Iranian President-elect Ebrahim Raisi has said the rapid expansion of the COVID-19 vaccination program will be among his government's top priorities in order to get the country's economy moving again.

"The quickest general vaccination…will be among our immediate programs from the first day of the government," Raisi said in nationally televised live remarks from the northeastern city of Mashhad on June 22.

Raisi said the program will use both domestically and foreign-produced vaccines "so that people will feel at ease and the economy will flourish."

Iran is producing three vaccines domestically, including Russia’s Sputnik V and a new vaccine being developed jointly with Cuba.

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Iran Approves Emergency Use Of Domestic COVID Vaccine

Additionally, this week Iranians began receiving shots of the COVIran Barakat vaccine, which was developed by an Iranian state corporation. Iranian state media said more than one million doses of Barakat have already been produced.

The coronavirus pandemic has killed more than 82,000 people in Iran, with over 3 million infected, according to official figures widely seen as understating the toll.

The government of outgoing President Hassan Rohani has been criticized for being slow to roll out vaccines and has said its efforts were hampered by purchasing difficulties caused by U.S. sanctions.

Raisi, who was elected president on June 19, will take office in August.

Based on reporting by Reuters and Press TV

MOSCOW -- A Moscow district court has postponed until June 25 the hearing of a suit by imprisoned opposition leader Aleksei Navalny asking the court to rescind a decision by prison officials designating him as a "flight risk."

The Preobrazhensky District Court on June 22 granted a request by Navalny’s lawyers for additional time to study some case materials. Navalny participated in the hearing by videolink from prison in the Vladimir region.

Navalny is asking the court to invalidate the flight-risk designation imposed by officials at the Moscow remand prison where he was being held early this year during his trial on charges of violating the terms of his suspended sentence. In February, Navalny was sentenced to 2 1/2 years in prison on the charges, which he says were trumped up to block his political activity.

Earlier, Navalny filed a similar suit against the Vladimir-region prison where he is serving his sentence, but that case was rejected.

Because of the flight-risk designation, guards must ascertain each hour during the night that Navalny is in his cell.

During the earlier trial, Navalny argued that the hourly checks "effectively amount to torture."

"I just want them to stop coming to me and waking me up at night," he told the court.

Navalny was arrested in Moscow on January 17 upon his return from Germany, where he underwent months of medical treatment to recover from an August nerve-agent poisoning that he and his supporters say was ordered by President Vladimir Putin.

With reporting by TASS

Russian President Vladimir Putin has marked the 80th anniversary of the Nazi invasion of the U.S.S.R. by hailing the sacrifices made by the Soviets during the war while claiming that European security has been "dramatically degraded" amid "escalating tensions."

Russia's relations with the West have been at their lowest point since the end of the Cold War after Moscow's annexation of Ukraine's Crimea in 2014.

Russia, the successor state of the U.S.S.R., has also been anxious about NATO's expansion eastward after the collapse of the communist system in Eastern Europe in the late 1980s and early 1990s, considering it a threat to its security.

"The day of June 22 continues to raise indignation and sorrow in the hearts of all generations, causing pain for the destroyed fates of millions of people, because what they went through in those terrible years was literally imprinted in our memories," Putin said after laying flowers at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at the Kremlin wall.

Despite having signed a nonaggression pact with Moscow, Nazi Germany launched a surprise attack against the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941.

• Amos Chapple

Nazi Germany led the largest-ever ground invasion force in an attack on the Soviet Union in 1941 that unleashed a brutal conflict that cost the lives of millions of people.

Over the next four years, the U.S.S.R., in alliance with the Western powers, managed to repel the Germans and eventually emerge victorious in World War II despite losing 27 million people during the whole conflict.

"Russia supports the idea of reviving a full-fledged partnership with Europe... The whole system of European security has dramatically degraded. Tension is being escalated, the risks of a new arms race are becoming real," Putin said.

Putin also reiterated his previous statements, saying that his country "will never allow the distortion of the truth" about the World War II.

In recent years, Putin frequently accused European countries of what he called the diminishing of the role of the Soviet Union in the defeat of Nazi Germany and the stressing of atrocities committed by Soviet forces, like the mass murder of Polish officers in the Katyn Forest in 1940 or the mass rapes of German women.

In an article published on June 22 in the German weekly Die Zeit, Putin emphasized that "despite attempts to rewrite the pages of the past that are being made today, the truth is that Soviet soldiers came to Germany not to take revenge on the Germans, but with a noble and great mission of liberation."

Western historians say the 1939 nonaggression pact between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany facilitated the outbreak of World War II, which Russian officials vehemently disagree with.

In 2019, the world commemorated the 80th anniversary of the Nazi-Soviet nonaggression agreement known as the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact whose secret protocol allowed the division of Central and Eastern Europe between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union.

After the Nazis triggered World War II by invading Poland on September 1, 1939, the Soviets occupied the eastern part of the country, eventually massacring more than 20,000 Polish officers that they had taken prisoner at Katyn.

The Nazis ultimately betrayed the pact with their surprise invasion of the Soviet Union 80 years ago.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel called Putin on June 22 to "express empathy with the unmeasurable woes and suffering brought by the war that was launched by the Nazi regime," the Kremlin said.

