eastward NATO expansion and the deployment of offensive strike weapons systems in states adjacent to Russia," the Kremlin said.

Though Ukraine is not a member of NATO, and is unlikely to be for some years, Russia views the prospect of Kyiv joining the alliance as a threat following NATO’s expansion into former Soviet bloc nations in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

• RFE/RL

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

Afterward, foreign policy advisers for both presidents offered additional insights on the talks.

In Moscow, Kremlin aide Yury Ushakov appeared to give a downbeat assessment.

"It's hard to expect any sudden breakthroughs, but the presidents demonstrated their willingness to continue practical work and begin discussing sensitive issues that seriously concern Moscow," Ushakov was quoted by Reuters as saying.

White House national-security adviser Jake Sullivan said Biden told Putin that “things we did not do in 2014, we are prepared to do now,” in a reference to U.S. sanctions on Russia over its annexation of Crimea and support for separatists in eastern Ukraine.

It was unclear exactly what punishment the Biden administration was threatening to wield if Russia were to launch an attack on Ukraine. Some analysts have pointed to the possibility that Russia could be cut off from the international system of financial payments known as SWIFT, a move that would devastate the Russian economy.

"There was a lot of give and take, there was no finger-wagging, but the president was crystal clear where the United States stands on all of these issues," Sullivan said.

"We still do not believe that President Putin has made a decision. What President Biden did today was lay out very clearly the consequences if he chooses to move,” Sullivan added.

Biden will talk to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on December 10, Sullivan said.

SEE ALSO:

NATO Should Put Troops In Ukraine On Rotational Basis To Deter Russia, Bolton Says

Another possible punitive measure would be a renewed effort to block Nord Stream 2, the Baltic Sea pipeline that will significantly increase Russian gas supplies to Europe via Germany once it is approved by regulators.

Earlier this year, the Biden administration reached a deal with Germany that averted sanctions on the pipeline’s operator, removing a major irritant in relations between the two allies. But in recent days German officials have warned a Russian invasion of Ukraine would put an end to the pipeline.

If Russia wants its gas to flow through Nord Stream 2, “it should not invade Ukraine,” Sullivan told reporters.

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Ukraine has been fighting a war against Russia-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine since early 2014 that has killed more than 13,200 people. Russia asserts Kyiv is failing to meet its commitments under the 2014 and 2015 Minsk agreements aimed at putting an end to the conflict.

In their meeting, Putin told Biden that Ukraine was taking a "destructive line" aimed at dismantling implementation of the Minsk agreements, the Kremlin said.

After Biden and Putin met in Geneva in June, many experts hoped that the Ukraine conflict would inch toward resolution, as Washington and Moscow looked for ways to arrest the downward spiral in relations.

The two leaders spoke by telephone in July, when Biden called on Putin to do more to crack down on ransomware and hacking attacks against the United States. Many of the leading ransomware groups either operate in, or originate from, Russia.

Biden has also dispatched other senior administration officials, including CIA Director William Burns and veteran Russian expert Victoria Nuland, now undersecretary of state for political affairs, to Moscow to try to mend fences.

Prior to the video conference, Biden spoke with leaders from Britain, France, Germany, and Italy and "agreed to stay in close touch on a coordinated and comprehensive approach in response to Russia’s military buildup on Ukraine’s borders", the White House said.

After the talks with Putin, Biden held another call with European leaders in which he discussed the consequences of Russian military action in Ukraine.

“The leaders underscored their support for Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, as well as the need for Russia to reduce tensions and engage in diplomacy,” according to the White House.

With reporting by TASS, RIA Novosti, and Interfax

WASHINGTON – The United States and other members of NATO should rotate troops through Ukraine to deter Russia from pursuing military action against its smaller neighbor, former national-security adviser John Bolton said.

Bolton, who served under then-President Donald Trump from 2018 to 2019, also said that the United States should send more lethal weapons to Ukraine amid growing concerns Russia could soon invade the country.

“We need … to make sure the costs are so high that [Russian President Vladimir] Putin and his advisers will find it unacceptable. I think that's the way to deter the military action that seems so imminent,” Bolton, an outspoken advocate of the use of American military power, told RFE/RL in an interview on December 6.

Russia has amassed more than 90,000 troops near its border with Ukraine for the second time this year, but this time around the concerns in the United States and Europe of a possible invasion are greater. Russia has denied it is planning military action against Ukraine.

A senior U.S. administration official said on December 6 that the current Russian troop and weapon movements “are consistent” with a planned military escalation in Ukraine, though the official said it was still unclear if Putin has ordered an invasion.

