Russian security agents have searched the home of one of the country's most prominent investigative journalists and brought him in for interrogation, in what his lawyer and editorial team said was related to coverage of one of country's most powerful men.

The raid by Federal Security Service (FSB) agents on April 9 targeting Istories editor-in-chief Roman Anin drew swift condemnation from international investigative-journalism organizations, which described it as the latest assault on media in the country.

After FSB agents searched his Moscow apartment on April 9, Anin was taken to the Investigative Committee in connection with inquiries into "violation of privacy by abusing his professional functions," his lawyer Anna Stavitskaya said. He was later released after refusing to testify and is expected to be interrogated further on April 12.

Istories said on its Telegram channel that its offices had been searched as well.

Anin's lawyer and his editorial team say the investigation is related to a previous case opened in 2016, after the investigative journalist published an explosive report in Novaya gazeta newspaper suggesting state-owned oil giant Rosneft CEO Igor Sechin had links to a yacht valued at $100 million.

The raids also come just weeks after Anin published an investigative piece suggesting the new deputy head of the FSB, Sergei Korolev, has ties to the leaders of several Russian organized criminal groups.

Anin had previously worked for Novaya gazeta, Russia's most prominent opposition newspaper. The publication was found guilty of defamation after Sechin filed a complaint about Anin's report.

In a statement, Novaya gazeta's editorial board said the case was reopened in March, this time against Istories.

"Everything that is happening now with Roman Anin is revenge," the editorial board said. "We will by all legal means and publicly protect our friend and colleague."

Gerard Ryle, director of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), said his organization was "closely monitoring the treatment of our cherished member, and partner in investigative reporting, Roman Anin."

"On the face of it, this appears to be a dark day for freedom of the media in Russia," Ryle said. "We stand fully behind Anin's fearless exposure of figures from the criminal and political underworld."

The Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) also expressed concern about Anin.

"Anin is one of the best journalists in the world and has led numerous groundbreaking investigations into organized crime and corruption in Russia," OCCRP publisher Drew Sullivan said.

"This is another step in the ongoing squeeze on the remaining independent media in Russia by the authorities," Sullivan said. "Roman is truly an independent voice whose work serves the people of Russia. We are watching the situation closely."

Established last year, Anin's Istories specializes in investigative reports. Among its recent articles are a report on FSB officers surveilling imprisoned opposition leader Aleksei Navalny and an exposé into the wealth of Kirill Shamalov, the former son-in-law of President Vladimir Putin.

With reporting by AFP, RFE/RL's Russian Service, and Novaya gazeta

MINSK -- Belarusian lawmakers have approved several amendments to legislation that severely restricts civil rights and the free flow of information amid a crackdown on protests challenging the official results of a presidential election that handed authoritarian ruler Alyaksandr Lukashenka his sixth consecutive term.

The texts of the controversial amendments to the laws on extremism and mass media -- which come amid an ongoing crackdown on opposition groups who have said a presidential election last August was rigged in favor of Lukashenka -- were approved in the first reading on April 2 and placed on the official website for legal documents on April 9, marking the first time much of the information has been made public.

According to the amendments, any activities by individuals, political parties, or domestic or international organizations defined as damaging independence, territorial integrity, sovereignty, the basis of the constitutional order, and public safety will be considered "extremist."

In the wake of the August vote, thousands of Belarusians have taken to the streets in what has become the largest and most persistent show of opposition to Lukashenka over the nearly three decades he has held power.

More than 33,000 people have been arrested for participating in the demonstrations. Many have been beaten by police, while some have said they were tortured while in custody.

The European Union, the United States, and other nations have refused to recognize the declared results of the election.

Several Western nations, as well as the European Union, have slapped sanctions on Lukashenka and other senior Belarusian officials and the new amendments are likely to spark an outcry for further sanctions.

If approved and signed into law, the amendments would ban individual lawyers and private firms from defending people in some criminal and administrative cases. Most of the lawyers who work with Belarusian journalist associations and have defended RFE/RL reporters in recent months have already been stripped of their licenses.

The amendments also state that along with the violent seizure of power, the creation of illegal armed groups, and terrorist activities, the following actions will be considered as extremist activities: the distribution of false information; insulting an official; discrediting the state and governing organs; impeding the activities of the Central Election Commission and other state organs; the active participation and organization of events of so-called mass disorder; and making calls to take part in unsanctioned public events or financially supporting such events.

Media Crackdown

Amendments to the law on media will allow authorities to shut down media outlets after two written warnings regarding their activities during one year if the activities of such media outlets pose a "threat to the country's national security."

The amendments also mandate that state bodies can limit access to online publications if the Information Ministry finds that materials of such publications carry information that has been banned.

Belarusian state media reported earlier this week that lawmakers also approved amendments to the Criminal Code and laws on public assembly, state security, and the Internet, the full texts of which have not been made public yet.

Another amendment would make it mandatory to obtain preliminary permission from local authorities before holding public events, instead of preliminary notification to the authorities. It would also be illegal for media and social-network users to publish information about the dates, locations, and times of such public events. Live coverage of these events would also be illegal.

The amendments would also allow prosecutors to limit access to Internet publications that "distribute information that can damage the national interests of Belarus."

Amendments to six existing laws dealing with extremism would give law enforcement officers the right to use firearms at their own discretion without waiting for a command from supervisors. Police would also be allowed to ban taking photos or video. They would also be allowed to collect personal data of social-network users without court decisions or prosecutors' warrants.

Police would also be given the right to create lists of individuals they feel are inclined to participate in extremist activities. Once on such a list, a person would be banned from certain activities, including journalism, publishing, teaching, and their financial activities would be put under surveillance.

The amendments also allow the central bank to monitor cash withdrawals through foreign-issued debit cards and limit such withdrawals, as well as to freeze the bank accounts of "suspicious individuals."

With reporting by BelTA

YEREVAN -- Armenia has accused Azerbaijan of violating a key term of the Russian-brokered cease-fire deal that ended last fall’s fighting over the breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh region, alleging that Baku is reneging on a pledge to free Armenian soldiers and civilians captured during the conflict.

“Unfortunately, the return of prisoners is again delayed,” the office of Deputy Prime Minister Tigran Avinian said in a statement posted on Facebook on April 9.

Avinian said that “Russian-mediated negotiations are continuing and we hope that the Azerbaijani side will at last respect” the cease-fire agreement signed in November 2020, putting an end to six weeks of fighting between Armenian and Azerbaijani forces in and around Nagorno-Karabakh.

There was no immediate reaction from Azerbaijani officials.

Avinian’s accusations come a day after Armenian government representatives said that a group of prisoners of war (POWs) was about to be repatriated to Armenia.

But a plane from Azerbaijan that was expected to bring 25 POWs turned out to be empty when it landed in Yerevan.

Nagorno-Karabakh is internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan but has been controlled by ethnic Armenians since the early 1990s.

Under the Moscow-brokered cease-fire deal, a chunk of Nagorno-Karabakh and all seven districts around it were placed under Azerbaijani administration after almost 30 years of control by ethnic Armenian forces.