"Both parties underlined the importance of preserving the historic memory of those tragic events" and noted that "overcoming mutual enmity and reconciliation of the Russian and German peoples had key importance for the destinies of postwar Europe," the Kremlin added.

"It was emphasized that preserving security on the continent now is also possible only through joint efforts."

With reporting by AP, TASS, and Interfax

The U.S. Justice Department has charged five individuals, including a Russian citizen, with conspiring to illegally export defense articles to Russia in violation of the Arms Export Control Act.

In its June 21 statement, the department said that Elena Shifrin, 59, of Mundelein, Illinois, and Vladimir Pridacha, 55, of Volo, Illinois, were arrested last week for their roles in a nearly four-year scheme in which the defendants purchased dozens of thermal imaging scopes and night-vision goggles, most of which cost between $5,000 and $10,000 and are controlled by the International Traffic in Arms Regulations, from sellers across the United States.

"The other three defendants named in the indictment are: Boris Polosin, 45, of Russia; Vladimir Gohman, 52, of Israel; and Igor Panchernikov, 39, an Israeli national who, during much of the scheme, resided in Corona, California," the statement says.

The five, who did not have export licenses, are suspected of obtaining many of the items in question using aliases, mailing the items to co-conspirators in Russia along with non-export-control items, using aliases and false addresses to conceal their activities.

According to the statement, the suspects also falsely stated on export declarations that the contents of their exports were non-export-controlled items with values of less than $2,500.

The suspects face up to 20 years in federal prison if convicted.

The indictment also accuses the five suspects of conspiring to smuggle thermal imaging devices from the United States and file false export information to conceal their activities, which carries a statutory maximum penalty of five years in prison.

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has ordered Russia to pay almost two million euros ($2.4 million) to the relatives of 11 people who went missing in Chechnya in 2005 during a special operation by the Vostok (East) military unit.

The ECHR ruled on June 22 that Russia violated several articles of the European Convention on Human Rights, including the right to life, when, according to witnesses, the military unit in question killed an elderly man in the town of Borozdinovskaya in Chechnya in October 2005 and abducted 11 local residents, mainly ethnic Avars, whose whereabouts have been unknown since then.

The majority of the Vostok unit's members were ethnic Chechens.

Commanders of the Vostok unit have rejected all the accusations, while Russia has investigated the situation separately.

In October 2005, a commander of the unit, Mukhadi Aziyev, was handed a suspended sentence after a court found him guilty of abuse of power.

Kremlin critics say Russian President Vladimir Putin has turned a blind eye to the alleged abuses and violations of the Russian Constitution by Chechnya's authoritarian ruler Ramzan Kadyrov because he relies on the former rebel commander to control separatist sentiment and violence in Chechnya, the site of two devastating post-Soviet wars and an Islamist insurgency that spread to other mostly Muslim regions in the North Caucasus.

Rights groups say Kadyrov uses repressive measures and has created a climate of impunity for security forces in the region.

They allege he is ultimately responsible for the violence and intimidation of political opponents by Chechen authorities, including kidnappings, forced disappearances, torture, and extrajudicial killings.

ECHR rulings are binding on members, including Russia, which ratified the European Convention on Human Rights in 1998, and is one of 47 member states in the Council of Europe, which monitors compliance with the convention.

But Russia has often taken issue with rulings against it, and in 2015 adopted a law allowing it to overrule judgements from the ECHR.

The government of Russia's Siberian region of Krasnoyarsk has lifted the state of emergency in the Arctic city of Norilsk that was imposed in late May last year following a massive diesel spill.

The regional government's press service said on June 22 that the decision was made after "three major phases on the localization and liquidation of the spill were completed."

"Work continues on processing the contaminated soil and sorbent agents and the restoration of lands and water bodies in the area," the statement said.

In May 2020, more than 21,000 tons of diesel leaked into the environment from a tank of a thermal power plant that belongs to a subsidiary of Russian metallurgical giant Norilsk Nickel (Nornickel), owned by Russia's richest man, Vladimir Potanin.

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Melting Down: Climate Change May Prove A Major Problem For Russia's Arctic Infrastructure

The spill sparked an outcry and led to Norilsk Mayor Rinat Akhmetchin being fired and sentenced to six months of correctional work for negligence in October.

In the wake of the disaster, President Vladimir Putin ordered a state of emergency after the extent of the spill became known.

In March this year, Nornickel said it had fully paid off more than 146 billion rubles (almost $2 billion) in damages for the spill.

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Russian Metallurgical Giant Ordered To Pay Record $1.9 Billion For Devastating Fuel Spill

Also in March, the chief of Russia's Federal Penitentiary System (FSIN), Aleksandr Kalashnikov, said convicts may be used to help clean the contaminated zone near Norilsk.

The use of inmate labor in major state projects used to be a regular practice in the former Soviet Union.

Based on reporting by TASS and Interfax

The European Union says seven non-aligned European states have agreed to deny permission to any aircraft operated by Belarusian air carriers to land in, take off from, or overfly their territories following Minsk's forced diversion of a passenger flight last month that allowed for the arrest of a dissident journalist.

EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said in a statement on June 21 that four EU candidate countries in the Western Balkans -- Albania, Montenegro, North Macedonia, and Serbia -- along with Iceland, Liechtenstein, and Norway will "align themselves" with a June 4 decision by the 27-member states to strengthen the bloc's existing restrictive measures against Belarus by introducing a ban on Belarusian carriers from overflying EU airspaces and from accessing to EU airports.