U.S. President Joe Biden will speak with Putin on December 7 to discuss Russia’s troop buildup as well as other important bilateral issues.

The senior administration official said Washington “is not seeking” to make U.S. troop deployment to Ukraine “the focus of U.S. countermeasures” should Russia initiate military hostilities. The senior official declined to say under what circumstances U.S. troops could be sent to Ukraine.

The United States currently has several hundred military trainers stationed in western Ukraine while U.K. media reported last month that Britain has 600 troops ready to deploy to Ukraine should hostilities erupt.

Moldova Strategy

Russian aggression toward Ukraine has been building as Putin sees the country slowly slipping away from the Kremlin’s orbit, analysts say.

Ukraine continues to push ahead with plans to join the European Union and NATO, something the Kremlin has called a red line.

Bolton said Russian aggression against Ukraine is just part of Putin’s wider strategy for maintaining the Kremlin’s influence in Russia’s near abroad.

He said the Russian leader keeps “probing” the six former Soviet states in Eastern Europe and the Caucasus -- Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova, Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan -- that are not in the Western military alliance and that NATO has to end the ambiguity over their future.

Only the governments of Georgia and Ukraine have expressed clear interest in joining NATO. Moldova has neutrality written into its constitution, while Belarus and Armenia are members of the Russia-led Collective Security Treaty Organization.

He said leaving any of six out of possible NATO membership is “basically saying to the Russians: ‘you can have suzerainty or even reannexation,’ which is something very, very dangerous.”

Russia uses so-called “frozen conflicts” in some of these nations, including Georgia and Moldova, to prevent those nations from moving forward with NATO membership.

Bolton said now is “the most favorable moment we've had in a long time” for NATO to end the frozen conflict in Moldova following the election of a West-leaning government.

Russia continues to back the Moldovan breakaway region of Transdniester, a sliver of land wedged between Moldova and Ukraine.

Bolton called Transdniester a “totally unnatural, artificial” republic that is on its “last legs” and said NATO members should threaten the breakaway region and Russia with economic sanctions to bring about an end to the standoff.

“I think economic pressure here is the way to go...to say we don't accept that Russia can create these frozen conflicts with this turmoil and uncertainty,” he said.

While not dismissing the difficulty of ending the frozen conflict in Moldova, Bolton said Russia’s hand was more vulnerable there than in the other five nations due to geographical distance.

“I'm confident we can make progress [on Moldova] and I think it's important that we try because that's one way of releasing [Russian] pressure on Ukraine,” he said.

With reporting by Oana Serafim and Ileana Breitenstein

Bashkir ethnic activist Ruslan Gabbasov has left Russia for Lithuania, where he has asked for asylum, Gabbasov told RFE/RL's Idel.Realities on December 6.

Gabbasov said his decision was influenced by pressure from Russian authorities, who tried to connect him with criminal cases in Russia's Bashkortostan region.

According to Gabbasov, the authorities have been trying to incriminate him for his participation in the activities of the banned organization Bashkort. Before the organization was declared extremist and banned, Gabbasov was in the group's leadership.

The civil activist, who is a witness in one of the criminal cases, said more than 50 percent of the questions during interrogations concerned the Bashkort organization, and his name also appeared during the questioning within a Karmaskala case.

The authorities say there was an ethnic conflict between Bashkirs and Armenians, and Bashkort activists were allegedly instigators of the conflict.

Gabbasov, who is well-known in Bashkortostan, said he was summoned in September to the Center for Combating Extremism for interrogation as a witness in the criminal case, which he said he has nothing to do with.

"The investigator's questions mainly concerned the Bashkort organization: when it was established, what status I had there, the goals and objectives of the organization," Gabbasov told Idel.Realities.

He said he answered some questions but refused to answer others based on Article 51 of the Russian Constitution that says no one is obliged to testify against himself.

Gabbasov said he concluded from the questioning that the authorities' interest in Bashkort was an indication that he could be arrested.

“It is clear that these questions are not just being asked,” he said, adding that the situation in Bashkortostan remains unstable.

He noted that in November the former leader of jailed Russian opposition politician Aleksei Navalny's headquarters in Bashkortostan, Lilia Chanysheva, was transferred to a detention center in the Moscow region, and activist Ramila Saitova in November was sentenced to three years in a colony settlement after a court in Bashkortostan found her guilty of calling for extremist activities.

Gabbasov participated in the Forum of Free Russia, which took place in Lithuania on December 2-3. He was a speaker of a panel that discussed federalism in Russia.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy spoke to U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken by phone on December 6 ahead of President Joe Biden’s call with Russian President Vladimir Putin in which Biden is expected to issue a strong warning against a Russian invasion of Ukraine.

