Russia continued to ramp up rhetoric against Kyiv as U.S. President Joe Biden held talks with Ukraine's leader and was to offer security reassurances to nine Eastern European NATO allies amid a Russian military buildup near the Ukrainian border.

Biden held a phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on December 9, and then spoke with the leaders of NATO members Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, and Slovakia.

The diplomacy comes two days after Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin held a video call amid Western concerns about the presence of tens of thousands of Russian troops near Ukraine’s border that has triggered fears of an invasion.

Russia denies it is planning to attack, claiming instead that Ukraine and NATO are provoking tensions. Moscow is demanding security guarantees against NATO’s expansion to Ukraine, which is not a member of the alliance.

During the call, Biden told Putin that Moscow will face "severe economic sanctions" should Russian troops launch an attack against Ukraine.

Zelenskiy and Biden discussed the talks with Putin, as well as ways to kick-start stalled peace negotiations over eastern Ukraine, the Ukrainian president's office said.

Fighting between Ukrainian government forces and the separatists in eastern Ukraine has killed more than 13,200 people since April 2014. 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 eastern Ukraine.

"The key issue of the talks was the security situation around Ukraine and the prospects for intensifying a peace settlement," Zelenskiy's office said.

"The heads of state also discussed ways to provide security, financial, and political support to Ukraine in combating the ongoing hybrid aggression," it added.

Earlier, General Valery Gerasimov, chief of the Russian military's General Staff, warned Ukraine on December 9 against trying to launch an offensive against Russia-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine, saying any such action will be “suppressed.”

Meanwhile, the Russian Foreign Ministry accused Ukraine of moving heavy weaponry near the front line in eastern Ukraine with the support of NATO members.

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Speaking to foreign military attaches, Gerasimov complained about what he called NATO's growing presence near Russian borders and the increasing number of drills by alliance troops.

He also dismissed Western concerns about the Russian military buildup, arguing that Moscow is free to deploy its troops wherever it likes on its territory and calling the claim of a possible Russian invasion “a lie.”

U.S. intelligence assesses that Russia has around 70,000 troops near Ukraine and could be planning a multifront offensive as early as next year, involving up to 175,000 troops.

Biden is closely coordinating Ukraine policy with major European powers, while also planning follow-up talks between the United States, NATO, and Russia.

In London, Britain's Defense Secretary Ben Wallace reiterated that Russia would face “severe consequences” if it launched an attack on Ukraine.

Wallace said that Russian concerns about NATO encirclement made little sense.

"Only 6 percent of the Russian land border is bordered by NATO countries -- that's hardly being surrounded by NATO," Wallace said.

In Paris on her first trip as Germany's foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock said the European Union needed a common position when dealing with Russia.

“Russia would pay a high political and economic price for a renewed breach of Ukraine’s statehood,” Baerbock told reporters. “We can only find solutions down the diplomatic route, and we are both ready to become personally deeply engaged.”

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French President Emmanuel Macron said on December 9 that he plans to hold a virtual meeting with Putin next week to try to de-escalate tensions around Ukraine. Macron also said he would be meeting with Zelenskiy next week.

Retired Czech General Petr Pavel, the former chairman of the NATO Military Committee, told RFE/RL that the Ukrainian Army is much better equipped and trained that it was in 2014, when Russia annexed Ukraine and backed separatist forces.

“It would be wrong to underestimate Russia, which has repeatedly shown that it is ready to use all instruments, including the military, to achieve its political goals and is not ashamed to break the agreements it has agreed upon,” he said.

But “the Ukrainian Army is much stronger today, so an attack on Ukraine would be a very risky step for Russia,” he added.

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

Britain says it will send 140 military engineers to NATO ally Poland this month to provide support at its border with Belarus, where the West says Minsk is orchestrating on ongoing migration crisis.

Specialists from the 32 Engineer Regiment will work with the Polish military at the border with Belarus, including providing "infrastructure support," the Defense Ministry said in a statement on December 9.

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

Minsk denies EU accusations that it engineered the crisis to destabilize the entire 27-member bloc in retaliation for sanctions imposed for human rights abuses.

The British Defense Ministry said the deployment of the military engineers in Poland is expected to last until April 2022.

The troops are in addition to the 150 British personnel already based in Poland as part of NATO's enhanced forward presence in the region.

A “reconnaissance team” has also been deployed in Lithuania to "explore whether the UK can provide support to the nation who are facing similar pressures on their border,” according to the British ministry.

"Poland and Lithuania, along with their Baltic neighbor Latvia, have been under significant pressure from migration originating from Belarus and facilitated by the [Lukashenka] regime for a number of months," the statement said.

Estonia has also decided to send about 100 troops to Poland, while the Czech government earlier this week approved the deployment of up to 150 soldiers to the country.

The EU has passed sanctions on Lukashenka's regime over its brutal crackdown on the country's pro-democracy movement in the wake of the August 2020 disputed election.

Last week, the bloc imposed a fifth round of sanctions, aiming at individuals and entities thought to be responsible for participating in a “hybrid attack” on the bloc using migrants.

NUR-SULTAN -- Opposition and rights activists in Kazakhstan have come under pressure from authorities a week before the commemoration of Independence Day on December 16, a date that coincides with two sensitive anniversaries in modern Kazakh history.

Bolatbek Bilalov, a noted opposition activist, was detained by police on December 9 in the Kazakh capital, Nur-Sultan, for unexplained reasons.

Bilalov's wife told RFE/RL that her husband was taken by police as he was traveling to his mother's home.

"He called me and told me that he was being transported to a police station in the Sary-Arqa district," Aqmaral Bilalova said.

The police did not answer questions from RFE/RL regarding Bilalov’s detention.

A day earlier, police in Kazakhstan’s largest city, Almaty, said that another jailed opposition activist, Aidar Mubarakov, had launched a hunger strike on December 6, to protest against his incarceration.