The agreement also resulted in the deployment of around 2,000 Russian peacekeepers, and provided for an exchange of POWs and other detained people.

Several prisoner exchanges have taken place in recent months.

There are no official figures of how many Armenians are still being held by Azerbaijan, but the RBK news agency said there were about 140. It’s unclear how many Azerbaijani prisoners there are.

On April 9, hundreds of relatives of POWs and missing soldiers protested in Yerevan and other parts of Armenia.

In the capital, about 400 blocked the entrances of the Defense Ministry for a second day. Some protesters clashed with police.

More than 6,000 people died in last year’s fighting.

With reporting by dpa

A court in Moscow has sentenced a man to 3 1/2 years in prison on a criminal charge of attacking a police officer during January 31 rallies in support of opposition politician Aleksei Navalny.

The Meshchansky district court on April 9 found Pavel Grin-Romanov guilty of using pepper spray against a police officer during the dispersal of the demonstrators.

Grin-Romanov pleaded "partially guilty" admitting he sprayed the pepper spray in the direction of the riot police but did so to protect his wife who was with him.

Prosecutors sought eight years in prison for the defendant.

Grin-Romanov is one of several people who were handed prison terms or suspended sentences in recent weeks for attacking police during the nationwide demonstrations held on January 23 and January 31 against the arrest of the Kremlin critic.

Navalny was detained at a Moscow airport on January 17 upon his arrival from Germany, where he was recovering from a poisoning, which several European laboratories concluded was a military-grade chemical nerve agent, in Siberia in August 2020.

Navalny has insisted that his poisoning was ordered directly by President Vladimir Putin, which the Kremlin has denied.

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.

With reporting by Novaya gazeta, Meduza, and Mediazona

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) is calling on Russia to stop denying entry to foreign reporters in the South Caucasus disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh, and is urging the United Nations and Council of Europe to ensure respect for the right to the freedom to inform.

Russian peacekeepers controlling access to Nagorno-Karabakh from Armenia via the Lachin Corridor have denied entry to at least 10 foreign journalists since February, the Paris-based media freedom watchdog said in a statement on April 9.

“A growing number of foreign journalists are being systematically refused entry by Russian soldiers,” said Jeanne Cavelier, the head of RSF’s Eastern Europe and Central Asia desk.

Cavelier warned that without international media, Nagorno-Karabakh “is liable to become a news and information ‘black hole.’”

Last fall, Azerbaijani and Armenian forces fought a brief war over Nagorno-Karabakh, an enclave that is internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan but has been controlled by ethnic Armenians since the early 1990s.

The six-week fighting concluded in November 2020 with a Russian-brokered cease-fire, under which a chunk of the region and all seven districts around it were placed under Azerbaijani administration after almost 30 years of control by ethnic Armenian forces.

It also resulted in the deployment of around 2,000 Russian peacekeepers along frontline areas and the Lachin Corridor connecting the disputed territory with Armenia.

More than 6,000 people died in the fighting.

According to RSF, a French photographer, a reporter for the French TV channel M6, and a Canadian freelancer for The Guardian and CNN, were among the journalists who were denied entry in Nagorno-Karabakh since February.

The group said access to the region is also “restricted” via Azerbaijan. It cited the case of TV crews from France 24 and the European channel Arte which “made highly controlled visits from Azerbaijan and were not able to report freely.”

The Russian-brokered cease-fire agreement has no specific provision for the entry of journalists, RSF pointed out.

It said press accreditation is issued by the consulate of Nagorno-Karabakh’s separatist authorities or by the Armenian Foreign Ministry.

However, the Russia peacekeepers “grant or refuse entry to foreign citizens, who are notified of the decision on the eve of their planned visit,” while Armenians and Russians “just need to show their passports in order to enter” the region.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken discussed with the French and German foreign ministers the need for Russia to stop its military buildup in the occupied Crimean Peninsula and near Ukraine’s borders, its "provocations" in eastern Ukraine, and its "inflammatory rhetoric," according to the State Department.

Blinken, French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian, and German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas spoke separately on April 9, suggesting stepped-up consultations among the NATO allies as fears grow of a major escalation in the conflict in eastern Ukraine that has killed more than 13,000 people and displaced more than 1 million since April 2014.

Kyiv and the West blame the Russia-backed separatists holding parts of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions for a recent spike in hostilities, while Moscow points the finger at Kyiv.

A recent accumulation of photographs, video, and other data also suggested major movements of Russian armed units toward or near Ukraine's borders and into Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula, fueling concerns that Moscow is preparing to send forces into Ukraine.

The Kremlin has rejected Western calls to pull back its troops, denying that they are a threat, and on April 9 issued a stark warning that Russia could take steps to protect civilians in the region in the event of a resumption of full-scale combat operations there.

General Ruslan Khomchak, chief of the general staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, said Ukraine won’t launch an offensive against the separatists and accused Moscow of using "intimidation and blackmail by military force" to exacerbate the situation.

"The liberation of the temporarily occupied territories by force will inevitably lead to the death of a large number of civilians and casualties among the military, which is unacceptable for Ukraine," Khomchak said in a statement.

Russia annexed Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula in March 2014, sending in troops and staging a referendum denounced as illegitimate by at least 100 countries after Moscow-friendly Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych was ousted amid a wave of public protests.

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Since then, overwhelming evidence suggests Russia has continued to lend diplomatic and military aid to armed separatists fighting in the eastern Ukrainian region known as the Donbas.

Despite multiple cease-fire agreements, the violence has never really ended. Fighting intensified in recent weeks as Russia massed troops near the border with Ukraine.

International Diplomacy

Amid the rising tensions, Blinken and Le Drian on April 9 "discussed the need for Russia to end its dangerous and irresponsible rhetoric, its military buildup in occupied Crimea and along Ukraine’s borders, and unilateral Russian provocations along" the front lines in eastern Ukraine, State Department spokesman Ned Price said in a statement.

In their call, Blinken and Maas "emphasized the importance of supporting Ukraine” against Russian provocations in eastern Ukraine, Crimea, and along Ukraine’s borders, as well as “the need for Russia to immediately cease its military buildup and inflammatory rhetoric.”

After speaking with Blinken, Maas, and Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kouleba, Le Drian said that Russia should explain its motives for its troop movements, stop its provocations, and take initiatives to de-escalate.

According to the White House, the United States has been diplomatically engaging with Russia and other countries about "the escalating Russian aggressions in eastern Ukraine, including Russia's troop movements on Ukraine's borders."

"We are, of course, in close consultation and working with partners and allies in the region, to assess, to share intelligence, to determine what's happening...and what can be done about it," press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters.

She declined to give details about the process.

The United States has notified Turkey that two U.S. warships will sail to the Black Sea on April 14 and April 15 and stay there until early May, a spokesperson for the Turkish Foreign Ministry said.

Such visits by U.S. and other NATO ships have vexed Moscow, which long has bristled at Ukraine's efforts to build up defense ties with the West and its aspirations to eventually join NATO.

Front Lines

Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on April 9 met for a second day with Ukrainian soldiers serving on the front lines separating them from Russia-backed fighters, according to his office.

