A Russian court has sentenced two activists linked to the banned Open Russia rights group to lengthy prison sentences for drug charges they say are politically motivated.

The Pskov district court on August 12 sentenced Lia Milushkina to 10 1/2 years in prison and her husband, Artyom Milushkin, to 11 years after finding them guilty of drug trafficking.

Milushkina is the former coordinator of the local branch of the Open Russia rights group linked to exiled Kremlin critic Mikhail Khodorkovsky. Her prison sentence will be deferred until 2024 because the couple has two young children.

The former head of oil company Yukos, Khodorkovsky is one of Russian President Vladimir Putin's wealthiest opponents.

SEE ALSO:

'The Case Is Fabricated': Pskov Residents Seek 'Justice' For Detained Activists

Several Khodorkovsky-linked organizations have been banned or otherwise targeted in recent years under the so-called "foreign agent" laws, including the pro-democracy Open Russia movement.

The couple was arrested in January 2019 and charged with selling a large amount of drugs based on testimony given by anonymous witnesses and a police agent whose drug addiction came up during the trial. The police officer is now serving time for drug possession.

Milushkin was also charged with arson.

During the trial, the defendants said they were arrested before a rally against arbitrary police practices and that officers planted the drugs.

The activists say the charges are politically motivated because they often organized and participated in protests in Pskov, a city 700 kilometers northwest of Moscow

After the verdict was read, video from the courtroom showed Milushkin breaking the benches inside a cage for defendants.

Earlier this month, two online publications and a legal aid group backed by Khodorkovsky announced they were ceasing operations after the sites were blocked by Russian authorities.

In May, Open Russia said it was ceasing operations to protect is members.

Iran has summoned the Russian and British ambassadors after a photograph was posted on the Russian Embassy's Twitter account commemorating a historic meeting of allied leaders in Tehran during World War II.

State media reported on August 12 that Iran's Foreign Ministry had “invited” Ambassadors Levan Dzhagaryan and Simon Shercliff for discussions over the photo, which recalled the 1943 Tehran Conference, when Iran was occupied by Russia and Britain.

The picture shows the Russian envoy and Britain's ambassador sitting where British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Soviet leader Joseph Stalin sat together at the Russian Embassy during the 1943 meeting. U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s chair in the middle was empty.

Russia and Britain had invaded neutral Iran in 1941 to secure oil fields and Russian supply lines.

Foreign Minister-designate Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said the photo was “undiplomatic” and an affront to “the national pride of the Iranian people.”

Iran’s outgoing foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, called the photo “inappropriate."

The Russian Embassy said it had no intention of causing offense.

"We would like to note that it does not have any anti-Iranian context. We were not going to offend the feelings of the friendly Iranian people," it tweeted.

"The only meaning that this photo has is to pay tribute to the joint efforts of the allied states against Nazism during the Second World War. Iran is our friend and neighbor, and we will continue to strengthen relations based on mutual respect" the embassy added.

The British ambassador retweeted the comments.

Based on reporting by AP, dpa, and Reuters

An ethnic Kazakh from China's northwestern province of Xinjiang has been deported from Slovakia to Ukraine after he attempted to illegally cross the two counties’ border, a Kazakh activist says.

Activist Botagoz Isa told RFE/RL on August 12 that Chinese citizen Ersin Erkinuly was deported several days ago.

Locked Up In China: The Plight Of Xinjiang's Muslims

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty is partnering with its sister organization, Radio Free Asia, to highlight the plight of Muslims living in China's western province of Xinjiang.

Ukraine granted Erkinuly asylum seeker status last year, but he decided to flee to Slovakia after receiving threats from unknown persons, according to Isa.

She said Erkinuly is to go on trial on August 13 on charges of illegal border crossing.

There was no immediate comment from Slovak or Ukrainian officials.

Ukrainian border guards arrested Erkinuly in October 2020 when he tried to cross into Poland without proper documents.

The man was released from custody in the western city of Lviv in December after an appeals court canceled a lower court's decision to deport him back to China.

Erkinuly has claimed he had lost his Chinese passport and that he would face imprisonment and torture if he is sent back to China.