Mubarakov was sentenced to 15 days in jail on December 5 for taking part in an unsanctioned protest action in central Almaty last month.

On December 7, another opposition activist, Erlan Faizullaev, was sentenced to 15 days in jail for participating in an unsanctioned protest.

Kazakh authorities have been ratcheting up pressure on opposition and human rights activists in the country as the Central Asian nation readies for Independence Day, which coincides with the anniversaries of anti-Kremlin demonstrations by kazakh youths in Almaty in 1986, known as the Zheltoqsan revolt, and a deadly 2011 police crackdown against protesting oil workers in the southwestern town of Zhanaozen. At least 16 oil workers died in that crackdown.

Authoritarian leaders are undermining the media and democratic institutions at the peril of peace, Dmitry Muratov, a joint winner of the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize, said on December 9 ahead of the award ceremony in Norway's capital.

Muratov, editor in chief of independent Russian newspaper Novaya gazeta, and Maria Ressa of the Filipino news website Rappler won the award “for their efforts to safeguard freedom of expression, which is a precondition for democracy and lasting peace,” the Norwegian Nobel Committee said when announcing the prize in October.

"Lack of belief in democracy means that, with time, people turn their backs on democracy, you will get a dictator, and dictatorship leads to war," Muratov told a news conference in Oslo.

Some authorities and governments “invest in lies and not in journalism,” he added.

“I'm fully aware that this prize is for the whole journalist community. We are going through a hardship now," said Muratov, who has been Novaya gazeta’s editor in chief for 24 years.

The newspaper is one of Russia's few remaining independent media outlets.

Since its founding in 1993, six of its journalists have been killed, including Anna Politkovskaya, whose reporting exposed high-level corruption in Russia and rights abuses in the North Caucasus republic of Chechnya.

Ressa told the press that media worldwide should join forces in “fighting for facts” amid threats to press freedoms.

She is a fierce critic of Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte, who is not eligible to run again when the country votes in May.

"It is going to be impossible to have integrity of elections if you don't have integrity of facts and right now that is the case," Ressa said, referring to elections in the Philippines and elsewhere.

She also accused social media platforms of “amplifying” lies over facts.

Ressa was convicted of libel last year and sentenced to jail in a decision condemned by press freedom advocates. She currently is out on bail but faces seven active legal cases.

Berit Reiss-Andersen, the chair of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, said that the prize was “to underscore the importance of information in our society today.”

“A healthy society and democracy (are) dependent on trustworthy information so that the public at large [and] politicians can base their decisions and debates on facts-based information,” Reiss-Andersen said.

“There’s so much information in society today that is not trustworthy, is disinformation, is propaganda, is fake news.”

Ressa and Muratov are due to receive the Nobel Peace Prize at a ceremony in Oslo on December 10.

With reporting by AP, dpa, and Reuters

A Polish investigation has established that there was “no bomb threat” on a Ryanair plane that made an emergency landing in Minsk earlier this year, allowing Belarusian authorities to arrest opposition blogger Raman Pratasevich and his girlfriend.

The National Public Prosecutor's Office, which oversaw the probe, said in a statement on December 9 that “the whole situation was only an excuse to force the pilot to land” in the Belarusian capital.

Pratasevich and Russian citizen Sofia Sapega were arrested on May 23 when authoritarian Belarusian ruler Alyaksandr Lukashenka scrambled a military jet to escort the Ryanair passenger flight over its airspace to land in Minsk.

Many countries regarded the act as a "state hijacking" while the plane was flying from Athens to the Lithuanian capital, Vilnius.

No bomb was found onboard, despite Belarusian claims that they had received an e-mail warning them about the existence of explosives on the flight.

The move sparked international outrage and demands for the release of Pratasevich and Sapega.

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Lukashenka's regime was already internationally isolated over its brutal crackdown the country's pro-democracy movement following last year’s disputed presidential election.

Polish prosecutors said passengers and airline representatives were questioned as witnesses in the course of the investigation conducted by the country’s domestic counterintelligence agency. The plane was also inspected, and pilot recordings analyzed.

“The findings of the investigation so far show that on May 23, 2021, an officer of the Belarusian KGB was in the air traffic control tower in Minsk, [and] instructed the air traffic controller who had contact with the pilot of the plane,” according to the statement.

The KGB officer was “in constant contact by telephone” with a person to whom he was reporting on the situation, it said.

The UN’s civil aviation agency, the International Civil Aviation Organization, said last month that results of a fact-finding mission into the incident will not be released until its next session in January next year.

Pratasevich faces charges of playing a role in civil disturbances that followed a disputed presidential election in August 2020. If convicted, he faces up to 15 years in prison.

Sapega could face up to six years in prison.

Pratasevich was a key administrator of the Telegram channel Nexta-Live, which has been covering mass protests against the official results of the election that handed Lukashenka a sixth presidential term despite widespread criticism that the vote was rigged.

The European Union, United States, and other countries have slapped several rounds of coordinated sanctions on Belarus.

U.S. President Joe Biden has warned of a “backward slide” in rights and democracy around the globe as he opened a virtual summit with representatives from some 100 countries.

In a December 9 speech opening a two-day Summit for Democracy, Biden called for renewed commitments to preserve democracies against the spread of authoritarianism.

Biden said trends are “largely pointing in the wrong direction” and that democracy needs “champions.”

“Democracy doesn’t happen by accident. And we have to renew it with each generation," he said. "In my view, this is the defining challenge of our time."

The White House has billed the summit as a way for the United States and like-minded allies to collaborate against authoritarianism, corruption, and human rights abuses.

As the summit opened, the Biden administration said it was working with Congress to provide $424.4 million toward a new initiative for the renewal of democracy around the world, including support for independent news media and democratic reformers.

The summit has been sharply criticized by China and Russia as well as other countries such as NATO ally Hungary that weren't invited.