"They will ensure that their national policies conform to this Council Decision. The European Union takes note of this commitment and welcomes it," Borrell said.

On May 23, Belarusian authorities scrambled a military jet to direct a Ryanair flight over its airspace to land in Minsk in what many countries regard as a "state hijacking." After the plane landed, law enforcement immediately arrested opposition blogger Raman Pratasevich and his Russian girlfriend.

Borrell’s announcement came on the same day as the EU, the United States, Britain, and Canada slapped a fresh round of coordinated sanctions on Belarus in response to the regime of Alyaksandr Lukashenka's mounting repression against the political opposition and the free media.

SEE ALSO:

Western Allies Slap Fresh Sanctions On Belarus

The sanctions included asset freezes and visa bans imposed against dozens of officials, lawmakers, and ministers from Lukashenka's administration and his family members, as well as Belarusian entities.

EU foreign ministers agreed to sanction key sectors of the Belarusian economy and major revenue sources for the regime: potash fertilizer exports, the tobacco industry, petroleum, and petrochemical products.

Minsk said on June 22 that the sanctions would negatively impact the interests of Belarusian citizens and warned that it would be forced to take reciprocal measures.

The EU "continues purposeful destructive actions against the population in order, allegedly, to 'dry up the regime financially.' In fact, this borders on a declaration of economic war," the Belarusian Foreign Ministry said.

Borrell has said that the economic sanctions should be confirmed after a summit of the bloc's leaders in Brussels later this week.

Previous rounds of Western sanctions also hit individual institutions and Lukashenka's inner circle over the brutal crackdown on the opposition by the Belarusian authorities in the wake of a disputed election last August.

The EU, the United States, and other countries refuse to recognize the official results of last summer’s election and do not consider Lukashenka to be the country's legitimate leader.

With reporting by RFE/RL’s Belarusian Service

DUSHANBE -- An imam at a Dushanbe mosque, who was arrested in April on extremism charges after he called a late Islamic cleric "one of the great leaders of the country," has been released from custody.

A police official in the city of Vahdat near Dushanbe told RFE/RL on June 21 that Abdulhaq Obidov (aka Makhsumi Abdulhaq) had been released. Two men arrested along with the cleric, Aziz Turkov and Ahmadkhoja Tabarov, were also let go.

According to the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity as he was not authorized to talk to journalists, Obidov was relieved of his imam duties. It was not clear whether the charges against Obidov were dropped.

Tajik authorities said in April that Obidov was arrested on suspicion of being a follower of the Salafi branch of Islam that is labeled as extremist and banned in the Central Asian nation.

Media reports at the time said that Obidov was detained several days after delivering a speech at the burial ceremony of a well-known Islamic cleric, Domullo Hikmatullo Tojikobodi. During the speech, he called Tojikobodi a great leader of Tajikistan, which some authorities considered to be a direct questioning of the official title of authoritarian President Emomali Rahmon, who, in accordance with a 2016 law, is officially known as the Leader of the Nation.

The State Committee on Religious Issues, Traditions, and Rites rejected the media reports at the time, saying that Obidov's arrest had nothing to do with his speech at the funeral and called on media "to stay away from distributing rumors."

Rahmon, who has ruled Tajikistan since 1992, also enjoys special powers following a May 2016 referendum, including the right to seek as many terms in office as he wants.

Rahmon has been criticized by international human rights groups for years over his disregard for religious freedoms, civil society, and political pluralism in the tightly controlled former Soviet republic.

MINSK -- The prosecution has asked a Belarusian court to sentence Viktar Babaryka, a former Belarusian banker whose bid to challenge authoritarian ruler Alyaksandr Lukashenka in last year’s disputed election was halted by his arrest, to 15 years in prison on corruption charges he says are politically motivated.

Prosecutor Syarhey Hirhel on June 22 asked the court to convict Babaryka on charges of bribe taking and money laundering.

Hirhel also asked Judge Ihar Lyubavitski to sentence seven co-defendants in the case to prison terms between three years and six years.

Babaryka, a former senior manager at the Russian-owned Belgazprombank, was arrested in June 2020 after he announced his intention to run for president.

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.

Three days before the arrest, Belarusian authorities took control of the bank and detained several top executives on charges of tax evasion and money laundering.

Babaryka has rejected the charges saying they were invented by authorities because of his political activities.

The trial is being held in the premises of the Moscow district court in Minsk by judges from the country's Supreme Court, a move that has been criticized by Babaryka and his defense team, who said that would deny them any chance of appeal in case of a guilty verdict.

Lukashenka was declared the victor of the August 2020 election, triggering protests by tens of thousands of Belarusians who say the vote was rigged. The demonstrations lasted for months as Belarusians demanded Lukashenka, in power since 1994, step down.

Security officials have cracked down hard on the demonstrators, arresting thousands and pushing most leading opposition figures out of the country.

Several protesters have been killed in the violence and rights organizations say there is credible evidence of torture being used against some of those detained.

Lukashenka denies voter fraud and has refused to negotiate with the opposition led by Svyatlana Tsikhanouskaya, who supporters say actually won the August election.

The European Union, United States, Canada, and other countries have refused to recognize Lukashenka, 66, as the legitimate leader of Belarus and have slapped him and senior Belarusian officials with sanctions in response to the “falsification” of the vote and postelection crackdown.