In recent years, many Uyghurs, Kazakhs, and members of Xinjiang's other mostly Muslim, indigenous ethnic groups have fled the country, fearing detention.

The U.S. State Department has said as many as 2 million members of these ethnic groups have been taken to Chinese detention centers.

China denies that the facilities are internment camps.

Kazakhs are the second-largest Turkic-speaking indigenous community in Xinjiang after Uyghurs. The region is also home to ethnic Kyrgyz, Tajiks, and Hui, also known as Dungans.

Russian authorities have detained the head of an institute researching hypersonic flight on charges of high treason.

Moscow’s Lefortovo district court said it would convene to determine Aleksandr Kuranov's terms of custody later on August 12.

Kuranov, the chief of the St. Petersburg-based Hypersonic Systems Research Center, is suspected of passing classified materials to a foreigner about hypersonic technology research, according to media reports,

The 73-year-old scientist oversaw work on the concept for a new hypersonic space vehicle dubbed Ayaks, according to the research center’s website.

Russia, whose ties with the West have dramatically deteriorated over the past years, has been developing a number of weapons able to travel faster than the speed of sound, which President Vladimir Putin has touted as unparalleled.

A number of Russian scientists, soldiers, and officials have been charged with treason in recent years after being accused of passing sensitive material to foreign countries.

Critics of the Kremlin say the charges are often unfounded and cannot be scrutinized because they are classified.

SEE ALSO:

Another Russian Scientist Sentenced On High Treason Charge

Viktor Kudryavtsev, a researcher at a Russian rocket- and spacecraft-design institute, died earlier this year while awaiting trial on treason charges.

Another scientist who worked with Kudryavtsev, Roman Kovalyov, was sentenced to seven years in prison in June 2020 on similar charges.

With reporting by Reuters, Interfax, TASS, and RIA Novosti

ASHGABAT -- The Taliban says representatives of Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Russia have held talks with the chief of the group's political office in Qatar amid growing regional concerns over the insurgents' ongoing military offensive across Afghanistan.

A Taliban spokesman told RFE/RL on August 12 that top Taliban figure Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar met with Turkmen Deputy Foreign Minister Vepa Hajiev and the Uzbek presidential envoy to Afghanistan, Ismatulla Irgashev, in Qatar the previous day to discuss the situation in Afghanistan.

Regional issues, including trade between Afghanistan and the former Soviet republics in Central Asia, were also discussed, spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said.

The spokesman for the Taliban's office in the Qatari capital, Doha, tweeted on August 11 that Baradar and Hajiev discussed "bilateral relations, border issues, economic projects, as well as security of Turkmenistan's diplomatic missions in Afghanistan."

In a separate tweet, spokesman Suhail Shaheen said that Baradar also held talks with Russian presidential envoy Zamir Kabulov.

Turkmenistan’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement on August 12 that its delegation, led by Hajiev, is currently in Doha along with delegations from the United Nations, European Union, the U.K., Russia, Pakistan, China, and Uzbekistan, to discuss the situation in Afghanistan.

The ministry added that its delegation is also holding separate bilateral talks on the sidelines.

Last month, the Taliban said a delegation visited Ashgabat to discuss "bilateral economic and political ties between the two nations, as well as issues of security and borders" with Turkmen officials.

Turkmenistan shares an 800-kilometer border with Afghanistan.

U.S. President Joe Biden has pledged that the withdrawal of U.S. forces will be completed by the beginning of September. With that deadline nearing, the Taliban has unleashed offensives against Afghan government forces and expanded its control over districts and provincial capitals across Afghanistan, as well as border crossings.

Hundreds of Afghans, including soldiers and local police, have reportedly fled into other neighboring Central Asia countries.

The Taliban battlefield successes are stoking concerns that the Western-backed government in Kabul may collapse.

BELGRADE -- Twitter and Google have confirmed to RFE/RL that they will be removing content denying Bosnia-Herzegovina's Srebrenica genocide from their social platforms.

The confirmation came on August 11 in relation to a request by the Institute for Research of Genocide Canada (IRGC) addressed to technology giants Twitter and Google, asking them to ban the denial of the Srebrenica genocide on their platforms.