Ahead of the summit, the ambassadors to Washington from China and Russia wrote a joint essay in the conservative National Interest policy journal defending their own forms of government and accusing the United States of pursuing a “Cold War mentality” that will “stoke up ideological confrontation” in the world.

"No country has the right to judge the world's vast and varied political landscape by a single yardstick," wrote ambassadors Anatoly Antonov of Russia and Qin Gang of China.

There has also been controversy about the list of invitees.

Pakistan and the Philippines were invited, while EU member Hungary's nationalist government wasn’t. Brazil's right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro was invited, while the leader of NATO member Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, was shunned.

The summit comes as there are questions about the state of U.S. democracy.

America’s global standing took a hit under former President Donald Trump, who along with some Republicans attempted to discredit the 2020 election in which he lost, leading to an assault on the U.S. Capitol.

With reporting by AP, AFP, and Reuters

A London-based independent, unofficial panel investigating alleged human rights abuses in China’s northwestern Xinjiang region has concluded that the government committed “genocide, crimes against humanity and torture” against Uyghurs, Kazakhs, and members of the region’s other indigenous, mostly Muslim ethnic groups.

The Uyghur Tribunal, made up of British lawyers, academics, and businesspeople, doesn't have any government backing, but organizers hope the process of publicly laying out evidence of abuse in Xinjiang will compel international action against Beijing’s policies.

China has been under growing international criticism and has been hit with sanctions for detaining more than 1 million Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities for political reeducation in Xinjiang.

China insists such camps are "vocational education centers" aimed at helping people steer clear of terrorism.

In a 63-page report issued on December 9, the Uyghur Tribunal said there was no evidence of mass killing, the group said it was “satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that the PRC [People's Republic of China], by the imposition of measures to prevent births intended to destroy a significant part of the Uyghurs in Xinjiang as such, has committed genocide.”

Other measures to reduce the group's population included forced sterilization and abortion, the panel said, adding: “The population of Uyghurs in future generations will be smaller than it would have been without these policies. This will result in a partial destruction of the Uyghurs."

The U.S. administration has declared that China’s abuses in Xinjiang amounted to genocide. According to the State Department, the abuse includes imprisonment, torture, and enforced sterilization.

Responding to a question about a law passed by the U.S. House of Representatives to ban imports from Xinjiang over forced labor concerns, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman said on December 9 that “the so-called forced labor and genocide in Xinjiang are entirely vicious rumors.”

The Uyghur Tribunal also concluded that China “has built a very extensive network of detention and penal institutions, that it has imprisoned hundreds of thousands and maybe a million and more of Uyghurs without substantive cause and without any recognizable or legitimate legal process.”

Many of those detained have been “tortured for no reason,” and both women and men held in camps have been “raped and subjected to extreme sexual violence.”

President Xi Jinping and other senior officials "bear primary responsibility for acts that have occurred in Xinjiang," according to the report.

The Uyghur Tribunal was set up at the request of the World Uyghur Congress, the largest group representing exiled Uyghurs.

The tribunal issued its opinion after examining evidence from dozens of witnesses, experts, leaked Chinese government documents, and thousands of pages of documentary evidence from independent researchers and human rights organizations for more than a year.

The report comes as a growing number of countries have joined the United States in announcing a diplomatic boycott of the Beijing Winter Olympics, due to be held in February 2022.

With reporting by AP and AFP

MINSK -- Another activist in Belarus has been handed a lengthy prison sentence 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.

The Minsk City Court on December 9 found 20-year-old Artsyom Bayarski, an award-winning university student, guilty of creating an extremist entity and of organizing activities that violated social order. After pronouncing the verdict, Judge Alena Shylko sentenced the former chemistry student to five years in prison.

Bayarski was violently arrested by security forces eight months ago. Since then, he has only been allowed to see his parents twice.

Bayarski, who was award a presidential scholarship at Belarus State University for his academic achievements, demonstrated along with hundreds of other students against the August 2020 election results, which opposition politicians and many others say was rigged to hand Lukashenka his sixth consecutive term in office.

Thousands have been detained during the 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.

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.

He rejects the allegations of electoral fraud and refuses to negotiate with the opposition.

Amnesty International says four Kazakh activists have had their mobile devices infected with Pegasus spyware in what it said further shows that the malicious software is being used by governments to try to "silence social movements and crush dissent."

Israel’s NSO Group became the center of controversy after an international media consortium in July reported that its Pegasus spyware was used in attempts to hack smartphones belonging to more than a dozen current or former world leaders, journalists, human rights activists, business, and executives, in some 50 countries.

Amnesty International’s Security Lab conducted forensic analysis on the phones of nine Kazakh human rights activists, and confirmed that four of them had their devices infected with Pegasus in early June, the London-based human rights watchdog said in a statement on December 9.

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All of the victims belong to the civic youth movement Oyan, Qazaqstan (Wake Up, Kazakhstan).

Three of them -- Tamina Ospanova, Dimash Alzhanov, and Aizat Abilseit -- received a “state-sponsored attacker” warning from Apple in late November, meaning the U.S. tech company believed they may have been targeted by the NSO Group’s spyware, Amnesty International said.

The fourth victim, Darkhan Sharipov, did not receive this notification, which the watchdog said suggests that the notified individuals “represent only a fraction of the human rights activists targeted with the Pegasus spyware in Kazakhstan.”

Marie Struthers, Amnesty International’s Director for Eastern Europe and Central Asia, urged the Kazakh authorities to “immediately conduct a thorough and transparent investigation into this intrusion and bring those responsible for unlawful surveillance of activists to account.”

Meanwhile, Struthers said, states across the world “must immediately implement a moratorium on the export, sale, and use of surveillance equipment until a human rights-compliant regulatory framework is in place.”

Last month, U.S. authorities put the NSO Group on a trade blacklist, saying its software was behind the “transnational repression” carried out by some foreign governments.

NSO has said its Pegasus software is intended for use against criminals and terrorists and is made available only to military, law enforcement, and intelligence agencies.