The 43-year-old president presented servicemen with awards, thanking them for their "patriotism and dedication in defending Ukraine.”

According to Zelenskiy, 26 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed since the start of the year, compared with 50 in all of 2020, when fighting in the conflict subsided as a new cease-fire deal came into force in July 2020.

Separatists in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions said that more than 20 of their fighters had been killed so far in 2021.

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Russian President Vladimir Putin on April 9 accused Ukraine of "dangerous provocative actions" in its eastern regions in a phone call with his Turkish counterpart, according to the Kremlin.

His spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, also blamed the recent escalation on Ukraine, saying Kyiv “does not completely reject the idea of solving its own problem with the southeast of Ukraine by military means."

Peskov alleged that virulent nationalist rhetoric in Ukraine was inflaming hatred against the mostly Russian-speaking population of the east, where in 2019 Putin simplified the procedure for people there to obtain Russian citizenship.

He claimed that if civilians in eastern Ukraine faced the threat of a massacre, “all countries, including Russia, will take steps to prevent such tragedies.”

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova warned after the reports that Ukraine's NATO bid “wouldn't only lead to a massive escalation of the situation in the southeast but could also entail irreversible consequences for Ukrainian statehood.”

Moscow is demanding Ukraine give the separatist-controlled regions greater autonomy, which would effectively prevent the country from joining NATO.

Some analysts have suggested that Russia’s recent actions may be meant to test the new administration of U.S. President Joe Biden and its commitment to Ukraine.

With reporting by TASS, Interfax, Reuters, AP, AFP, and dpa

Slovakia has reportedly turned to neighbor Hungary for assistance examining shipments of the Russian Sputnik V vaccine as a dispute widens over the reliability and consistency of 200,000 doses supplied to Bratislava last month.

Slovak Finance Minister Igor Matovic announced the Hungarian regulator's role after a meeting with Hungary's foreign minister in Budapest on April 9.

Hungary is the only EU member state that has already begun mass vaccinations with Sputnik V against COVID-19 as the European drug regulator inspects its efficacy and safety, as well as ethical concerns about the Russian clinical testing that went into it.

On April 8, Russia demanded that Bratislava return the Sputnik V doses after the Slovak drug regulator said the doses it received differ from those being reviewed by the European Union’s drug overseer. It complained of violations of the procurement contract.

A number of EU member states are considering ordering Sputnik V but have said they are awaiting a green light from the European Medicines Agency (EMA).

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has been a vocal critic of European institutions' pandemic responses, and his country has imported hundreds of thousands of doses of Sputnik V.

The Slovak State Institute for Drug Control said on April 7 that there were lingering questions about the efficacy and risks of the Russian vaccine, due mainly to inadequate data from the producer, and that was preventing doses from being rolled out across the country.

The next day, the institute also said the Sputnik V doses it was examining were not the same as those being reviewed by the EMA, or apparently those that were reviewed in the British medical journal The Lancet.

Matovic lost the Slovak prime minister's post earlier this month in part over a scandal involving the decision to procure Sputnik V.

New Prime Minister Eduard Heger said on April 9 that the country needs Sputnik V in order to save Slovak lives.

The dispute has been further complicated by unconfirmed reports that Russian officials were accusing their Slovak counterparts of entrusting some of the local testing to unauthorized laboratories.

Russian developers have insisted European regulators will be satisfied by the safety and efficacy of Sputnik V, which was raced into authorization by Russian authorities and is already being used in mass vaccinations there and in numerous other places.

A lead scientist on Sputnik's development, Aleksandr Gintzburg, was quoted by Interfax on April 9 as saying that while its effectiveness "declines" against the South African variant of the coronavirus, it is still more effective than other vaccines.

Based on reporting by Reuters and SME

TASHKENT -- Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoev has criticized regional governors for what he calls a "lack of leadership" and a "failure" to coordinate efforts to support small- and medium-sized businesses in recent years.

At an online meeting with the regional governors on April 8, Mirziyoev warned governors that if the situation does not improve within the next three months, they will be fired.

"The governors are not self-confident, they hesitate to fire those who do not work. Well, if one is not fired, I will fire him. A leader who does not support small and medium businesses is not a leader," Mirziyoev stated.

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Mirziyoev emphasized at the meeting that problems with infrastructure in many regions led to the failure of 320 private businesses to put some $220 million worth of imported equipment into service over the last two years.

According to him, lack of electricity only led to numerous private businesses' closure, loss of dozens of millions of dollars, and an increase of unemployment each year.

"If we do not support private businesses, if we fail to create proper conditions for them, if we do not increase the number of private businesses, there will be no additional money for our cities and districts," Mirziyoev said, adding that by the end of 2021, tens of millions of dollars will be earmarked for improvement of infrastructure for the operations of small- and medium-sized businesses across the country.

At the meeting, Mirziyoev sacked several deputy governors and officially reprimanded governors of southeastern regions of Qashqadaryo and Navoiy, where the situation faced by private business is reportedly the worst.

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Mirziyoev’s public criticism of regional governors comes less than seven months before a presidential election scheduled for October 24.

Mirziyoev took over the most-populous nation of the Central Asian region of 32 million after his authoritarian predecessor Islam Karimov's death was announced on September 1, 2016.

A first round of talks in Vienna aimed at reviving the Iran nuclear agreement made halting progress and will resume next week, with diplomats describing the end of four days of meetings on April 9 as constructive.

The EU-hosted talks center on overcoming an impasse between the United States and Iran to bring both parties into full compliance with the 2015 agreement, which lifted international sanctions on Tehran in exchange for limits on Iran's nuclear program.

President Joe Biden has expressed a willingness for the United States to reenter the accord.

Washington abandoned the agreement under then-President Donald Trump, who imposed a raft of sanctions on Tehran under a "maximum pressure" campaign. Iran responded to the U.S. exit from the deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), by gradually breaching many of the nuclear restrictions.

Although U.S. and Iranian diplomats did not hold face-to-face meetings, the other parties to the deal -- Britain, China, France, Germany, and Russia – engaged in shuttle diplomacy to narrow differences.

Two working groups have been formed to hammer out a compromise, which if reached could still be weeks away. One expert group is focused on how to lift U.S. sanctions to bring Washington back into compliance with the accord. Another group is tasked with detailing a path for Iran to comply with restrictions on its nuclear program, including limits on uranium enrichment and centrifuges.

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An EU statement after the last session on April 9 said the so-called Joint Commission on the JCPOA had been "briefed on the work of the two expert groups on sanctions lifting and nuclear implementation measures and participants noted the constructive and results oriented exchanges."

It said "the participants emphasized their resolve to further pursue the ongoing joint diplomatic effort" and that a coordinator under EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs Josep Borrell "will continue his separate contacts with all JCPOA participants and the United States."

The U.S. and Iranian sides have publicly clashed over the sequencing of possible U.S. sanctions relief and Iran reversing its breaches of the deal.

Iran is demanding that the United States lift all sanctions and return to full compliance first, after which it says it will reciprocate.