YEREVAN -- Acting Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian has cemented his position with a landslide election victory called to end a political crisis that erupted after ethnic Armenian forces lost a six-week war against Azerbaijan last year and ceded territory in and around the breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh.

Preliminary results showed that Pashinian's Civil Contract party won 53.9 percent of the vote, while former President Robert Kocharian's Armenia Alliance -- which is alleging election fraud though it has not presented evidence to back up the claim -- got 21 percent.

The I Have The Honor bloc, headed by former President Serzh Sarkisian, won just over 5 percent and will also be represented in parliament.

The results, if they hold, mean Pashinian's party will control an even greater percentage of seats than the 50 percent needed to rule, since the votes of the 22 election contenders that didn't clear the threshold will be distributed among those that enter parliament.

Civil Contract is expected to have about 71 seats in the 107-member assembly, while the Armenia Alliance should have 29 and I Have The Honor, seven.

International observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) said the vote was "competitive and generally well-managed."

WATCH: International Observers: Armenia's Elections Were 'Competitive And Generally Well-Managed'

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"The vote count was assessed positively in most polling stations where it was observed and was characterized by a high level of transparency," the OSCE said.

"Reconciliation and counting procedures were followed overall, and observers noted very few significant procedural errors or serious violations," it added, noting the election on the whole was “characterized by intense polarization and marred by increasingly inflammatory rhetoric among key contestants.”

Still, Kocharian’s alliance said it would not recognize the results until alleged voting irregularities were addressed.

The former president reiterated his claims on June 22 and said that his bloc will challenge the election results before the Constitutional Court.

At a press conference in Yerevan, Kocharian said his bloc will nonetheless accept its mandates and participate in the new legislature.

"Parliamentary levers will enable us to work much more actively in other directions," he said. Kocharian added that he does not expect to take a mandate himself, saying "I am a man of the executive branch."

The EU mission to Armenia said in a statement on June 22 that “any complaints or appeals regarding the electoral process should be addressed thoroughly and expeditiously using the appropriate procedures as foreseen in the legal framework of Armenia.”

It also called “on all political forces to now work together in order to effectively tackle the challenges Armenia is confronted with, in the interest of the Armenian citizens.”

Earlier, the U.S. State Department welcomed the overall positive assessment by the OSCE’s election observation mission, and urged all parties to “respect the rule of law and democratic principles.”

Armenians of all political forces should respect the election results once certified, “employ the legal election grievance process to address issues of concern, and avoid political retaliation,” spokesman Ned Price said in a statement.

The Central Election Commission said nearly half of eligible voters had cast their ballots. Its head, Tigran Mukuchian, said the election "on the whole" was conducted in line with local rules and regulations.

Addressing thousands of supporters in Yerevan late on June 21, Pashinian said the political crisis in the country was over and called for unity.

SEE ALSO:

Pashinian's Surprising Landslide Victory Defies Armenian Opinion Polls

Acknowledging "some aggressive rhetoric" during the campaign, he urged "all participants in the political process in Armenia to...put an end to acrimony.”

Kocharian, however, told journalists that if Pashinian continues “in the same style…I have not doubts that Armenia will face yet another early election, and it will not take very long.”

Opinion polls before the election showed the contest to be mainly a neck-and-neck race between Pashinian's party and Kocharian's newly created alliance, with each at around 24 percent support.

The election was held against the backdrop of already flaring tensions following a monthslong political crisis fueled by the defeat of Armenian forces against Azerbaijan in a six-week war last fall over Nagorno-Karabakh.

Pashinian, who stepped down as required by law to allow the election to take place but remains the country's leader, called the early election in response to sustained opposition rallies and dissent within the state over his handling of the war that ended with a Moscow-brokered cease-fire in November 2020.

The fragile peace deal restored Baku's sovereignty over a chunk of Nagorno-Karabakh and surrounding districts that had been controlled by ethnic Armenian forces since a war in the early 1990s. The defeat stunned Armenians and prompted months of recriminations.

During the election campaign, emotionally charged threats and insults raised concerns of postelection violence, especially in the event of allegations that the result is rigged or otherwise challenged. More than a dozen opposition candidates and activists were detained during the campaign, accused of bullying or bribing voters.

On the eve of the election, the largely ceremonial President Armen Sarkisian urged his compatriots to remain peaceful, saying it would be unacceptable that "political and moral boundaries are crossed, that the situation escalates and hatred and enmity are fomented."

A group of European Union states have slammed fellow member Hungary over its new anti-LGBT law ahead of a summit where the democratic credentials of Budapest and its nationalist ally Warsaw, will be questioned.

Thirteen EU countries, including Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, France, Belgium, Luxembourg and Ireland, all condemned Hungary for the legal changes that ban the "display and promotion of homosexuality" among under-18s, a change that they say violates the bloc's values.

Sweden's EU Affairs minister called the Hungarian law "grotesque," while his Dutch colleague called on Budapest to undo it and Ireland said the bloc's executive should sue Hungary through the top EU court.

Meanwhile, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg authored a joint declaration calling the law a violation the right to freedom of expression and a "flagrant form of discrimination based on sexual orientation."