Twitter and Google-owned YouTube said they responded to the IRGC that the companies have a clear hate-speech policy.

Following an inquiry by RFE/RL asking for further details in connection to the IRGC request, Twitter and YouTube told RFE/RL's Balkan Service that the companies had "a clearly established policy" that prohibits all hate speech.

Google, the owner of the YouTube video platform, says it will remove all content that violates its rigorous rules on the dissemination of hate speech.

"We have clear and established hate-speech policies that prohibit content that minimizes or denies a well-documented violent event, including the Srebrenica genocide. If the content is found to violate these policies, we will remove it," a YouTube spokesman told RFE/RL.

RFE/RL received a similar a similar message from Twitter.

On July 11, 1995, more than 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys were rounded up and killed by Bosnian Serb forces near the eastern town of Srebrenica -- the worst mass killing in Europe since World War II.

The massacre has been deemed a genocide by various verdicts of both the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and the International Court of Justice (ICJ).

Emir Ramic, the director of the IRGC, told RFE/RL that the organization kept records of the content on social networks.

They have confirmed that most posts insulting the victims of the Srebrenica genocide originate in Serbia, but that some also came from Russia, France, and other countries.

The IRGC has not yet received answers to the request it sent to these social networks on July 30, but Ramic said he hopes for a positive response.

Both wartime Bosnian Serb army commander Ratko Mladic and former political leader Radovan Karadzic were sentenced to life in prison by the UN war crimes court in the Netherlands for genocide in Srebrenica.

Serbian officials deny that Serbian forces committed genocide. For the government in Serbia, this is a "terrible crime," as President Aleksandar Vucic put it in a speech at the UN Security Council on June 8.

NUR-SULTAN -- A Kazakh court has sentenced an activist to two years of "freedom limitation," a parole-like sentence, for having ties to the banned Democratic Choice of Kazakhstan (DVK) movement amid an ongoing crackdown on supporters of the opposition group and the associated Koshe (Street) party.

The Saryarqa district court in the capital, Nur-Sultan, sentenced 50-year-old Alia Zhaqypova on August 11 after finding her guilty of distributing online videos and other materials produced by the DVK.

Zhaqypova was also banned from taking part in public events and expressing her views on the Internet for three years.

She had pleaded not guilty and her lawyer said the court's decision will be appealed.

The day before, a court in the southern region of Turkistan sent activist Sabit Syzdyqbek to prison for violating the "freedom limitation" sentence he was handed in March for spreading the DVK's ideas on Facebook.

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

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

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

Romanian Prime Minister Florin Citu has admitted to a two-decades-old drunk-driving offense in the United States, for which he served two days in jail.

Citu called it "interesting" that this information had become public at a time when a power struggle is taking place within his ruling National Liberal Party (PNL).

"I made a mistake 20 years ago.... It concerned driving under the influence of alcohol," Citu told the media on August 11 after reports of the incident surfaced in the media.

Citu was given two days in jail and a $1,000 fine for driving under the influence of alcohol in Iowa in March 2001.

While admitting to paying what he called "a very high fine" that forced him to sell his car to cover it, the prime minister failed to mention to reporters that he had also spent two days behind bars.

Citu, who is now 49, was studying business at a university in the state at the time.

The leftist opposition called for President Klaus Iohannis to dismiss Citu, arguing that he should have revealed his brush with the law when he accepted the position of head of government.

Citu is locked in a bitter power struggle with PNL Chairman and former Prime Minister Ludovic Orban for the party leadership, which is to be decided at a party congress in the coming months.

Orban himself was at the center of a controversy linked to his alleged driving under the influence in 2007, but was later exonerated by a court.

With reporting by G4Media.ro, Evz.ro, Realitatea.net, dpa, and Digi24.ro

MINSK – Belarusian authorities have detained more pro-democracy figures and activists amid an intensifying crackdown on opponents of authoritarian leader Alyaksandr Lukashenka.

Police on August 12 detained a candidate in last year’s disputed presidential election, Andrey Dzmitryyeu, his colleague in the Tell The Truth civic movement told RFE/RL.