“All Trump sanctions were anti-JCPOA & must be removed—w/o distinction between arbitrary designations,” Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif wrote on Twitter.

In addition to reimposing nuclear-related sanctions, the Trump administration slapped a web of sanctions on Tehran over a range of issues such as terrorism, human rights, and ballistic missiles. They include sanctions on Iran’s Central Bank and the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, a part of Iran’s armed forces that the Trump administration labeled a terrorist organization.

Analysts say the bevy of sanctions was meant to deliberately complicate a future administration’s efforts to rejoin the nuclear accord.

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Briefing reporters after talks wrapped up on April 9, a senior State Department official said the initial talks were encouraging but that the United States would not meet Iranian demands to lift all sanctions.

"If Iran sticks to the position that every sanction that has been imposed since 2017 has to be lifted or there will be no deal, then we are heading towards an impasse," the senior U.S. official told reporters on a conference call.

The official said the Trump administration’s sanction policy on Iran had a “purposeful and self-avowed intent to make it difficult for any future administration” to return to the nuclear deal.

The head of Iran's delegation to the talks, Abbas Araghchi, stressed the need for "political will and seriousness from other parties."

"Otherwise, there will be no reason to continue negotiations," he said, according to a statement from the Iranian Foreign Ministry.

German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas told the RND news network in comments published on April 10 that the talks were "constructive" but cautioned they could drag on.

"All sides showed a willingness to work with the necessary sincerity towards the same goal -- the full implementation of the nuclear deal with Iran," Maas said.

"It won't be easy. We are only at the beginning of intensive negotiations," he said, adding that the talks concern highly complex issues and will require compromise.

Russia's ambassador to the UN in Vienna, Mikhail Ulyanov, said the parties "took stock of the work done by experts over the last three days and noted with satisfaction the initial progress made."

He later tweeted that representatives "will reconvene next week in order to maintain the positive momentum."

With reporting by AFP, AP, dpa, and Reuters

ISFARA, Tajikistan -- Tajik President Emomali Rahmon has assured residents of the country’s volatile Vorukh exclave within Kyrgyzstan that it will not be part of any land swap between the neighboring countries as they seek a solution to halt border disputes that frequently turn violent.

Rahmon’s statement during a trip to meet with residents of the exclave on April 9 comes weeks after a top Kyrgyz official publicly stated that Bishkek is ready to include the exclave in a land exchange.

"There have not been any talks about the possible exchange of Vorukh for another territory in the last 19 years [since the border delimitation negotiations started], and there is no possibility for it. I am making this statement because of various reports have been spread via the media regarding the issue recently. Border demarcation is a long process and there is no place for emotions in the matter," Rahmon said, calling on Vorukh residents to live “peacefully” with those on the other side of the border.

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Rahmon added that agreements on almost half of the Tajik-Kyrgyz border issues have been reached during more than 100 rounds of negotiations held between Dushanbe and Bishkek since border delimitation talks started in 2002.

Rahmon also said that Tajikistan had fully finished all work outlined in a joint road map on border delimitation agreed on between the two countries in 2016 and accused Bishkek of failing to stick to the plan for "unknown reasons."

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On March 26, the chief of Kyrgyzstan's State Committee for National Security, Kamchybek Tashiev, said that Bishkek is ready to give 12,000 hectares of land from Kyrgyzstan's southern region of Batken to Tajikistan in exchange for the territory of Vorukh.

Tashiev also said that Kyrgyzstan’s long-standing border issues with another neighbor, Uzbekistan, had been "100 percent fully resolved" after talks in Tashkent.

Many border areas in Central Asia's former Soviet republics have been disputed since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.

The situation is particularly complicated near the numerous exclaves in the volatile Ferghana Valley, where the borders of Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan meet.

Vorukh is one such exclave, where in July 2019 Tajik officials said one Tajik man was killed and seven more wounded after Kyrgyz villagers used hunting guns in clashes that erupted over a move by Tajik residents to install Tajik national flags on the Isfara-Vorukh road near the exclave.

Kyrgyz officials in the Batken region temporarily moved more than 650 residents from the village of Ak-Sai from the area for safety and security reasons in the days following the clashes.

Another volatile exclave, Sokh, which sits inside Kyrgyzstan, is an ethnic Tajik-populated Uzbek territory where shootings have been common for years.

In 2013, border crossings through Sokh were closed for several weeks after Sokh residents clashed with Kyrgyz border guards over the installation of electric power lines to a new Kyrgyz border post.

Five Sokh residents were reportedly wounded by Kyrgyz border guards and at least 30 Kyrgyz citizens were subsequently taken hostage.

Hungary has officially complained to Berlin over the firing of a Hungarian goalkeeping coach after comments regarding same-sex adoptions, immigration, and what he called an intolerance of conservative views.

Bundesliga club Hertha Berlin announced Zsolt Petry's firing on April 6, saying the trainer's remarks to a Hungarian newspaper did not reflect the team's values of diversity and tolerance.

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An aide to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban also publicly blasted the German club's move as "outrageous," equating it with "totalitarian" rule in Nazi Germany.

Orban's chief of staff, Gergely Gulyas, told reporters that "it is foremost Germany that has to answer whether it still upholds the rule of law."

Hungary's Foreign Ministry summoned a charge d'affaires on April 8 to complain about the firing.

Germany's Foreign Ministry responded by saying the Hungarian side's message was "in no way comprehensible to us."

"The charge d'affaires communicated this to the Hungarian government in his conversation [at the ministry]," the German Foreign Ministry's spokesman said. "We reject the references to National Socialism in the clearest terms."

In an interview published on April 5, Petry suggested Hungarian goalkeeper Peter Gulacsi, who plays for Hertha’s league rival Leipzig, should focus on football instead of getting involved in divisive social issues about same-sex marriage and defending LGBT rights.

He also alleged a narrowing of free speech and liberal intolerance of conservative opinions.

In December, Gulacsi joined a campaign denouncing a constitutional change led by conservative Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban that effectively banned same-sex couples from adopting children.

In another part of his Hungarian interview, Petry criticized Europe’s migration policies, describing Europe as a Christian continent and immigration policy as a “manifestation of moral decline.”

With reporting by Reuters

Authorities in Hungary have delayed the planned reopening of secondary schools to mid-May amid calls for a postponement of one of the European Union's more ambitious curbing of pandemic restrictions.

Prime Minister Victor Orban announced the three-week delay, to May 10, on state radio on April 9.

It came with reports of teachers, parents, and students urging a slower approach to the easing, with new infections falling only gradually since a high of 11,265 on March 26.

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Hungarian authorities began an easing of anti-pandemic measures on April 7, as they reached one-quarter of the country vaccinated, that the Hungarian Medical Chamber criticized as premature.

Orban and his dominant Fidesz party allies have pressed for a swift reopening to kick-start the Hungarian economy; it's the only EU member state to have begun mass vaccinations using the Russian Sputnik V injection and with the Chinese Sinopharm vaccine.

Orban has been a vocal critic of the European Union's COVID-19 response.

Hungary is highest among EU states in vaccinations and has imported more vaccine doses per capita, but it has also been at or near the top of COVID-19 death charts adjusted for population recently.