Latvia's parliament has voted to allow a probe against Janis Adamsons, a former interior minister and a lawmaker from the opposition Social Democratic Saskana (Harmony) party, who is accused of spying for Russia.

A total of 60 lawmakers on December 9 supported the move by the Prosecutor-General's Office to launch an investigation against Adamsons, while 18 voted against it.

Earlier in June, parliament voted to strip Adamsons of his parliamentary immunity to allow for his arrest and a search of his home.

Media reports say that Adamsons is suspected of passing information related to Latvian laws, military finances, the situation along Latvia's eastern borders, and the Baltic state's attitude to the Russian Nord Stream 2 natural-gas pipeline in Europe to Russian agents over the last four years.

Adamsons has denied any wrongdoing.

Adamsons graduated from the High Naval Political College in Kyiv in the 1970s, when Latvia was a Soviet republic.

From 1979 until the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, he served in the Soviet Border Guard forces in Russia's Far East.

After Latvia regained independence in 1991, Adamsons served as the commander of Latvia's Border Guard service and as interior minister.

Adamsons is a member of the parliamentary commission for defense, interior affairs, and the prevention of corruption.

Adamsons’ eligibility to be a lawmaker has been questioned in the past by politicians who accused him of serving in the ranks of the KGB, since the Border Guard troops during the Soviet era were under KGB command.

Latvia declared independence from the Soviet Union in 1991 and is now a member of the European Union and NATO.

With reporting by Delfi and tvnet.lv

Journalists from Kazakhstan and Bulgaria are among the winners of the U.S. State Department's 2021 Anti-Corruption Champions Award.

U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken announced the annual award laureates on December 8, calling those selected "individuals who have demonstrated leadership, courage, and impact in preventing, exposing, and combating corruption."

Kazakh journalist Zhamilya Maricheva, who works for the Protenge investigative journalism project, and Bulgarian journalist Nikolay Staykov, who is a co-founder of the Anti-Corruption Fund investigative group, were among the winners of the prestigious award.

Other recipients hail from Belize, Cyprus, Guatemala, Honduras, Latvia, Lebanon, Malawi, Mozambique, Thailand, and Venezuela.

Blinken's announcement came on the eve of International Corruption Day as well as the start of the White House Summit for Democracy.

The two-day virtual summit has been billed as an opportunity for leaders and civil society experts from some 110 countries to collaborate on fighting corruption and promoting respect for human rights.

"The launch of the Summit for Democracy on International Anti-Corruption Day provides us with a unique opportunity to recognize those working to make their countries better. We are honored to work alongside champions like these to defeat corruption," Blinken's statement said.

Azerbaijan and Armenia have accused each other of violating a cease-fire along their shared border as lingering tensions following their war last year over the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh appeared to boil over.

The Azerbaijani Defense Ministry said in a statement on December 9 that Armenian military units fired on the positions of the Azerbaijani Army in the Kalbacar district.

The accusation came hours after the ministry said separately that one of its soldiers "was killed overnight as a result of a provocation by Armenia's armed forces" near the countries' shared border.

The Armenian Defense Ministry, meanwhile, said in a statement on December 9 that two of its soldiers were wounded after Azerbaijani armed forces "opened intensive fire from firearms of different calibers" at Armenian military positions in the Gegharkunik region.

The shooting stopped as of 6 p.m. local time, the ministry said.

A day earlier, it said Azerbaijani forces had opened fire on its positions in an eastern region of their shared border.

The reports of shelling could not be independently verified.

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 in autumn last year, claiming more than 6,500 lives.

The fighting ended with a Russian-brokered cease-fire under which Armenians ceded territories they had controlled for decades to Azerbaijan. Border tensions have since remained high with the worst renewed deadly fighting taking place last month.

Moscow will host an inaugural meeting of a six-way South Caucasus peace platform on December 10, an idea proposed by Turkey and Azerbaijan following last year's Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, the Turkish Foreign Ministry said on December 9.

The peace platform -- including Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia, Russia, Iran, and Turkey -- was proposed by Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan after the cease-fire.

Ankara, which has no diplomatic ties with Armenia, has said the platform may help normalize ties with Yerevan.

"The first meeting of the regional cooperation platform in the 3+3 format proposed...for the establishment of lasting peace and stability in the South Caucasus will be held in Moscow on December 10," the Turkish Foreign Ministry said.

It said Azerbaijan, Armenia, Russia, Iran, and Turkey will be represented at the level of deputy foreign ministers, but did not elaborate on Georgia's participation.

Armenia and Turkey signed a landmark peace accord in 2009 to restore ties and open their shared border after decades, but the deal was never ratified and ties have remained tense.

With reporting by Reuters and AFP

Human Rights Watch has called on Uzbek authorities to immediately release from custody Muslim blogger Fozilxoja Orifxojaev, who has been "in arbitrary detention for five months," facing charges of threatening public security over a social-media post. He faces a potential eight-year prison sentence.

Orifxojaev, a 41-year-old Tashkent-based blogger known for his criticism of the Uzbek authorities' restrictive religious policies, was arrested in June on petty hooliganism charges over a heated confrontation in public with a pro-government blogger and cleric.

Orifxojaev was sentenced to 15 days in jail for that. He was not released from custody after his jail term was over and instead was charged with “distributing or displaying materials containing a threat to public security and public order using mass media or telecommunication, or the Internet.”

The charge stemmed from a Facebook post in early March in which Orifxojaev discussed if it was appropriate for Muslims to congratulate non-Muslims on their religious holidays.

"It is not difficult to see that the case against Orifxojaev has zero to do with a genuine threat to public order and everything to do with the Uzbek authorities' desire to silence a government critic, who also happens to be Muslim," senior Central Asia researcher at Human Rights Watch, Mihra Rittmann said. "Uzbek authorities should drop this bogus case and release Orifxojaev from pretrial detention immediately.