Tatsyana Karatkevich said Dzmitryyeu's whereabouts and the reasons of his detention remain unknown.

A day earlier, police and security forces searched homes and detained more than 20 members of the Skhod (Assembly) opposition initiative, including Belarus’s former ambassador to Slovakia, Ihar Lyashchenya, who has openly supported public protests challenging official results of the August 2020 election that handed Lukashenka a sixth term in office.

A group of Belarusian volunteers involved in locating detainees on August 12 listed Lyashchenya among dozens of individuals held in Minsk's notorious Akrestsina detention center.

It remains unclear why the homes were searched and on what charges the activists were being held.

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.

Lukashenka in September 2020 stripped the diplomatic status of Lyashchenya and relieved him of his diplomatic rank because of his "misconduct."

Lyashchenya had resigned from the post of the Belarusian envoy to Bratislava on August 18 after he publicly supported the rallies sweeping across Belarus following the August vote that the opposition says was rigged.

Lukashenka, in power since 1994, has unleashed a harsh crackdown on the pro-democracy movement, while the West has hit the Belarusian strongman, his inner circle, and Belarusian firms with several rounds of sanctions, leaving Belarus’s strongman internationally isolated.

Several opposition figures were arrested in 2020 ahead of the election on various charges that the opposition and human rights groups call fabricated and politically motivated.

One of them, outspoken Lukashenka critic Mikalay Statkevich, marked his 65th birthday behind bars on August 12.

In total, Statkevich, a former presidential challenger whose candidacy for the last presidential election was rejected in May 2020, has spent eight years behind bars for his political activities.

TASHKENT -- Uzbek authorities say Muslims in Central Asia's most populous country will be able to gather at mosques for Friday Prayers on August 13 if they have been fully vaccinated or tested negative for COVID-19.

According to the Health Ministry, only mosques where the clerics have been fully vaccinated against the disease will be allowed to open their doors to the public, and all persons willing to attend Friday Prayers must wear masks.

Friday Prayers at mosques were suspended in Uzbekistan on July 20 as a new wave of coronavirus hit the country.

Meanwhile, the chief of Jurabek Laboratories, Farrukh Lutfullaev, on August 12 announced that the Uzbek company was planning to begin mass production of the Russian Sputnik V vaccine against COVID-19 next week.

As of August 12, the number of registered coronavirus cases in Uzbekistan stood at 140,210, with 956 deaths.

ROSTOV-ON-DON, Russia -- A court in Russia has sentenced Russian businessman Andrei Kakovkin to prison on embezzlement charges more than three years after he returned to his homeland from abroad as part of a campaign to repatriate foreign-based Russian businesspeople.

A court in the southern city of Rostov-on-Don on August 12 sentenced Kakovkin to 4 1/2 years in prison after finding him guilty of embezzling $400,000 in 2015.

In 2019, Kakovkin was handed a three-year prison term in a separate embezzlement case before the sentence was replaced by a suspended term.

He has since remained in custody as investigations into other alleged crimes continued.

Kakovkin was the first person who used business ombudsman Boris Titov's campaign to bring back foreign-based Russian businesspeople from abroad, and returned to Russia from London in February 2018.

Twelve other Russian businessmen followed suit.

Titov said at the time that exiled businessmen wanted in Russia for alleged financial and other crimes could return to the country and would not be arrested if they cooperated with investigators.

Titov announced last month he had stopped his campaign due to a failure by the Prosecutor-General's Office to guarantee that the businessmen would not be arrested on their return.

Russian authorities have stifled people's right to peaceful protests to such an extent that is has become almost impossible for Russians to protest in any meaningful way, Amnesty International has said in a report.

"Authorities in Russia have eroded the right to freedom of peaceful assembly by using increasingly restrictive laws, and heavy-handed police tactics and criminal prosecutions to silence peaceful dissent," Amnesty said in Russia: No Place for Protest, issued ahead of parliamentary and local elections in Russia next month.

The report documents a clampdown on peaceful protests that Amnesty says began with the 2004 Federal Law on Assemblies and has accelerated in recent years.