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The Teachers' Democratic Trade Union posted on April 8 that it did not believe the country was ready yet for in-person teaching.

In his April 9 radio interview, Orban said he hoped 3.5 million of Hungary's nearly 10 million residents will have gotten at least one vaccine shot by April 16.

He predicted a 70 percent level -- which would still be short of what most experts believe is needed for herd immunity -- by early June.

Budapest is among 12 host cities for the delayed Euro 2020 soccer championships slated for mid-June, and Orban said he hoped fans could "attend the events with an immunity card."

With reporting by Reuters

MINSK -- Well-known human rights activist Tatsyana Hatsura-Yavorskaya, one of the founders of the Belarusian civil rights group Zvyano (Chain), is being held in a detention center on an unspecified charge.

Hatsura-Yavorskaya was detained on April 6 after police searched her home and office, saying that the searches were conducted as part of an investigation into "financing mass disorders."

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.

The activist's husband, Uladzimer Yavorski, told RFE/RL late on April 8 that a court in Minsk earlier in the day had fined his wife for "disobedience to police," but that they did not immediately release her afterward.

"[After the hearing] we waited for her near the detention center. But in the end, her lawyer told us that Tatsyana will remain in custody as she had a different status. She had been detained on a criminal charge. We do not know what exactly the charge is at this point," Yavorski said.

A day before Hatsura-Yavorskaya's detainment, two of her associates, Natallya Trenina and Yulia Syamenchanka, were also detained after their homes were searched.

Trenina and Syamenchanka helped Hatsura-Yavorskaya organize an exhibition in Minsk devoted to physicians assisting COVID-19 patients called The Gadget Is Breathing, But I Am Not.

Hatsura-Yavorskaya, a mother of four, is known for initiating several cultural events, including WATCH DOCS, an international festival of documentaries about human rights that has been held each year since 2015.

She and her associates were arrested amid an ongoing crackdown directed by authoritarian ruler Alyaksandr Lukashenka to quell demonstrations sparked by the official results of a presidential election last August that handed Lukashenka a sixth term in office.

Opposition figures say the election was rigged. Many countries and groups, including the United States and the European Union, have refused to recognize Lukashenka as the leader of Belarus. They have also imposed sanctions on him and several senior Belarusian officials over the crackdown.

Prosecutors in the Kyrgyz capital, Bishkek, have launched a criminal investigation into possible official negligence in the case of a suspected murder-suicide that has mobilized public anger over the ongoing practice of "bride kidnapping."

Relatives of the victim, 27-year-old Aizada Kanatbekova, have described a casually dismissive approach by an investigator at a crucial junction as the tragedy unfolded when Kanatbekova was still alive and able to call them a half-day after the abduction.

The bodies of Kanatbekova and the man who is thought to have abducted her along with accomplices in broad daylight in the capital were found in the getaway car on April 7, two days after the kidnapping.

An investigation oversight agency said on its website late on April 8 that the negligence investigation was handed over to the local office of the Kyrgyz State Committee for National Security (UKMK).

SEE ALSO:

Kyrgyz App Aims To Educate On The Evils Of Bride Kidnapping

The tragedy sparked protests in several cities and calls for dismissals, including that of Interior Minister Ulan Niyazbekov.

After lawmakers demanded on April 8 that Niyazbekov report on the case, the minister said he bears "moral responsibility" for what happened to Kanatbekova.

Bishkek Police Chief Bakyt Matmusaev publicly apologized on behalf of the force for the young woman's death.

Investigators believe 36-year-old Zamirbek Tengizbaev strangled Kanatbekova with a shirt and then committed suicide by cutting a vein.

They also have said that Tengizbaev had three previous criminal convictions in Russia.

Four people have been detained on suspicion of helping abduct Kanatbekova on the street on April 5, an event that was caught by surveillance cameras that also showed passersby failing to help stop the kidnapping.

Kanatbekova's mother, Nazgul Shakenova, and an aunt told RFE/RL's Kyrgyz Service that Kanatbekova phoned them separately almost 12 hours after her abduction.

She told them that her kidnapper, who initially intended to take her to the southern city of Osh, had agreed to release her and that they were on their way back to Bishkek.

The women said they immediately called the investigator assigned to the case -- identified as "Olarbek" -- in hopes that the calls could help locate Kanatbekova, but that the officer responded dismissively.

"Olarbek said: 'Don't worry too much. Everything is OK. You'll celebrate a wedding party soon," the aunt, Baktygul Shakenova, said. “I shouted at him, saying, 'What you are talking about?' A decent person cannot snatch a girl and keep her incommunicado for hours!"

Fluent in four languages, Kanatbekova was an only daughter and a graduate of the Kyrgyz-Turkish Manas University in Bishkek.

Kyrgyzstan sees thousands of bride kidnappings each year despite criminalization of the practice in 2013.

The UN Development Program and rights groups have highlighted the ongoing prevalence in Kyrgyz society of the practice, which they say often leads to marital rape, domestic violence, and other ills.

One of the most notorious cases involved the stabbing death in 2018 of 20-year-old university student Burulai Turdaaly Kyzy by a man who was trying to force her into marriage.

In a statement on April 9, Syinat Sultanalieva, Central Asia researcher at Human Rights Watch urged the Kyrgyz authorities to “enforce existing laws and hold perpetrators [of Kanatbekova’s abduction] accountable.”

The authorities should also punish the officers responsible for the “flawed response” to the kidnapping.

“Otherwise, women and girls, like Burulai and Aizada, will continue to die, as police laugh on,” Sultanalieva said.

A Russian spacecraft carrying two Russians and an American has docked with the International Space Station (ISS) after a flight honoring the anniversary of Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin becoming the first human to reach space 60 years ago next week.

Roscosmos cosmonauts Oleg Novitsky and Pyotr Dubrov and NASA astronaut Mark T Vande Hei blasted off aboard the Soyuz MS-18 spacecraft from the Russia-leased Baikonur launch facility in Kazakhstan.

The capsule docked at the ISS after a journey that lasted just over three hours.

Four Americans, two Russians, and a Japanese national are currently manning the orbiting laboratory.

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Three of them being relieved by the incoming trio will return to Earth in about a week's time.

The next planned mission to the ISS is a rocket owned by the private U.S. company SpaceX that is scheduled to set out late this month for the ISS from Florida.

The latest launch came three days ahead of the anniversary of Gagarin's historic flight on April 12, 1961. The Soyuz MS-18 spacecraft that carried the trio was named after the legendary cosmonaut.

Gagarin orbited the Earth once after taking off from the same Kazakh facility at the height of the U.S.-Soviet space race.

Russia's government this month extended a space cooperation agreement with the United States until 2030, one of the few remaining partnerships between Moscow and Washington amid frosty relations.

Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin approved and signed the extension on April 3.

The original cooperation agreement, signed in 1992 and extended four times previously, laid the groundwork for wide-ranging, space-related projects and research between NASA and Roskosmos.

Based on reporting by AFP, dpa, and Reuters

Iran has released a South Korean oil tanker it seized three months ago amid a dispute over billions of dollars in funds frozen due to U.S. sanctions.