SEE ALSO:

EU Will 'Look Into' Hungary's Controversial Law Banning LGBT Content In Schools

"Respectful treatment of minorities, including sexual minorities, should be completely beyond question," Michael Roth, the German minister of state for Europe, said on June 22 hours before a meeting with his EU counterparts.

"There should be absolutely no doubt that minorities, sexual minorities too, must be treated respectfully," he added.

Facing an expected tight election race in 2022, Prime Minister Viktor Orban has sharpened his conservative bona fides in recent months by protecting what he says are traditional Christian values from Western liberalism to bolster support from his base.

The moves in Hungary, as well measures in Poland to overhaul its judiciary that have raised questions in Brussels over democratic values, are expected to feature prominently in an EU summit June 24-25.

The condemnation of the Hungarian legal change came on the day UEFA rejected a request by local politicians for Munich’s soccer stadium to be lit up in rainbow colors for the upcoming Euro 2020 match between Germany and Hungary.

Munich's city council sought to illuminate the Allianz Arena in the colors during the June 23 match as a signal to promote diversity following the adoption of a new law in Hungary that bans discussions and the dissemination of information in schools deemed by authorities to promote homosexuality and gender change.

"UEFA, through its statutes, is a politically and religiously neutral organization. Given the political context of this specific request -- a message aiming at a decision taken by the Hungarian national parliament -- UEFA must decline this request," European soccer's governing body said in a statement on June 22.

UEFA suggested alternative dates for the gesture during the tournament.

Munich Mayor Dieter Reiter later announced he planned to put up rainbow-colored flags at the city’s town hall and illuminate a huge wind turbine located close to the Allianz Arena and other locations.

"I find it shameful that UEFA forbids us to send a sign for cosmopolitanism, tolerance, respect, and solidarity with the people of the LGBTIQ community," Reiter said.

Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto told reporters on June 21 that "mixing politics and sport" was "harmful and dangerous."

Last week, the country’s parliament passed the controversial law that critics have slammed as an attack on the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people.

The government of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has backed a strongly conservative social agenda.

Based on reporting by Reuters and dpa

BISHKEK -- The Bishkek City Court has rejected former Kyrgyz Prime Minister Omurbek Babanov's appeal against his pretrial detention in a corruption investigation connected to the Central Asian country's largest gold mine.

The court ruled on June 22 that a previous decision by the Birinchi Mai district court to hold Babanov in pretrial custody until July 31 was legal and refused to accept the former prime minister's request to be transferred to house arrest.

Dozens of Babanov's supporters gathered in front of the court building to demand his release. After the court's decision was announced, they marched to the government's headquarters holding posters saying "Freedom to Babanov!"

Kyrgyzstan's State Committee for National Security (UKMK) detained Babanov on May 31, accusing him of corruption in a case related to the Kumtor gold mine, which is operated by Canada's Centerra Gold company.

Babanov has rejected the charges as "absurd." Several other former officials and current lawmakers were also arrested in the case.

The Kyrgyz government has temporarily taken over control of the Kumtor gold mine in what President Sadyr Japarov said was a necessary move to address environmental and safety violations.

Centerra has called Kyrgyzstan's actions "wrongful and illegal."

On May 16, the Canadian firm said it had "initiated binding arbitration to enforce its rights under long-standing investment agreements with the government."

NUR-SULTAN -- A court in Kazakhstan's capital, Nur-Sultan, has sentenced an activist to 18 months in a minimum security prison for having ties with the banned Democratic Choice of Kazakhstan (DVK) movement amid an ongoing crackdown on individuals supporting the opposition group and its associate, the Koshe (Street) party.

Before handing down the sentence to 44-year-old Asqar Qaiyrbek on June 21, the court said it had found him guilty of organizing the activities of an extremist group and for taking part in such activities.

Qaiyrbek's lawyer, Gulshat Duisenova, told RFE/RL on June 22 that her client rejected the charges and will appeal the court decision.

Several activists across the Central Asian nation have been handed lengthy prison terms or parole-like "freedom limitation" sentences in recent years for their involvement in the activities of DVK and the Koshe Party, as well as for taking part in the rallies organized by the two groups.

Meanwhile, seven activists in Kazakhstan's largest city, Almaty, have been on hunger strike since June 20 to demand the cancellation of a court decision to ban Koshe.

DVK is led by Mukhtar Ablyazov, the fugitive former head of Kazakhstan’s BTA Bank and outspoken critic of the Kazakh government. Kazakh authorities labeled DVK extremist and banned the group in March 2018.

Human rights groups have said Kazakhstan’s law on public gatherings contradicts international standards as it requires preliminary permission from authorities to hold rallies and envisions prosecution for organizing and participating in unsanctioned rallies even though the nation’s constitution guarantees its citizens the right of free assembly.

The girlfriend of a Chechen woman who was taken to her native Chechnya by force after police in neighboring Daghestan raided a shelter for victims of domestic violence earlier this month has asked Russian lawmaker Oksana Pushkina to investigate the situation.

Anna Manylova said in a video statement issued on Instagram late on June 21 that she is ready to provide Pushkina with all of the necessary evidence proving that her girlfriend, Khalima Taramova, is being held in Chechnya against her will.

The 22-year-old Taramova fled Chechnya and settled in neighboring Daghestan in early June. She said at the time in a video statement that she left home "to avoid constant beatings and humiliation."