"Russian authorities have been curtailing the right to freedom of assembly with incredible persistence and inventiveness for years," Oleg Kozlovsky, the organization's Russia researcher, said.

"As a result, peaceful street protest has come to be seen as a crime by state officials -- and an act of heroism by those Russians who still believe it is their right to exercise it."

"The unlawful restrictions, requirements, and harsh sanctions that Russian protesters face can only be described as Kafkaesque in their absurdity. It has taken the Russian authorities 16 years and 13 instances of parliamentary tinkering with legislation to make the right to freedom of peaceful assembly devoid of any genuine meaning," Kozlovsky added.

The report says that nine out of the 13 major amendments used by legislators to curtail the right to freedom of peaceful assembly in Russia have been introduced since 2014, as part of a crackdown on anti-government protests and human rights guaranteed by international human rights law and Russia's own constitution.

It also details what Kozlovsky calls an excessive use of force by police officers, who have reportedly been documented "using martial-arts techniques against protesters, battering them mercilessly with batons, and, beginning this year, stunning them with electroshock weapons."

The London-based human rights watchdog called on Russian authorities to bring laws and practices in line with the constitution and international human rights obligations.

"The authorities must prohibit measures that change the aims or place of public gatherings, as well as the number of permitted participants, unless such decisions are taken in judicial proceedings."

Amnesty also urged the Russian authorities to respect spontaneous peaceful assemblies, "which should be considered lawful, when submission of a notification within the period prescribed by law is impossible or impractical."

The report calls on the government to make sure that the coming elections will be held in a different atmosphere.

"Next month's parliamentary elections give Russia the opportunity to change its approach to commit to promotion and protection of human rights including the right to freedom of peaceful assembly.

"We want to remind candidates for elections and future legislators that the right to protest peacefully is not something they can give or take away. It is something everyone is entitled to, and the government should respect, protect, and promote this and devote its energy to ensuring, not undermining this right," Kozlovsky said.

With reporting by dpa

Russian prosecutors have opened a criminal probe into an oil spill off the country's Black Sea coast.

Officials are studying the coast between the resort town of Anapa and Novorossiisk, the Prosecutor-General's Office said in announcing the probe on August 11. The area has some of the country's best beaches and is popular with Russian tourists.

The spill occurred over the weekend off the city of Novorossiisk at a terminal while oil was being pumped into a tanker.

Authorities initially estimated that the spill covered only about 200 square meters, but Russian scientists with the Space Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences said on August 11 after studying satellite images that it actually covered nearly 80 square kilometers.

The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) said it had launched its own surveillance and found the slick had covered an area of 94 square kilometers. The WWF in Russia has estimated that about 100 metric tons of oil have spilled into the sea.

"Despite the prompt involvement of rescue teams, the oil spread over a colossal area," the WWF said on Facebook, adding that marine wildlife could be affected.

Viktoria Glushchenko of Greenpeace Russia said in a statement that if the estimates of the Space Research Institute were correct the spill will threaten fish, birds, and marine ecosystems.

"In addition, the health of people, including tourists, who will find themselves in the pollution zone, is at risk," she said.

Russian media said traces of oil were spotted along the Black Sea coast. Staff at a dolphinarium outside Anapa said they had seen oil slicks on the surface and were working to protect their marine mammals.

Svetlana Radionova, head of Russia's environmental watchdog, Rosprirodnadzor, said in an interview with Rossia-24 TV that a safety system appeared to quickly cut off the spill but said she could not say how much oil leaked into the sea based on the satellite images she saw.

An oil slick, even if it spread over some significant area, does not indicate the volume, she said, according to TASS. The volume will be calculated based on the information received from special equipment, Radionova added.

With reporting by AFP, AP, and TASS

A helicopter carrying 16 tourists and crew members in Russia's Far East has crashed into a deep volcanic crater lake, leaving eight people feared dead and two others in serious condition, local officials say.

The Mi-8 helicopter crash-landed into Kuril Lake in the Kamchatka Peninsula and sank, Governor Vladimir Solodov said.

Staff of the Kronotsky Nature Reserve found half of the people on board, he said, adding that two of the survivors were now in intensive care with various injuries.