South Korea’s Foreign Ministry said in an April 9 statement that the Hankuk Chemi and its captain had been released and that the vessel left an Iranian port near Bandar Abbas. Twelve of the crew who had previously been released stayed on the ship for maintenance while it was impounded.

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) seized the Hankuk Chemi on January 4 near the Strait of Hormuz. At the time of its seizure, Iran said the vessel was leaking oil in violation of environmental laws.

The move was widely considered a response to around $7 billion frozen in Iranian bank accounts in South Korea, although Tehran officially denied its actions had anything to do with the money.

The United States reimposed sanctions on Iran in 2018 after former President Donald Trump withdrew Washington from the 2015 nuclear deal between Tehran and world powers.

South Korea was a major buyer of Iranian oil until Washington ended a sanctions waiver on the Asian economy’s imports of Iranian oil in 2019. That left the Iranian funds sitting frozen in two South Korean banks.

South Korea’s Foreign Ministry made no mention of any deal or the funds.

An Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman said that the South Korean prime minister would visit Iran on April 11-12 to discuss bilateral issues, including "access to Iranian frozen assets" in South Korea.

In February, the two sides agreed to speed the way forward for Iran to receive its money pending U.S. approval. Iran has said it needs the money so it can purchase medicine, medical equipment, and COVID-19 vaccines.

The development comes as negotiators from Iran and world powers have been meeting in Vienna to overcome an impasse over U.S. sanctions on Iran and Iranian breaches of the nuclear agreement.

With reporting by AFP, AP, Reuters, and Yonhap

Russia will likely remain a “disruptive power” for the next two decades, but its global influence may decline in the face of numerous political, economic, and societal headwinds, according to a U.S. intelligence report released on April 8.

The report by the U.S. National Intelligence Council, which is produced every four years, provides a wide-ranging overview of global trends and potential scenarios that likely will shape the U.S. national-security environment in the next 20 years.

“In the coming years and decades, the world will face more intense and cascading global challenges ranging from disease to climate change to disruptions from new technologies and financial crises,” said the report, titled Global Trends 2040: A More Contested World.

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Regional powers and nonstate actors may exert greater influence, with the likely result "a more conflict-prone and volatile geopolitical environment" and weakened international cooperation, it said.

On Russia, top U.S. intelligence analysts described the country as a “rising and revisionist” power alongside China, keen on reshaping an international order dominated by Western institutions and norms to fit Moscow’s desire for traditional values, noninterference in its internal affairs, and a “Russian-dominated protectorate covering much of Eurasia.”

“Russia is likely to remain a disruptive power for much or all of the next two decades even as its material capabilities decline relative to other major players,” the report states. “Russia’s advantages, including a sizable conventional military, weapons of mass destruction, energy and mineral resources, an expansive geography, demographics, and a willingness to use force overseas, will enable it to continue playing the role of spoiler and power broker in the post-Soviet space, and at times farther afield.”

The report suggests Russia will continue to use information warfare to amplify divisions in the West, aiming to “engender cynicism among foreign audiences, diminish trust in institutions, promote conspiracy theories, and drive wedges in societies.”

Meanwhile, Russia is likely to expand relationships in Africa, the Middle East, and elsewhere. Moscow is also looking to increase its economic and military footprint in the Arctic, taking advantage of global warming’s impact on the vast northern region.

Despite some of Russia’s political and military advantages, U.S. intelligence analysts assessed the country “may struggle to project and maintain influence globally” due to a poor investment climate, stagnating workforce, a reliance on commodities with volatile prices, and a small economy projected to be only about 2 percent of global gross domestic product (GDP) for the next two decades.

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“Similarly, a decrease in Europe’s energy dependence on Russia, either through renewables or diversifying to other gas suppliers, would undercut the Kremlin’s revenue generation and overall capacity, especially if those decreases could not be offset with exports to customers in Asia,” the report said.

On the domestic political front, the next two decades in Russia will be determined by President Vladimir Putin's exit from power, either at the end of his current term in 2024 or later.

The departure of the 68-year-old ruler “could more quickly erode Russia’s geopolitical position, especially if internal instability ensues,” the report said, suggesting possible post-Putin elite infighting.

While China and Russia share a common competitor in the United States and other Western democracies, U.S. intelligence said Moscow and Beijing are likely to “shun formal alliances” with each other and other countries in favor of transactional relationships.

Such a flexible approach will allow the two countries to “exert influence and selectively employ economic and military coercion while avoiding mutual security entanglements.”

As long as Chinese President Xi Jinping and Putin remain in power, Beijing and Moscow are likely to remain “strongly aligned.”

“But disagreements over the Arctic and parts of Central Asia may increase friction as power disparities widen in coming years,” the report said.

A senior U.S. State Department official has said it is time for Ukraine to tackle corruption and weak institutions, including going after Dmytro Firtash, whose natural-gas holdings have made him one of the country's most notorious, and powerful, oligarchs.

The April 8 comments by George Kent, the deputy U.S. assistant secretary of state who oversees Ukraine, come as President Joe Biden makes Kyiv's progress on reforms a greater priority in the bilateral relationship.

Speaking at a meeting of the U.S.-Ukraine Business Council, Kent said graft and a weak judiciary made up an "internal threat" in Ukraine, and he compared it with the external threat Kyiv faced from Russia.

Russia has massed a substantial number of forces on its border with Ukraine, and moved others into the occupied peninsula of Crimea. That has raised alarms among Western observers who fear an escalation of the seven-year conflict in eastern Ukraine.

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Kent said that seven years after Ukrainian citizens drove from power the corrupt administration of President Viktor Yanukovych, the judiciary system remained "flawed," while oligarchs continue to call the shots.

"The time has now come...to start making the tough decisions to rein in the influence of oligarchs and the systemic corruption," Kent said.

In his speech, Kent highlighted Firtash, a tycoon who made his initial wealth trading Russian natural gas in the 1990s, as an example of Ukraine's flawed justice system.

Firtash became the official partner of Russian state-controlled gas giant Gazprom in trading firm RosUkrEnergo, the monopoly importer of natural gas to Ukraine during the late 2000s. He made hundreds of millions of dollars during the short lifespan of RosUkrEnergo, which analysts called an unnecessary middleman.

U.S. officials have also alleged thatFirtash has ties to Russian organized crime.

"Everyone knows that he started out as the front for Russian gas interests," Kent said.

In March 2014, U.S. prosecutors unsealed an indictment charging Firtash with corruption in connection with an Indian titanium project that the U.S. aerospace giant Boeing was studying.

U.S. officials have sought Firtash's extradition from Vienna since then. He has denied the charges, saying they are politically motivated.

Ukraine has never charged Firtash with a crime. He continues to make millions of dollars a year in the country's graft-ridden energy industry through his control of gas-distribution companies.

"Why is it that it is the U.S. who indicts and goes after corrupt Ukrainians?" Kent said.