"Expressing in a Facebook post a religious view about whether Muslims can or should congratulate people of other faiths on their religious holidays may be contentious to some, but it is certainly not a crime, and moreover, is speech protected by international human rights norms," Human Rights Watch said.

SIMFEROPOL, Ukraine -- A Crimean Tatar rights activist being held in prison in Ukraine’s Russia-annexed Crimea had his detention extended on the day he should have been released.

The Crimean Solidarity human rights group said that on December 7 its coordinator, Mustafa Seidaliyev, was found guilty of uploading to the Internet allegedly extremist material and was ordered to remain in detention a further 10 days. That action came the same day Seidaliyev was ending a 14-day jail term.

His lawyers rejected the charges, saying the video was uploaded back in 2012 and contained nothing that was extremist.

Seidaliyev was arrested on November 23 along with 30 other Crimean Tatar activists when they came to a detention center in Crimea's capital, Simferopol, to greet Crimean Tatar lawyer Edem Semedlyayev, who was being released from custody after serving 12 days in jail for refusal to cooperate with Russia-imposed security officials.

Seidaliyev and the other arrested Crimean Tatars were found guilty of violating a Russian law on mass gatherings. Some of them were handed sentences of up to two weeks in jail, while some were ordered to pay fines. Seidaliyev was sentenced to 14 days in jail.

Since Russia occupied Crimea in 2014, the authorities have prosecuted dozens of Crimean Tatars amid what rights groups and Western governments have described as a campaign of repression against members of the Turkic-speaking Crimean Tatar community and others who have spoken out against Moscow's takeover of the peninsula.

Russia has also backed separatists in a war against Ukrainian government forces that has killed more than 13,200 people in eastern Ukraine since April 2014.

U.S. President Joe Biden says he hopes to announce a meeting soon between the United States, its major allies in Europe, and Russia for talks on Moscow's concerns about NATO expansion.

Biden said he hoped to announce the meeting by December 10 and said it would involve envoys from at least four major NATO allies and Russia.

The envoys would discuss “the future of Russia’s concern relative to NATO writ large and whether or not we could work out any accommodations as it relates to bringing down the temperature along the eastern front [in Ukraine]," Biden told reporters at the White House.

• 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.

Russian President Vladimir Putin promised that Moscow would submit its proposals for a security dialogue with the United States in a few days.

Putin also again denied that Russia is planning to attack Ukraine but said that Moscow can’t remain indifferent to NATO’s possible expansion to include its neighbor.

The two leaders spoke one day after they met for a two-hour videoconference amid fears of a new Russian invasion of Ukraine.

The White House said Biden will hold a call with the leaders of the Bucharest Nine (B9) to brief them on his call with Putin and “hear their perspectives on the current security situation and underscore the United States' commitment to transatlantic security."

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The B9 -- Romania, Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania -- are countries on the eastern edge of NATO.

The White House also reconfirmed that Biden will speak on December 9 with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy. The call with Zelenskiy will take place before the call with the B9.

Biden said he told Putin that Moscow will face "severe economic sanctions" should Russian troops massed on the Ukrainian border launch an attack.

"I made it very clear if in fact he invades Ukraine there will be severe consequences, severe consequences -- economic consequences like none he's ever seen or ever have been seen," Biden said.

But Biden also said no U.S. troops would be sent to Ukraine to help defend against a Russian invasion.

"We have a moral obligation and a legal obligation to our NATO allies under Article 5. It's a sacred obligation,” Biden said. “That obligation does not extend to...Ukraine.”

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In addition, he said he made it clear that the United States would provide defensive capabilities to Ukraine. He did not specify what that means, but the United States has provided more than $250 billion in arms, weapons, and other military equipment since 2014.

In Moscow, Putin characterized the talks as “very open, substantive, and constructive.”

“We have an opportunity to continue the dialogue. This is most important,” the Russian president said.

The talks -- their third direct meeting since Biden took office in January -- came amid a buildup of Russian troops near the Ukraine border. Ukrainian officials put the number at just below 100,000, while U.S. intelligence has warned the figure could reach 150,000 in the near future.

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It’s one of the largest movements of Russian forces toward Ukraine in years outside of regularly scheduled training exercises.

That, plus the absence of more routine notification procedures shared even between adversaries, has set off alarm bells not only in Ukraine but in many NATO countries, particularly those in Eastern Europe.

Zelenskiy called the Putin-Biden talks positive, saying that “the United States has always supported Ukraine, our sovereignty and independence."

"But the most important thing is that now we see a real and personal reaction from President Biden and his personal role in resolving the conflict," Zelenskiy said.

The number of jailed journalists worldwide set another record in 2021, which was “an especially bleak year” for defenders of press freedom, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said in a report issued on December 9.

CPJ’s 2021 prison census found that the number of reporters jailed for their work hit a new global record of 293, up from a revised total of 280 in 2020. It was the sixth consecutive year that the CPJ’s census recorded at least 250 incarcerated journalists.

In addition, 19 journalists were murdered in retaliation for their work as of December 1, 2021, compared with 22 in all of 2020. Eighteen others died in circumstances too murky to determine whether they were targeted, the report said.

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Three others were killed this year while reporting from conflict zones, and two others were killed covering protests or street clashes that turned deadly.

China remains the world’s worst jailer of journalists for the third year in a row, with 50 behind bars. Myanmar climbed to second-worst after a crackdown on the news media that followed a military coup in February. Egypt, Vietnam, and Belarus rounded out the top five.

Belarus now has 19 journalists behind bars, up from 10 last year and the highest since the CPJ started keeping data on imprisoned journalists in 1992.

It is an example of how “emboldened autocrats are increasingly ignoring due process and flouting international norms to keep themselves in power,” the CPJ said.

The report cites the high-profile case of opposition blogger Raman Pratasevich, who was on a commercial flight that was forced to land in Minsk in May. Authoritarian ruler Alyaksandr Lukashenka ordered the diversion as the Ryanair jet flew over the country's airspace in order to arrest Pratasevich and his girlfriend, Sofia Sapega.