Dozens of rescue workers in boats and divers were searching for the remaining eight people who were on board, including one child and a crew member, according to the authorities.

The aircraft was believed to be lying at a depth of 130 meters, Solodov said.

"Military officials have confirmed that they had sent specialized robotic devices to assist to find the aircraft and the missing ones," the governor said.

According to officials of the Kronotsky Nature Reserve, the water temperature in the lake is 5-6 degrees Celsius.

Earlier reports said that nine people survived the crash, whose cause was not immediately known.

The helicopter, manufactured in 1984, was operated by a local private carrier, Vityaz-Aero, which is co-owned by Igor Redkin, a millionaire businessman who is also a regional lawmaker.

Redkin was placed under house arrest for two months earlier this week after he shot and killed a man at a rubbish dump in a village in Kamchatka he says he mistook for a brown bear.

The Kamchatka Peninsula is more than 6,000 kilometers east of Moscow and is popular among tourists for its scenery and nature.

The helicopter crash comes just over a month after a Russian plane crashed on Kamchatka, killing 28 people on board. Officials blamed that crash on pilot error.

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

U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and his Russian counterpart, Sergei Shoigu, have spoken by telephone about ongoing "strategic stability" talks launched last month after a recent presidential summit.

Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said on August 11 Austin and Shoigu discussed "transparency and risk-reduction efforts following the July 28 resumption of the U.S.-Russia Strategic Stability Dialogue."

The Russian Defense Ministry said the two talked about "the results of bilateral consultations on strategic stability, as well as issues of global and regional security."

U.S. President Joe Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed at a summit at Lake Geneva in June to launch a bilateral dialogue on strategic stability to "lay the groundwork for future arms control and risk reduction measures" and officials from both sides met on July 28 in Geneva.

The rivals have been looking at specific issues such as how to move beyond the New START treaty that Biden and Putin have agreed to extend until 2026.

The United States and Russia possess around 90 percent of the world's nuclear weapons.

Moscow has said it wants Britain and France to become part of wider nuclear arms-control talks with the United States, while Washington continues to seek China's inclusion in the negotiations.

Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman led the U.S. delegation and Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov led the Russian side for the one-day kickoff of the strategic security talks in Geneva on July 28.

The precise agenda of the talks has not been made public.

Both sides have said a further plenary round of high-level talks will take place in late September.

Based on reporting by Reuters and TASS

MOSCOW -- Russian authorities have charged Aleksei Navalny with an additional crime, a move that could prolong the jailed opposition politician's stay behind bars if he is convicted.

The Investigative Committee said on August 11 it had charged Navalny with creating an organization that infringes on the rights and personal safety of citizens.

The outspoken Kremlin critic, who is currently serving a 2 1/2-year sentence for parole violations on a conviction he calls trumped up, faces up to an additional three years in prison if found guilty of the new charges.

A jail term of that length could keep Navalny in custody past the next presidential election in 2024, when Vladimir Putin's current six-year term in the Kremlin is due to end.

The Investigative Committee said the charges were linked to the activities of Navalny's Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK), which it said had been established to "persuade citizens to carry out unlawful activities."

Russian authorities labeled FBK as "extremist" and banned it in June.

SEE ALSO:

As Sweeping Crackdown Intensifies, Russians Wonder What Comes Next

Navalny's close associates Leonid Volkov and Ivan Zhdanov, who are currently residing abroad, are also suspects in the case, it said.

Zhdanov is the former director of FBK and Volkov headed Navalny's regional network before its dissolution.

Zhdanov and Volkov are accused of other crimes they say are part of a campaign to crush their activism.

Supporters who post on social media under the name Team Navalny described the accusation as "the latest meaningless charge."

"No one infringes on the personality and rights of citizens like Putin himself and all his henchmen, including the Investigative Committee," they said on Telegram messenger.

Navalny was arrested in January upon his return to Russia from Germany, where he received life-saving treatment for a poisoning attack in Siberia in August 2020.

He blames the poisoning with a Soviet-style chemical nerve agent on President Vladimir Putin and Russia's security services. The Kremlin has denied any role in the poisoning.