Russia's LGBT network said Taramova sought refuge as she was subjected to intimidation because of her sexual orientation.

In turn, Chechen officials have accused human rights activists in Daghestan of attempting to kidnap Taramova, who is the daughter of Ayub Taramov -- a former top official in Chechnya and a close associate of the authoritarian Chechen ruler Ramzan Kadyrov.

WATCH: Disturbing Video Shows Police Seizing Chechen Woman From Shelter​

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Chechen authorities have stated that Taramova's current situation is "good."

"I ask you not to trust Chechen media and local human rights officials and I ask you to conduct your own investigation, to meet Khalimat personally, so that she understands that after speaking to you she will be safe," Manylova said in her June 21 video statement addressed to Pushkina.

Kadyrov, who has ruled Chechnya since 2007, is frequently accused by Russian and international watchdogs of overseeing grave rights abuses that include abductions, torture, and extrajudicial killings.

Chechnya was the site of a so-called "gay purge" in 2017 in which dozens of homosexual men say they were abducted and tortured by Chechen authorities.

U.S. Ambassador John Sullivan will return to Moscow “this week,” two months after leaving the post amid worsening relations between the United States and Russia, Department of State spokesman Ned Price said on June 21.

After their June 16 summit in Geneva, President Joe Biden and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin announced their ambassadors would soon be returning to their missions in a bid to lower tensions.

"That's in part because we remain committed to open channels of communication with the Russian government, both as a means to advance U.S. interests but also to reduce the risk of miscalculation between our two countries," Price said.

Russian Ambassador Anatoly Antonov returned to the United States on June 20, telling Russian media that he is optimistic and wants to help build "equal and pragmatic" relations.

Antonov was recalled in March following a comment by Biden indicating he agreed that Putin is a “killer.”

Relations between Russia and the United States have deteriorated further since Biden took office in January, with Washington sanctioning Moscow over cyberattacks, election meddling, and the poisoning and jailing of opposition politician Aleksei Navalny.

Sullivan was recalled for consultations in April as the United States and Russia announced tit-for-tat sanctions and diplomatic expulsions.

With reporting by AFP

The director of Chechnya’s state television has issued death threats against the “enemies” of Chechen strongman Ramzan Kadyrov.

Chingiz Akhmadov, head of the Grozny State Television and Radio Broadcasting Company, said in an Instagram video on June 21 that he stands “with Ramzan Kadyrov.”

“If someone needs to be killed, someone who deserves death, then we will kill. If it is necessary to say a word, then we will say the word,” he said.

Akhmadov said any "enemy of Ramzan Kadyrov is the enemy of the Chechen people," and personally his enemy.

Under Kadyrov, Chechnya's security services are notorious for carrying out human rights abuses against political opponents, including torture, abduction, and extrajudicial killings.

Kadyrov, who on numerous occasions has threatened to kill or jail his critics, has previously declared that death threats and intimidation are a part of “Chechen ethics.”

The Russian State Prosecutor's Office has banned the U.S. nongovernmental organization Bard College after labelling it "undesirable."

The office said on June 21 that the activity of educational NGO Bard College "represents a threat to the constitutional order and security of the Russian Federation."

Bard was not immediately available to comment.

The "undesirable organization" law, adopted in May 2015, was part of a series of regulations pushed by the Kremlin that squeezed many nonprofit and nongovernmental organizations that received funding from foreign sources -- mainly from Europe and the United States.

In April, the Russian Foreign Ministry said it would put a stop to the activity in Russia of U.S. funds and NGOs which it said interfered in the country's domestic affairs, in retaliation to an array of U.S. government sanctions imposed on Moscow.

The prosecutor office's decision was forwarded to the Justice Ministry in order to amend the list of undesirable foreign organizations, the statement said. Currently, the list includes 34 organizations, with Bard College to become 35th.

The move comes after the Russian parliament’s lower chamber, the State Duma, earlier this month approved in the final reading a bill that widens the scope of the “undesirable” law.

Under the bill approved on June 16, individuals may face up to six years in prison if found guilty of organizing operations of "undesirable" international organizations on the Russian territory.

With reporting by Reuters and TASS

DUSHANBE -- Tajikistan's Supreme Court has sentenced three police officers to lengthy prison terms on torture charges.

The Civil Society Coalition Of Tajikistan Against Torture said over the weekend that the verdicts and sentences of the three police officers had been pronounced on June 17.

Police officers Sherali Azizov, Sadi Davlatmurodzoda, and Eraj Naimov, were found guilty of torturing Hasan Yodgorov, a resident of the western city of Tursunzoda. The officers were sentenced to prison terms of between 10 years and 13 years.

Yodgorov confessed to a murder in 2017 under duress and torture, but was released from custody eight months later after the real killer was apprehended.

Yodgorov said at the trial that there were more police officers who tortured him with electric shocks and water, but he did not know their names.

Police brutality and the use of torture by investigators in Tajikistan has been an issue raised by human rights organizations for years.

In 2019, Tajik authorities toughened punishment for torture in custody, increasing the maximum punishment for that crime from five years to 15 years in prison.

A lawmaker for the ruling United Russia party, Andrei Ledovskoi, has been found dead in his home in Russia's southern region of Stavropol Krai.

The 47-year-old man was a lawmaker in the town of Ipatovo. Local media reports said a preliminary investigation revealed that Ledovskoi may have been strangled.