"It's time for the Ukrainian leadership and the justice system -- rather than not making decisions against corrupt oligarchs -- to use Ukrainian institutions to go after corrupt Ukrainians and hold them to account," he said.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has recently made moves against other powerful business interests, including imposing sanctions on Viktor Medvedchuk, a tycoon close to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Zelenskiy's administration has also gone after former officials at PrivatBank, the lender once owned by tycoon Ihor Kolomoyskiy, who is considered to be one of Zelenskiy's main benefactors.

Kolomoyskiy is under criminal investigation in the United States for money laundering. The Justice Department is seeking to seize three U.S. office buildings he allegedly bought with laundered money.

Kolomoyskiy denies the allegations.

But Firtash, unlike Kolomoyskiy, has so far avoided official pressure from the Zelenskiy government.

Firtash has also had a part to play in the political drama surrounding the final years of President Donald Trump.

According to U.S. court filings, in September 2019, Firtash allegedly wired $1 million to the American wife of a Soviet-born businessman named Lev Parnas. Parnas is a former donor to Trump and an associate of Rudy Giuliani, Trump's personal lawyer.

According to Parnas, and other legal filings, Firtash allegedly provided key documents that Giuliani used to further a discredited claim that Biden engaged in wrongdoing in Ukraine. That claim was a key point of Trump's losing 2020 election fight against Biden.

Parnas has said that in exchange for Firtash's help in the effort to damage Biden, he told Firtash they would make his U.S. legal troubles disappear.

In his speech, Kent also appeared to back a recent move by Zelenskiy to fire two judges from the country's Constitutional Court.

Zelenskiy's decision sparked concern in the West he was reaching beyond his powers and interfering with the independence of the judiciary.

Kent said the integrity of institutions was just as important, adding that corrupt judges lead to "corrupt independent institutions."

The two judges were believed to be beholden to oligarchic interests and blocking critical reforms necessary to put Ukraine on the path toward European integration, Ukrainian anti-corruption advocates claim.

In response to a question on whether the West was failing to stop the flow of corrupt Ukrainian money into its banking system, Kent said recent Justice Department actions against Kolomoyskiy showed the United States is taking a tougher stand on the issue.

As for the external threat, Kent reiterated the Biden administration's stance that the Russian military buildup near Ukraine "is worrisome." He also commended Kyiv for its "restrained and responsible" response to those actions.

Bulgarian officials have announced they are easing restrictions on businesses and other commercial activity, citing improving numbers of COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations.

The Ministry of Health said in guidance published on April 8 that schools and universities would open next week, along with shopping malls, while restaurants will be able to accommodate indoor dining.

As of April 12, the youngest elementary-school grades will return, along with middle- and some high-school grades. Later classes will be allowed if case loads remain low.

Education Minister Krassimir Valchev said that as many as 26 percent of classroom teachers had been vaccinated.

Bulgaria has reported more than 364,000 coronavirus cases and over 14,000 COVID-19-related deaths as of April 8.

Azerbaijan has launched two days of joint military exercises with Turkish forces, saying the drills were aimed at "improving interaction" between the two countries' armed forces.

The exercises, announced on April 8, came almost five months after Azerbaijan fought a brief, but successful, war with Armenian forces over the breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh region.

The mountainous enclave is internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan but had been controlled by ethnic Armenians since the early 1990s.

The Azerbaijani Defense Ministry said in a statement that the drills were aimed at "developing the military decision-making, initiative, and management skills of operational unit commanders."

No further details were given.

Turkey's military command had no comment.

Azerbaijan's battlefield successes in and around Nagorno-Karabakh last fall were in no small part due to the active involvement of the Turkish military, which sent observers and advisers, and helped arm its historic ally with sophisticated aerial drones that pummeled Armenian forces.

The six-week war concluded in November with a Russian-brokered cease-fire, under which a chunk of the region and all seven districts around it were placed under Azerbaijani administration after almost 30 years of control by ethnic Armenian forces.

It also resulted in the deployment of around 2,000 Russian peacekeepers.

More than 6,000 people died in the fighting.

The region's final status remains unresolved.

Iranian authorities say COVID-19 cases have surpassed 2 million, with a new daily record of more than 22,000 infections, following the Persian New Year holiday.

"Unfortunately, with 118 new fatalities since yesterday, we have recorded a total of 63,884 coronavirus deaths," Health Ministry spokeswoman Sima Sadat Lari told state television on April 8, adding that the number of infected people had reached 2,006,934 with 22,586 new cases.

Some critics say they believe the government has suppressed reporting and that the actual numbers are much higher.

RFE/RL's Coronavirus Coverage

Features and analysis, videos, and infographics explore how the COVID-19 pandemic is affecting the countries in our region.

Iran is battling the Middle East's deadliest coronavirus outbreak, and officials have blamed the latest surge on trips made by millions of Iranians during the Norouz holiday, which ran for two weeks from March 20, despite health guidelines warning them not to travel.

Last year, officials enacted tight restrictions on gatherings and the movement of people across the country during the Persian New Year.

Iran has avoided imposing a full lockdown on its population of 82 million since the pandemic started more than a year ago, resorting instead to temporary bans on travel or businesses.

The country launched its vaccination drive in February.

With reporting by AFP and Reuters

TOMSK, Russia -- The former mayor of the Siberian city of Tomsk, Ivan Klyain, has rejected charges of abuse of office and illegal business activities at the start of his trial.

Klyain stated in the courtroom on April 8 that he's not guilty of any of the charges and described allegations by investigators and prosecutors as attempts to put "pressure" on him.

Klyain was arrested in November 2020 with investigators saying at the time that he was suspected of using his post to illegally prevent the construction of a building in 2016-17 on land close to the Tomsk Beer company, which he controls.

The 61-year-old Klyain has served as the mayor of Tomsk since 2013. Before being appointed to the post, he had been the general director of the Tomsk Beer company -- one of the largest breweries in the region -- since 1994.

After becoming mayor, his wife was elected by Tomsk Beer's board of directors as the facility's general director.

In 2013, the Kommersant newspaper wrote that Klyain owned 51 percent of Tomsk Beer, while his spouse and daughters owned 20 percent of the company's shares.

For several years, Klyain declared one of the highest incomes among Russian mayors, according to Moskovsky Komsomolets.

With reporting by TV2

TBILISI – The jailed leader of Georgia's main opposition force has gone on trial in a case that has deepened a protracted postelection political crisis in the South Caucasus country.

Nika Melia's trial opened in Tbilisi on April 8 at a hearing held behind closed doors due to pandemic measures, with hundreds of his supporters gathered outside the courtroom.

A judge granted the defense team's request to lift a ban on the chairman of the United National Movement (ENM) attending the trial, and set the next hearing for April 13.

Melia is accused of organizing "mass violence" during 2019 anti-government protests, and he could face nine years behind bars if convicted.

The 41-year-old politician rejects the charge as politically motivated, which the ruling Georgian Dream party denies.

Georgia has been in the grip of a crisis since parliamentary elections in October, with opposition parties refusing to enter the new parliament to protest what they call the rigging of the vote.

The crisis deepened in February, when a court ordered Melia sent to pretrial detention after he refused to pay an increased bail fee.