"Agreed to continue joint & concerted action. Grateful to U.S. strategic partners & allies for the continued support of our sovereignty & territorial integrity," Zelenskiy said on Twitter.

Russia's troop buildup as well as Ukraine's efforts to join the NATO alliance are expected to top the agenda of the video call between Biden and Putin on December 7.

Biden will make clear to Putin that there will be "very real costs" should Russia choose to proceed with military aggression against Ukraine, a White House official said in a background briefing call with reporters.

There "will be genuine and meaningful and enduring costs to choosing to go forward,” the official said.

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'Expect Anything': Ukrainian Troops Brace For Possible Russian Attack

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The United States and European allies are prepared to take "substantial economic countermeasures...that would impose significant and severe economic harm on the Russian economy" if Russia attacks, the official said.

Ukraine has accused Russia of massing tens of thousands of troops near its border in preparation for a possible major military offensive. Russia has dismissed talk of a new assault on Ukraine as fearmongering and describes relations between the United States and Russia as in “a lamentable state.”

SEE ALSO:

Biden, Putin Set Video Call For Next Week To Discuss Ukraine, Other Issues

U.S. intelligence reports have suggested that Russia could be preparing to invade Ukraine as early as 2022. Russia seized Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula in 2014 and backs separatists in eastern Ukraine who have waged a bloody war against Kyiv that began the same year.

Moscow has demanded written guarantees that Ukraine will not be allowed to join NATO, calling such a scenario a "red line." The Kremlin has also expressed concerns about Western weapons supplies to Kyiv, as well as military drills in international waters of the Black Sea.

NATO and Ukraine, a former Soviet republic, have had friendly relations since the country gained its independence in the early 1990s. The two have deepened their cooperation since Russia's military actions in Ukraine in 2014.

Ukraine adopted legislation in 2017 reiterating its aim to join NATO as a strategic objective. However, Zelenskiy this summer expressed frustration over the issue, calling on Biden to give Kyiv either a "yes" or "no" on mapping out a plan for Ukraine to enter the alliance.

SEE ALSO:

Biden Says He'll Make It 'Very Difficult' For Russia To Attack Ukraine

The United States has provided more than $2.5 billion in security assistance to Ukraine since 2014, and both Washington and NATO have offered assurances of their unwavering support for Ukraine in the face of Russian aggression.

Regarding Moscow's ultimatums, Biden has said that he will not accept "anyone's red line."

Biden and Putin have met as presidents in person once, in Geneva in June. They last spoke by telephone in July.

With reporting by the BBC, AP, dpa, and Reuters

Amnesty International has launched an online petition demanding the immediate release of RFE/RL freelance correspondent Vladyslav Yesypenko, who has said he has been tortured while in detention in Russian-occupied Crimea since March.

Yesypenko, a dual Russian-Ukrainian citizen who contributes to Crimea.Realities, was detained on March 10 on suspicion of collecting information for Ukrainian intelligence. The father of one daughter had worked in Crimea for five years reporting on the social and environmental situation there before being detained.

Russia has sought to crush dissent in Crimea, including prosecuting journalists and human rights activists, since seizing the Ukrainian peninsula in March 2014.

"An officer of [Russia's Federal Security Service] FSB tortured Vladyslav with an electric shocker, beat and humiliated him. For almost a month, his lawyers were barred from seeing him. [If convicted]," he may face up to 18 years," Amnesty's petition said.

Yesypenko said earlier in court that he was tortured for two days from the moment he was detained until his transfer to a detention center in Crimea's capital, Simferopol.

In mid-July, a Russian-imposed court in Simferopol formally charged Yesypenko with the possession and transport of explosives. He pleaded not guilty.

RFE/RL President Jamie Fly has described the case as the latest example of the Kremlin's campaign to target independent media outlets and called it “a mockery of justice.”

Press freedom advocates, including the Committee to Protect Journalists and Reporters Without Borders, along with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba and the U.S. State Department, are among those who have called for Yesypenko’s immediate release in the absence of any evidence of wrongdoing.

In October, Yesypenko appealed to U.S. President Joe Biden and U.S. lawmakers to do more to free more than 100 political prisoners detained by Russia's FSB for their activities in Crimea.

Shortly after Russia illegally annexed Crimea, Moscow began supporting separatists in eastern Ukraine, known as the Donbas, in a conflict in which more than 13,200 people have died since April 2014.

Germany's Foreign Ministry has said that it does not consider Iran's proposals regarding its nuclear program acceptable and expects Tehran to return to international negotiations with "realistic" bargaining positions.