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Pratasevich faces charges of playing a role in civil disturbances that followed a disputed presidential election in August 2020. He faces up to 15 years in prison. He and Sapega have been living under house arrest since the incident.

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.

Among the countries improving their ranking was Turkey, once the world’s worst jailer of journalists. It is ranked sixth in the CPJ census after releasing 20 prisoners in the last year. Eighteen remain in jail.

But the CPJ noted that Turkey’s crackdown after a failed coup in 2016 effectively eradicated the country’s mainstream media and prompted many journalists to leave the profession. The country’s prison count is also declining as the government allows more journalists out on parole to await trial.

Saudi Arabia’s release of 10 prisoners moved it out of the top five to eighth. However, the effect of the murder in 2018 of Jamal Khashoggi, a prominent critic of the government in Riyadh who wrote for The Washington Post, along with several new detentions in 2019, is likely to have silenced many journalists. Fourteen journalists remain in prison there.

The report also said that as the world dealt with problems such as the COVID-19 pandemic and climate change in 2021, repressive governments were aware that public outrage over human rights abuses was “blunted,” the report said.

The data reflects a general trend toward a growing intolerance of independent reporting.

“In this grim year for free expression, that kind of intolerance leaves little room for optimism that the number of jailed journalists will stop setting records anytime soon,” CPJ said.

As Tehran and world powers seeking to revive the moribund 2015 nuclear deal resumed talks in Vienna, the United States warned that it would take "additional measures" to block Iran's ability to earn revenue if diplomacy over the country's nuclear program fails.

"Given the ongoing advances in Iran's nuclear program, [President Joe Biden] has asked his team to be prepared in the event that diplomacy fails and we must turn to other options," White House spokesperson Jen Psaki said on December 9.

"If diplomacy cannot get on track soon and if Iran's nuclear program continues to accelerate, then we will have no choice but to take additional measures to further restrict Iran's revenue-producing sectors."

A seventh round of talks began last week between the remaining signatories — Iran, Britain, France, Germany, Russia, and China -- after a five-month break caused by a new hard-line government assuming power in Tehran.

The United States is participating indirectly because it withdrew from the accord in 2018 under then-President Donald Trump. President Joe Biden has signaled that he wants to rejoin the deal.

European diplomats urged Tehran to come back with “realistic proposals” after the Iranian delegation made numerous new demands last week that U.S. and European negotiators rejected.

EU diplomat Enrique Mora, who is chairing the Vienna talks, said he had observed “a renewed sense of purpose” by the parties to bring the accord back to life.

“Whether that will be confirmed and endorsed by negotiations on the details, we will see in the coming days,” Mora told reporters.

According to U.S. State Department spokesman Ned Price, it will take a few days to judge whether Iran is showing flexibility in the talks.

Asked if Iran might be playing for time in the talks and seeking to exploit U.S. weakness, he told reporters: "I can assure you that, if the Iranian regime suspects the United States of weakness, they will be sorely surprised."

Ali Bagheri Kani, Iran's top negotiator, said Tehran was “serious about reaching an agreement if the ground is paved.”

“The fact that all sides want the talks to continue shows that all parties want to narrow the gaps," he told reporters.

The United States has repeatedly cautioned Iran against drawing out negotiations while continuing to advance its nuclear program, warning that Washington will pursue other options if diplomacy fails.

The accord sealed in Vienna in 2015, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, was meant to curb Iran's nuclear program in return for loosened economic sanctions.

Following the U.S. decision to withdraw from the JCPOA, Tehran gradually ramped up its nuclear program in response to the reimposition of sanctions and suspected Israeli attacks on its nuclear facilities and scientists. Iran has also restricted monitors from the UN nuclear watchdog from accessing its nuclear installations.

The main hurdles in negotiations center on the technical aspects of bringing Iran back into compliance with its nuclear commitments and the timing and extent of sanctions relief. Iran is demanding that all U.S. sanctions be lifted and wants guarantees that a future U.S. administration won’t trash the deal.

Washington plans to send a delegation led by Robert Malley, the special U.S. envoy for Iran, to Vienna over the weekend.

With reporting by Reuters

The editor of a Belarusian media outlet that has covered protests against the Belarusian regime and reported on journalists who have been labeled extremist was arrested on December 8 after a search of his apartment.

Syarhey Satsuk, the chief editor of the Ej.by online news outlet, was detained and will be sent to a pretrial detention center, the Belarusian Association of Journalists (BAJ) said. The ej.by website also was blocked.

Satsuk was detained after the search during which his phones and laptop computers were confiscated and after interrogation by the Investigative Committee in an old case related to an alleged bribe.

Satsuk was briefly detained in March 2020 on the bribery charge, which is linked to an annual rating of businesses published by his outlet. The editorial office of the online publication was searched following Satsuk's detention, the BAJ said at the time, adding that documents were seized during the operation.

Satsuk was later released and the criminal investigation against him was closed.

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At the time, Satsuk's brother, Alyaksandr, called the accusations “lies and nonsense.” He told RFE/RL then that he did not rule out that the detention may have been connected with investigative reporting his brother had done into alleged corruption at the Ministry of Health Protection related to the import of medical drugs.

Earlier this month, Satsuk's media outlet launched a new project about independent journalists and activists who were branded extremists and terrorists by Belarusian authorities.

Satsuk's arrest could be linked to that, or it could be that “it's simply his turn," Alyaksandr Satsuk told the AP.

Satsuk is the latest target in a sweeping crackdown on independent media by the Belarusian authorities that followed the presidential election in August 2020 that the opposition and Western countries rejected as rigged.

Andrei Bastunets, the head of the BAJ, told the AP that journalism has become one of the most dangerous professions in Belarus.

“The situation with freedom of speech in Belarus is the worst in Europe. The authorities are depriving citizens of any alternative information,” Bastunets said.