Ledovskoi and another lawmaker, Tatyana Prokopenko, were under preliminary investigation over alleged inconsistencies in their income declarations.

Several days ago the two lawmakers were officially warned that they may lose their mandates.

The Investigative Committee's directorate in the region said an investigation has been launched into the lawmaker's death.

With reporting by Rossiiskaya Gazeta and Newstracker

Ukraine's controversial tycoon Dmytro Firtash has denied the allegations behind Kyiv's move to impose sanctions on him for selling titanium products that the Ukrainian government believes end up being used by Russian military enterprises.

The National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine, which coordinates security policy, last week announced the sanctions against Firtash, who is currently living in Vienna while fighting extradition to the United States.

Firtash's lawyer in the United States, Lanny Davis, said on June 21 that his client had not been officially notified of the decision to impose sanctions against him.

Nonetheless, "Mr. Firtash categorically denies the allegations, which he says are wrong," Davis said, refusing to comment further.

Ukraine has been fighting Russia-backed separatists in its eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk since 2014, following Moscow's illegal annexation of the Crimean Peninsula.

Kyiv accuses Moscow of sending troops and arms to support the separatists, whom it calls terrorists.

Firtash, one of Ukraine's richest men and a one-time ally of ousted Russia-friendly President Viktor Yanukovych, is wanted for bribery and racketeering charges in the United States.

Firtash denies those charges as well, calling them politically motivated. He is currently seeking a new trial after Austria's Supreme Court upheld his extradition in 2019.

If extradited, the oligarch may faces many years in prison in the United States.

With reporting by Reuters

BELGRADE -- The British Embassy in Belgrade has denied a report saying it had signed an agreement with the Serbian Defense Ministry on preventing Russia's influence in the Balkan country.

The Daily Telegraph on June 18 reported that British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace had said in an interview during his visit to Serbia that the two countries signed an important agreement to block Russia's influence and that Britain would help Serbia resist Russia's "evil influence" and "manipulation."

The embassy, in a written statement to RFE/RL, denied that Britain had signed such an agreement with Serbia's Defense Ministry. Earlier, the Defense Ministry in Belgrade also denied the existence of such an agreement.

The statement said the document signed during Wallace's visit last week focused on "consolidating and expanding the current bilateral cooperation between the ministries of defense of Serbia and the United Kingdom."

"The document deals with topics such as the joint participation of our countries in international peacekeeping missions. There is no mention of any other state in this document," the statement said.

"Our Minister of Defense during his official visit emphasized that the United Kingdom respects Serbia's military neutrality.“

Asked by RFE/RL to clarify Britain's position with regard to Russia, an embassy representative pointed to the public strategy document known as the Integrated Review of Foreign Policy and Defense -- a review by the British government into the foreign, defense, security, and international development policies of the United Kingdom published in March.

Belgrade and Moscow maintain close relations despite Serbia's being a candidate for EU membership.

Russia also supports the efforts of Serbian officials to block Kosovo's membership in international institutions, while Belgrade has refused to impose sanctions against Russia.

The United States, the European Union, Britain, and Canada have slapped a fresh round of coordinated sanctions on Belarus in response to the regime of Alyaksandr Lukashenka's mounting repression against the political opposition and the free media.

"These coordinated designations demonstrate the steadfast transatlantic commitment to supporting the Belarusian people's democratic aspirations," Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement on June 21, as the Treasury Department imposed sanctions on 16 individuals and five entities.

The Treasury said the move was coordinated with the United States' international partners and was meant to hold to account Lukashenka's regime for its ongoing abuses and violations of international norms, including its forced diversion of a commercial Ryanair flight and arrest of journalist Raman Pratasevich and his girlfriend Sofia Sapega last month.

"The persons designated today have harmed the people of Belarus through their activities surrounding the fraudulent August 9, 2020, presidential election in Belarus and the ensuing brutal crackdown on protesters, journalists, members of the opposition, and civil society," the Treasury said in a press statement.

Among the entities blacklisted by the Treasury were the main Belarusian security service, the KGB, the Internal Troops of the Interior Ministry of the Republic of Belarus, and the Main Directorate for Combating Organized Crime and Corruption, known as the GUBOPIK, who were all involved in the postelection repression.

Prosecutor-General Andrey Ivanavich Shved, who has "filed politically motivated terrorism charges and extradition requests against presidential candidate Svyatlana Tsikhanouskaya," and Mikalay Karpyankou, Belarus’s deputy interior minister and the current commander of the ministry's internal troops were among the blacklisted individuals.

Lukashenka's press secretary, Natallya Eismant, and his former chief of staff, Natallya Kachanava, who is currently the leader of Belarus's upper house of parliament, are also listed among the blacklisted individuals.

"The United States and its partners will not tolerate continued attacks on democracy and the ceaseless repression of independent voices in Belarus," Andrea Gacki, director of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control, said in the statement.

EU Sanctions

In Luxembourg, EU foreign ministers on June 21 agreed to sanction key sectors of the Belarusian economy and major revenue sources for the regime: potash fertilizer exports, the tobacco industry, petroleum, and petrochemical products.

The measures include a ban on sales of surveillance equipment to Belarus and tightening of an arms embargo.

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 ministers also officially signed off on adding 78 additional individuals and eight entities to an assets freeze and visa ban blacklist.