"We reviewed the proposals...carefully and thoroughly, and concluded that Iran violated almost all compromises found previously in months of hard negotiations," a ministry spokeswoman said on December 6.

The proposals were "not a basis for a successful end to talks," the spokeswoman added.

Negotiations in Vienna aimed a resurrecting the stalled 2015 nuclear deal got off to a rocky start last week.

The United States, which left the agreement in 2018 but which is open to rejoining the pact under President Joe Biden, accused Iran of not being seriously interested in a new deal.

Iran, which has refused to participate in direct talks with Washington, has said that there can be no new deal unless all punitive sanctions imposed against Tehran are lifted.

Iran agreed to curbs on its controversial nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief under the original deal worked out between Iran and world powers.

Negotiations are scheduled to resume this week.

Based reporting by dpa and Reuters

A notorious Islamic State recruiter from Tajikistan, who went missing from a prison in northern Syria last year, is in a refugee camp in the Turkey-controlled Syrian city of Jarabulus, sources and a relative told RFE/RL.

Parviz Saidrahmonov, 34, who is suspected of having links to terrorist attacks in Sweden, Russia, and Tajikistan, disappeared from a prison in the Syrian town of Afrin in mid-2020 when Tajikistan was working on his extradition to Dushanbe.

Two people told RFE/RL on condition of anonymity that they saw Saidrahmonov, aka Abu Dovud, in a refugee camp in Jarabulus last week.

One of Saidrahmonov's relatives told RFE/RL that one of Saidrahmonov’s wives, who is from Russia's North Caucasus region of North Ossetia, and his four children are also in the refugee camp.

"Currently, the conditions Abu Dovud is experiencing fully differ from prison conditions, and the Turkish authorities are allowing him to meet his wife regularly," the relative said, adding that Saidrahmonov asked for money to be sent in one of his latest conversations by phone.

Meanwhile, an official of the Tajik Interior Ministry, who asked not to be named as he is not authorized to speak officially on the issue, told RFE/RL that Ankara "had not given any clear answers" to Dushanbe's requests to extradite Saidrahmonov, who is wanted in Tajikistan and Russia on a charge of allegedly recruiting people to the extremist Islamic State (IS) organization in Syria.

According to Tajik authorities, he is accused of recruiting more than 200 people to IS.

Saidrahmonov has been suspected of being behind several attacks and terrorist plots in several countries.

Swedish investigators say he was an accomplice of Rakhmat Akilov, an Uzbek man who drove a hijacked truck down a busy pedestrian street in Stockholm on April 7, 2017, killing five people and injuring 10 others.

Akilov, a rejected asylum seeker in Sweden before the attack, was sentenced to life in prison in June 2018.

MINSK -- Noted Belarusian blogger Eduard Palchys has gone on trial amid an ongoing crackdown on those who have challenged the official results of last year's presidential election that handed victory to strongman Alyaksandr Lukashenka despite opposition claims the balloting was rigged.

Palchys refused to stand up when Judge Pyatro Arlou of the Minsk City Court entered the courtroom on December 6, saying he does not recognize the process as fair.

The judge in turn declared that the trial will be held behind closed doors "to prevent the distribution of extremist materials present in the case."

Palchys was arrested in September last year and sentenced to 30 days in jail on a charge of violating the law on mass gatherings.

After serving his sentence in October 2020, officials did not release Palchys and instead he was charged again, this time with incitement of social hatred, organization of mass disorder, organization of activities that disrupt social order, and calls for activities that aim to damage the country’s national security.

If found guilty, Palchys faces up to 12 years in prison. He has rejected all of the charges calling them politically motivated.

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.

Palchys is one of many in Belarus who have faced trials in recent months as authorities brutally suppress dissent in any form since the disputed presidential election in August 2020.

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.

KALININGRAD, Russia -- Another associate of jailed Russian opposition politician Aleksei Navalny has left Russia amid an ongoing crackdown against the defunct organizations associated with the Kremlin critic that were labeled as extremist earlier this year.

Aleksandr Chernikov, the former head of Navalny's network of regional campaign groups in Russia's far-western exclave of Kaliningrad, told the Novy Kaliningrad newspaper on December 6 that he and his family are currently in the United States where they have asked for political asylum.

According to Chernikov, Russian investigators had questioned him twice in "a case concerning extremism" after a court in Moscow labeled all organizations associated with Navalny as extremist earlier in June, effectively outlawing them.

Less than two weeks ago, 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 in an unspecified country because he feared persecution.

SEE ALSO:

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

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, earlier in November.

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.

SEE ALSO:

Navalny Associate Flees Russia Fearing Arrest

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