With reporting by AP

Serbia's government has backed down in the face of sizable public protests and withdrawn legislative changes that would have made it easier for the government to seize private property if deemed to be in the public interest.

The decision, announced on December 8, followed mounting public opposition to a $2.4 billion lithium mine in western Serbia proposed by the Anglo-Australian mining giant Rio Tinto.

In a press release, the government said officials would revisit the changes "and, if it is determined that the law needs to be changed, will do so with a broad public debate that will include the professional public, professional associations, business representatives, and civil society."

The withdrawal of the amendments, and the protests, come amid mounting scrutiny of several Chinese-backed ventures, including a gold-and-silver mine, for alleged labor and environmental violations.

Unlike the Rio Tinto mine, however those projects have already received necessary permitting.

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Last month, the Serbian parliament, which is dominated by the party allied with President Aleksandar Vucic, voted to amend a law making it easier for the state to seize private property if it is deemed to be in the national interest.

Vucic had until December 10 to sign the measure into law.

Vucic earlier signed new legislation that eliminated the minimum threshold for voter participation in national referendums -- theoretically making it easier to pass such referendums. Until now, a referendum was not considered valid if less than 50 percent of registered voters cast ballots.

Environmental and civil society groups said the amendments would pave the way for foreign companies, such as Rio Tinto, to circumvent popular discontent over such projects.

Protesters staged large demonstrations for two successive weekends earlier this month to protest the legislative changes, blocking streets in Belgrade and other major towns and cities.

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The Rio Tinto project, which would have been Europe's largest lithium mine, had attracted sharp scrutiny.

Experts warned it could destroy farmland and further pollute Serbian waters. Rio Tinto, however, denied the project would endanger the environment and vowed to respect Serbian laws.

SARAJEVO -- Bosnia-Herzegovina's top court has confirmed the indictment of the Balkan country's security minister, who is accused of abusing his official position over the irregular sale of weapons and military equipment a decade ago when he held the post of defense minister.

The court on December 8 confirmed the indictment against Selmo Cikotic, charging him of depriving the state of about 9.7 million marks ($5.6 million) from 2009 to 2011 by unlawfully changing the terms of a contract for the sale of surplus outdated weapons, ammunition, and military equipment in order to favor the buyer, a Croatian company.

The indictment said Cikotic had done so without informing his deputies or members of Bosnia's tripartite presidency, and in breach of the legal procedure.

Cikotic was defense minister from 2006 to 2012, and became security minister last year.

Investigations often take years in corruption-plagued and ethnically divided Bosnia, which is still struggling to recover from a devastating war in 1992-95.

More than 100,000 people were killed in the 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.

The Czech government has approved the deployment of up to 150 soldiers to help Poland stop migrants entering from Belarus, amid on ongoing crisis on the European Union's eastern flank that the West has accused Minsk of orchestrating.

According to the plan, subject to approval by both chambers of the Czech parliament, the troops will have a mandate to stay in Poland for 180 days, Defense Minister Lubomir Metnar tweeted on December 8.

If the plan is adopted, as expected, the Czechs would join similar numbers of troops deployed in Poland by fellow NATO members Estonia and Britain.

Along Poland, Slovakia, and Hungary, the Czech Republic is part of the so-called Visegrad Group, which has taken a firm line on migration.

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

Minsk denies EU accusations it engineered the crisis to destabilize the entire 27-member bloc in retaliation for sanctions imposed for human rights abuses.

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For weeks, thousands of migrants have been trying to reach Poland or the Baltic states via Belarus.

The number of attempted illegal crossings into Poland has decreased in recent days, with the country's border guards reporting 51 such attempts on December 7, a fraction of the numbers seen in mid-November when several hundred people tried to cross the border in a day.

The EU has passed sanctions on Lukashenka's regime over its brutal crackdown on the country's pro-democracy movement in the wake of the disputed August 2020 election.

Last week, the bloc imposed a fifth round of sanctions aimed at individuals and entities thought to be responsible for participating in the "hybrid attack" on the EU using migrants.

With reporting by AP and Reuters

U.S. President Joe Biden has said the United States will not send troops to Ukraine to defend against any potential Russian invasion.

Biden spoke to reporters on December 7, a day after he and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, held a two-hour videoconference.

Biden said he had warned Putin that if Russia did launch new military action against Ukraine -- something U.S. intelligence has warned might be possible in the coming weeks -- the United States and allies would impose sanctions "like none he'd ever seen."

"The idea the United States is going to unilaterally use force to confront Russia invading Ukraine is not in the cards right now," he also said, according to a White House transcript.

"We have a moral obligation and a legal obligation to our NATO allies under Article 5. It's a sacred obligation. That obligation does not extend to...Ukraine," which is not a member of the military alliance, Biden said.

Washington has signaled it plans to supply more weaponry, including Javelin anti-tank missiles, and other materiel to Ukraine.

Tens of thousands of Russian troops have deployed to regions near the Ukrainian border, alarming both Ukraine and officials in Europe and the United States.

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In his own comments describing the conference call with Biden, Putin again repeated Russia's insistence that Ukraine should never be allowed to join NATO.

"We cannot fail to be concerned about the prospect of Ukraine's possible admission to NATO, because this will undoubtedly be followed by the deployment there of military contingents, bases and weapons that threaten us," the Russian president said.

The Hungarian Foreign Ministry has confirmed to RFE/RL that it issued a special visa to a Belarusian sports official allowing him to travel to the Czech Republic, from where he was expelled a week ago for violating COVID-19 pandemic rules.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has continued to maintain friendly ties with Belarusian strongman Alyaksandr Lukashenka amid international condemnation of widespread allegations of vote-rigging and brutal suppression of dissent since a disputed presidential election last year.

Uladzimer Bazanau and his wife were detained on November 30 in the northeastern Czech city of Opava ahead of a scheduled World Cup qualifier that same day between the Belarusian women's national soccer team and the Czech women's team. The game in Opava was postponed after a coronavirus outbreak in the Belarusian team.