Seven people -- including the defense and transport ministers -- were sanctioned for the forced landing of the Ryanair passenger jet.

The remaining 71 individuals -- including Russian tycoon Mikhail Gutseriyev, Lukashenka's son, Dzmitry, and his eldest son's wife, Liliya, were also put on the sanctions list for "benefiting from and supporting the Lukashenka regime."

The list also includes lawmakers, prosecutors, judges, and other officials who the bloc says are "responsible for serious human rights violations and for seriously undermining the rule of law, as well as for the repression of civil society and democratic opposition."

"Today we have confirmed and decided that sectoral sanctions will be taken against Belarus, which will have a severe impact on the Belarusian economy," German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said ahead of the meeting.

"We want the release of the political prisoners, an end to the violence against protesters and the opposition, and an inclusive dialogue that will lead to free and fair elections."

EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said earlier that the economic sanctions should be confirmed after a summit of the 27-member bloc's leaders in Brussels later this week.

"We're going to hurt the economy of Belarus heavily," Borrell said.

EU's trade with Belarus amounted to more than 10 billion euros ($11.9 billion) in 2020.

Belarusian opposition leader Svyatlana Tsikhanouskaya, who insists she rightfully won last year's presidential election, welcomed the inclusion of business tycoons and top officials on the blacklist.

"It's a rather strong sanction list," she told a press conference in Brussels.

In London, the British government announced travel bans and asset freezes against 11 "senior-ranking officials" as well two entities.

Britain said its sanctions were imposed separately to the EU, which it left last year, but in coordination to those announced by Washington, Ottawa, and Brussels.

Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said: "The Lukashenka regime endangered the lives of airline passengers and crew in a shameful ruse to snatch Raman Pratasevich."

"We will hold the regime to account in coordination with our allies including through further banning travel, freezing assets, and cutting off oil export revenue streams."

In September 2020, London announced sanctions on human rights grounds against Lukashenka, his son, and senior figures in the Belarusian government.

The Canadian Foreign Ministry also announced in a statement sanctions against 17 Belarusian individuals and five entities.

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

Iran's President-elect Ebrahim Raisi says he backs discussions to revive the 2015 deal regulating its nuclear sector but draws the line at holding direct talks with U.S. President Joe Biden.

The 60-year-old Raisi, speaking on June 21 for the first time since he won an election last week, said that even if Washington removed all sanctions against Iran, he has no intention of meeting with Biden.

"We support the negotiations that guarantee our national interests.... America should immediately return to the deal and fulfil its obligations under the deal," he said.

"Any meeting must produce a result...for the Iranian nation," he added.

SEE ALSO:

Meet The New Boss: Iran's Raisi In His Own Words And Those Of Others

The hard-line conservative, who won nearly 62 percent of the vote in the June 18 election, will take office in early August, replacing Hassan Rohani, who served the maximum two consecutive terms and was a key architect of the nuclear deal, which lifted some international sanctions in exchange for Iran agreeing to put curbs on its nuclear program.

The United States unilaterally withdrew from the pact in 2018 and began reimposing damaging financial sanctions against Iran. In response, Tehran steadily has exceeded limits on its nuclear program spelled out in the deal, prompting the other four signatories to the deal -- Britain, France, Germany, and Russia -- to work with the European Union to bring Washington back into the fold.

While Iran is looking to rid itself of the punishing U.S. sanctions that have crippled its economy, Raisi said that "all U.S. sanctions must be lifted and verified by Tehran."

Still, when asked if he would meet Biden if the sanctions were lifted, Raisi answered: "No."

Raisi, an ultraconservative cleric who headed Iran's judiciary, was one of the judges in 1988 who oversaw a series of speedy trials in which thousands of political prisoners were sentenced to death and executed.

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Human rights organizations say he is guilty of crimes against humanity, and the United States has placed him under sanctions.

Raisi said his foreign policy priority would be improving ties with Iran's Gulf Arab neighbors, and that he was hoping to resume diplomatic relations with Saudi Arabia, the Sunni-ruled regional rival of Shi'ite Iran, which have been severed for five years.

The two sides began direct talks in Iraq in April aimed at containing tensions and Raisi said in the interview that "the reopening of the Saudi Embassy is not a problem for Iran."

With reporting by Reuters, AP, and dpa

A Russian national detained in April in Ukraine's Russia-annexed Crimean Peninsula on espionage charges has been transferred to Moscow.

The Moscow Lefortovo district court on June 21 said that Yevgeny Petrushin's pretrial detention had been extended until September 20 after he was transferred from Crimea to the Russian capital last week.

According to the court, Petrushin was arrested on April 21 in the Crimean city of Sevastopol.

The Lenin district court in the city of Sevastopol said on April 22 that "a Russian citizen born in 1998" suspected of high treason had been placed under pretrial arrest until at least June 19. The name of the suspect was not disclosed at the time.

Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) said then that its officers had detained a person who "passed classified information about Russia's Black Sea Fleet to Ukrainian military intelligence."

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, Russia has arrested dozens of people in Crimea on charges including extremism, terrorism, and espionage.

Rights groups have said that after imposing its control over the peninsula, Moscow aggressively moved to prosecute Ukrainian activists and anyone who questions the annexation.

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

Based on reporting by TASS and Interfax