Melia's arrest, along with several opposition activists, has sparked mass anti-government protests in Tbilisi demanding their release and snap parliamentary elections.

Two rounds of EU-mediated talks in March between the government and the opposition aimed at de-escalating tensions have failed to produce any breakthrough.

With reporting by AFP

The backer of Russia's Sputnik V vaccine has demanded that Slovakia return thousands of doses after the country's drug regulator said the doses received differed from those being reviewed by the European Union's drug overseer.

The back-and-forth between Bratislava and Moscow on April 8 added further confusion to the ongoing effort to get the Russian vaccine distributed and into people's arms across Europe.

Slovakia, along with Hungary, turned to the Russian vaccine even though it has not been cleared by the European Medicines Agency (EMA). Several other EU member states are actively considering it.

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Slovakia, which received 200,000 batches of Sputnik V last month, has recorded more than 368,000 coronavirus cases and nearly 10,300 COVID-19-related deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University.

The Slovak State Institute for Drug Control said on April 7 that there were lingering questions about the efficacy and risks of the Russian vaccine, due mainly to inadequate data from the producer, and that was preventing doses from being rolled out across the country.

On April 8, the institute also said the Sputnik V doses it was examining were not the same as those being reviewed by the EMA, or apparently those that were reviewed in the British medical journal The Lancet.

"Batches of the vaccine used in preclinical tests and clinical studies published in The Lancet journal do not have the same characteristics and properties as batches of vaccine imported to Slovakia," it said a statement.

RFE/RL's Coronavirus Coverage

Features and analysis, videos, and infographics explore how the COVID-19 pandemic is affecting the countries in our region.

Reuters earlier quoted the institute as saying that an official report was sent to Moscow on March 30, in which the regulator cited "an amount of missing data from the producer, inconsistency of dosage forms, and [the] impossibility of mutually comparing batches used in various studies and countries."

Later on April 8, the Russia Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), the sovereign wealth fund that has been the primary promoter of Sputnik V outside of Russia, said it had asked Slovakia to return the doses.

The fund also requested that a batch be sent to a specially certified laboratory for further checks, and in a series of posts to the vaccine's official Twitter account, it accused the Slovak institute of "an act of sabotage" and a "disinformation campaign."

"Unfortunately, in violation of existing contract and in an act of sabotage the State Institute of Drug Control ensured that Sputnik V was tested" at an unauthorized laboratory, the vaccine backers said in one post.

RDIF chief Kirill Dmitriyev, meanwhile, met in Moscow with Slovak Deputy Prime Minister Igor Matovic, who last week was forced to step down as prime minister amid reports of a secret deal to procure 2 million doses of the Russian vaccine.

Afterward, Matovic blasted his opponents in Slovakia on his official Facebook page.

"CONGRATULATIONS, YOU IDIOTS! You have taken the health of millions of people in Slovakia hostage!" he wrote.

The EMA is reviewing data from Russia before it decides whether to authorize the vaccine's use in the EU. The agency has raised questions about possible ethical problems during Sputnik V's clinical trials.

Russian backers of the vaccine, which was registered to great Kremlin fanfare in August despite concerns about underlying data and unfinished clinical trials, insist the issues should not stand in the way of a rollout.

In the Czech Republic, Prime Minister Andrej Babis on April 7 announced the dismissal of a health minister who was reportedly resisting pressure -- including public complaints by President Milos Zeman -- to order Sputnik V.

The German state of Bavaria recently announced an agreement to buy 2.5 million doses of Sputnik V pending approval by European regulators.

The Twitter account for Sputnik V later said the RDIF had begun negotiations with the German government "on the advance purchase agreement" of the vaccine.

There was no immediate confirmation of the announcement from the German government.

Last week, Chancellor Angela Merkel spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin by phone, with the registration of Sputnik V vaccines, the possibility of its shipments, and joint production in EU nations being among the topics discussed, according to readouts from Berlin and Moscow.

Russia's own campaign to vaccinate its population with Sputnik V is going unexpectedly slowly, with many Russians resisting calls to get vaccinated, citing government distrust.

With reporting by AFP and Reuters

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has visited the volatile eastern part of the country as rising tensions with Russia over the conflict moved closer to the boiling point.

Zelenskiy's "working trip" on April 8 saw the president meet with Ukrainian servicemen serving on the front lines separating them from Russia-backed fighters and comes after a recent accumulation of photographs, video, and other data suggesting major movements of Russian armed units toward or near Ukraine's borders and into Crimea.

As Zelenskiy toured the area, German Chancellor Angela Merkel urged President Vladimir Putin in a phone call to reduce Russia's troop buildup near Ukraine, while Putin in turn accused Kyiv of "provocative actions."

Meanwhile, the White House said it was "increasingly concerned by recent escalating Russian aggressions in eastern Ukraine, including Russian troop movements on Ukraine's border."

"Russia now has more troops on the border with Ukraine than at any time since 2014," when the conflict started, spokeswoman Jen Psaki said. "Five Ukrainian soldiers have been killed this week alone. These are all deeply concerning signs."

In Moscow, the deputy head of Russia's presidential administration, Dmitry Kozak, took the situation a step further, warning that major military hostilities could mark "the beginning of the end of Ukraine."

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Russia annexed Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula in March 2014, sending in troops and staging a referendum denounced as illegitimate by at least 100 countries after Moscow-friendly Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych was ousted amid a wave of public protests.

Since then, overwhelming evidence suggests Russia has continued to lend diplomatic and military aid to armed separatists fighting in the eastern Ukrainian region known as the Donbas.

Despite multiple cease-fire agreements, the violence has never really ended with more than 13,000 people killed since April 2014, according to the United Nations, and more than 1 million displaced.

Images released by Zelenskiy's office showed the 43-year-old president in the trenches clad in a helmet and bulletproof vest, handing out awards to soldiers and shaking their hands.

Zelenskiy visited positions where "the largest number of violations" hadtaken place, thanking the soldiers "for defending our land," his office said.

Moscow has called the recent troop movements defensive and says it has no plans to intervene in the conflict, which has seen both sides blame each other for recent violations of a cease-fire agreement.

But when asked whether Moscow would protect Russian citizens in eastern Ukraine, Kozak said on April 8, "It all depends on the scale of the fire."

Western countries have called for restraint after Ukraine raised the alarm over the buildup of Russian forces near the Ukrainian border with Russia. Violence has risen along the line of contact between government forces and separatists in Ukraine's east.

The West is already dealing with the Kremlin on several different fronts, including the poisoning and jailing of opposition figure Aleksei Navalny, Russia's Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, and other thorny issues, including Crimea.

Merkel's call on April 8 for a "reduction of these troops reinforcements to de-escalate tensions" came two days after NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg called on Zelenskiy "to express serious concern about Russia's military activities in and around Ukraine and ongoing cease-fire violations."

Zelenskiy reportedly told Stoltenberg that a path toward NATO membership was the only way to end war in eastern Ukraine.

He also urged NATO member states to strengthen their military presence in the Black Sea region as a "powerful deterrent" to Moscow.

With reporting by Reuters, TASS, Interfax, and AFP