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Bazanau and his wife were deported the next day after being accused by Czech authorities of violating COVID-19 protocols.

Bazanau, an ally of Lukashenka, is on a sanctions list of the EU's Baltic member states -- Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. Unlike Cyprus, where Bazanau and his wife had visited the day before, the Czech Republic enforces the Baltic states' sanctions.

The Hungarian Foreign Ministry told RFE/RL on December 7 that it issued Bazanau a 90-day Schengen visa, and that the Belarusian had an invitation from UEFA, European soccer's governing body.

The ministry claimed it had issued the visa on behalf of Switzerland, where UEFA is headquartered.

There has been no comment to that allegation from Swiss officials.

The Schengen area is a zone composed of 26 European countries that have officially abolished border controls between their territories.

The EU has passed five rounds of sanctions on Lukashenka's regime over a brutal crackdown on the country's pro-democracy movement in the wake of the disputed August 2020 election.

The bloc adopted its latest package of sanctions on December 2 over allegations Minsk orchestrated a migrant crisis on the border of Poland and fellow EU members Latvia and Lithuania.

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The new sanctions target 17 individuals and 11 entities thought to be responsible for the crisis at the EU's eastern border, and should come into effect on their publication later on December 8 in the bloc’s Official Journal, a legal registry. In total, the EU has so far targeted 183 Belarusian individuals and 26 entities with sanctions.

Britain, the United States, and Canada also announced their own punitive measures on December 2 targeting Belarusian entities, including a complete asset freeze on a global leader in potash fertilizer, OJSC Belaruskali.

In a joint statement, the EU, Britain, Canada, and the United States cited "continuing attacks on human rights and fundamental freedoms in Belarus, disregard for international norms and repeated acts of repression."

Belarus's Foreign Ministry responded to the latest sanction announcements by vowing "harsh and asymmetrical" steps in response.

Minsk has denied it has funneled migrants, mainly from the Middle East, to Poland, Latvia, and Lithuania.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeated his insistence that Ukraine should not join NATO, while U.S. President Joe Biden says that Washington has no intention of sending U.S. troops to defend Ukraine against any new Russian invasion.

The two leaders spoke in separate appearances on December 8, one day after they met for a two-hour videoconference amid fears of a new war over Ukraine.

The talks – their third direct meeting since Biden took office in January— came as tens of thousands of Russian troops have deployed to regions near the Ukraine borders. Ukrainian officials put the number at just below 100,000, while U.S. intelligence has warned the figure could reach 150,000 in the near future.

It’s one of the largest movements of Russian forces toward Ukraine in years, outside of regularly scheduled training exercises.

That, plus the absence of more routine notification procedures shared even between adversaries, has set off alarm bells, not only in Ukraine, but in many NATO countries, particularly those in Eastern Europe.

In Washington, Biden said he had warned Putin that if Russia launched a new invasion against Ukraine, the United States would retaliate with sanctions "like none he's ever seen.”

"I made it very clear, if in fact he invades Ukraine, there will be severe consequences, severe consequences -- economic consequences like none he's ever seen or ever have been seen," he told reporters.

But Biden also said no U.S. troops would be sent to Ukraine to help defend against a Russian invasion.

"The idea the United States is going to unilaterally use force to confront Russia invading Ukraine is not in the cards right now," the U.S. president said, according to a White House transcript.

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Neither Russian nor U.S. officials have described the December 7 conference call as yielding any breakthroughs.

In Moscow, Putin characterized the talks as "very open, substantive, and constructive."

"We have an opportunity to continue the dialogue. This is most important," the Russian president said.

Earlier, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that the two sides planned more meetings of envoys in the coming weeks.

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In Ukraine, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, who was scheduled to speak with the U.S. president on December 9, called the Putin-Biden talks positive, saying that "the United States has always supported Ukraine, our sovereignty and independence."

"But the most important thing is that now we see a real and personal reaction from President Biden and his personal role in resolving the conflict," Zelenskiy 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 Western alliance as a threat following NATO's expansion into nations from the former Soviet bloc as well as ex-communist Central and Eastern European states in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

Russia asserts Kyiv is failing to meet its commitments under the 2014 and 2015 Minsk agreements aimed at putting an end to the conflict.

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It was unclear exactly what punishment the Biden administration is threatening to wield if Russia were to launch an attack on Ukraine.

Some analysts have pointed to the possibility Russia could be cut off from the international system of financial payments known as SWIFT, which would hit Russian banks hard.

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.

France, meanwhile, warned Moscow on December 8 it would face "strategic and massive consequences" if Russia attacked Ukraine.

The French Foreign Ministry also said that in phone calls between five major Western allies -- France, Britain, Italy, Germany, and the United States -- leaders agreed that "the sovereignty of Ukraine be respected."

Ukraine has been fighting a war against Kremlin-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine since early 2014 that has killed more than 13,200 people.

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 also 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.

A court in Moscow has sentenced a man to 32 months in prison for damaging a vehicle of the Federal Security Service (FSB) during January protest rallies in support of jailed opposition politician Aleksei Navalny.

The Tver district court on December 8 found vlogger Konstantin Lakeyev guilty of damaging FSB property and sentenced him the same day.

Lakeyev was arrested and charged on January 26, pleading guilty to the charges.

Lakeyev is one of several people to be handed prison terms or suspended sentences in recent months for attacking police or police equipment during the nationwide demonstrations held on January 23 and 31 to protest against Navalny's arrest.

The Kremlin critic was detained at a Moscow airport on January 17 upon his arrival from Germany, where he was recovering from a poison attack by what several European laboratories concluded was a military-grade chemical nerve agent in Siberia in August 2020.

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

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

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

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

In October, European lawmakers awarded Navalny the Sakharov Prize, the European Union's highest human rights honor.

With reporting by TASS and Interfax