Navalny was sent to a prison in the Vladimir region after a Moscow court in February ruled that while in Germany, he had violated the terms of parole from an old embezzlement case that is widely considered to be politically motivated.

Navalny's incarceration sparked numerous protests across Russia that were violently dispersed by police.

The United States and EU have demanded Russian authorities release Navalny, calling his case politically motivated.

Amnesty International has recognized him a prisoner of conscience.

QYZYLORDA, Kazakhstan -- Five inmates at a prison in southern Kazakhstan have maimed themselves to protests conditions there.

Relatives of the prisoners told RFE/RL on August 11 that the men hurt themselves "to protest the pressure and humiliation" they face at Correctional Colony ZS-169/5 in the city of Qyzylorda.

Officials at the prison, however, rejected those claims, saying the men were opposed to the routine searches carried out at the prison for banned items.

According to the relatives, the five men are Abai Uzynzhasov, Berik Berdeshov, Mengilik Beibitov, Murat Usenov, and Baqytzhan Esenbaev.

A picture has circulated on social media over the past 24 hours showing a man identified as Uzynzhasov with what appears to be his abdomen punctured with a metal stick.

Uzynzhasov's wife, Ayagoz Nauasheva, told RFE/RL that her husband's picture was taken on August 10, adding that it was the second time he had hurt himself in recent days.

"My husband managed to send me a message, saying that he has no other way than to maim himself in order to be transferred to another prison as the administration of the penal colony he is now at has been humiliating him for a long time," Nauasheva said.

When he punctured himself with a long nail the first time, the prison administration refused to take him to a regular hospital outside the prison. They just took the nail out of his body and gave him some pills."

Relatives of Berdeshov and Beibitov told RFE/RL that they learned about the two men's ordeal from other inmates, but the penal colony's administration had refused to provide them with any information about them.

Last month, noted Kazakh activist Erzhan Elshibaev, who was recognized by domestic human rights groups as a political prisoner and is serving a five-year term in that prison, cut open his abdomen to protest prison conditions and what he called "provocative" attempts by the prison's officials to prevent his release on parole.

The regime of authoritarian Belarusian leader Alyaksandr Lukashenka has responded to the latest round of U.S. sanctions by requesting Washington to reduce its embassy staff in Minsk to five people by September 1.

Belarusian Foreign Ministry's spokesman Anatol Hlaz said in an interview that was placed on the ministry's website on August 11 that Minsk also had revoked its consent to the appointment of Julie Fisher as the U.S. ambassador to Belarus.

"Taking into account that Belarus has lost trust in the current U.S. administration, we suspend cooperation in all new projects, grants, and programs coordinated by the U.S. government until such trust is back," Hlaz said, adding that Minsk reserved the right to introduce additional measures in the future.

Fisher, the first U.S. ambassador to Belarus since 2008, was confirmed by the Senate in December 2020 but has been unable to take up her post in Minsk because the Belarusian government has denied her a visa.

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Hlaz's interview appeared after the United States, Britain, and Canada announced new trade and financial sanctions on Belarus on August 9, the first anniversary of the presidential election that extended Lukashenka's decades-long rule and sparked an unprecedented wave of protests amid allegations the vote was rigged.

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.

In a statement issued later on August 11, the U.S. Embassy in Belarus said blame for the deterioration in bilateral ties lay squarely with the Lukashenka regime, "and its inability to allow independent voices to emerge in Belarus as well as its unwillingness to meet its international commitments."

"U.S. diplomats will continue to engage with Belarusians, including leaders of the pro-democracy movement, media professionals, students, teachers, athletes, and other members of civil society, wherever they are. The United States will continue to partner with elements of civil society and independent media in support of the fundamental freedoms of the people of Belarus," the statement further said.

Lukashenka, in power since 1994, reacted to the protests by unleashing a brutal crackdown. More than 32,000 people have been detained, thousands beaten by police on the streets and in detention, with torture alleged in many cases. Opposition leaders have been locked up or forced to flee.

In response, the United States, European Union, Canada, Britain, and other countries have hit Lukashenka, his inner circle, and Belarusian firms with several rounds of sanctions, leaving Belarus's strongman internationally isolated, dependent more than ever on Russian support.

New Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi has named an anti-Western diplomat as foreign minister as he presented a cabinet dominated by hard-liners, state TV reported.

Raisi replaced Hassan Rohani, a relative moderate, as president after an election in June when prominent rivals -- including moderates and reformists -- were barred from standing.

The new president nominated hard-line career diplomat Hossein Amir-Abdollahian to the crucial post of foreign minister as Tehran and Washington seek to resuscitate a 2015 nuclear deal with world powers.

Amir-Abdollahian, 56, was deputy foreign minister for Arab and African affairs under former populist hard-line President Mahmud Ahmadinejad, notorious for his Holocaust denial and disputed reelection in 2009.

Amir-Abdollahian is believed to have close ties to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Lebanon's powerful Hizballah movement, and other Iranian proxies around the Middle East.

Raisi also named Javad Owji to the crucial position of oil minister. Owji is a former deputy oil minister and managing director of the state-run gas company.

No woman has been nominated in Raisi's proposed cabinet, which must still be confirmed by parliament.

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei also has the final word on picking officials for the most sensitive positions, such as foreign minister.

Raisi, himself a hard-liner who is subjected to Western sanctions over allegations of human rights abuses when he was a judge, was sworn into office on August 5 as Iran faces an economic crisis deepened by U.S. sanctions, a growing health crisis, fast-rising regional tensions, and difficult negotiations to revive the 2015 nuclear agreement.

The semiofficial Iranian media suggested that the Supreme National Security Council, which reports directly to Khamenei, would take over the nuclear talks in Vienna from the Foreign Ministry, which had been led by relative moderates during Rohani's administration.

Iran and world powers have been negotiating since April to revive the pact left in 2018 by U.S. President Donald Trump, who also reimposed sanctions that have hit hard Tehran's economy by squeezing its oil exports.

A sixth round of the talks held in June 20 ended with Iranian and Western officials saying major gaps remained to be resolved in returning Tehran and Washington to full compliance with the pact.

They have yet to set a date for the next round of negotiations.

The powers of the elected president are limited in Iran by those of the supreme leader, who is commander-in-chief of the armed forces, appoints the head of the judiciary, and makes final decisions in major policies of Iran.

With reporting by AP and Reuters

NUR-SUTAN -- Authorities in Kazakhstan have labelled all regions of the Central Asian nation as "red zones” as they are facing a new wave of coronavirus infections.

Health Minister Aleksei Tsoi said on August 11 that 7,657 new COVID-19 cases were registered in Kazakhstan in the previous 24 hours, bringing the total official number of infections to more than 656,000, with over 7,100 deaths.

Tsoi also said that 99.9 percent of the people who tested positive had not been vaccinated against the virus.

For its vaccination campaign, Kazakhstan uses mainly shots of the Russian-developed Sputnik V vaccine produced either in Russia or the Kazakh city of Qaraghandy.

The Financial Control Agency said on August 11 that investigations were launched against several medical personnel in the cities of Almaty, Aqtobe, Pavlodar, Shymkent, and Taraz, on suspicion of forging and selling vaccination certificates to 37 individuals.

Amnesty International says Iran’s security forces have resorted to unlawful use of force to “ruthlessly” crackdown on mainly peaceful protesters who have taken to the streets across the country over the past weeks.

Protesters, bystanders, and activists -- including children -- have been subjected to birdshot, mass arrests, enforced disappearance, torture, and other ill-treatment, the London-based human rights watchdog said in a statement on August 11.

Iranian authorities “have yet again given their security forces free rein to inflict severe bodily injury on protesters to maintain their iron grip on power and crush dissent,” said Diana Eltahawy, deputy director for the Middle East and North Africa at Amnesty International.

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Eltahawy urged the international community to support the establishment of “an investigative and accountability mechanism at the UN Human Rights Council to collect evidence of crimes under international law and facilitate independent criminal proceedings.”

On August 7, photographs and footage circulated on social media, as well as eyewitness accounts, show that security forces fired tear gas and birdshot at peaceful protesters in the city of Naqadeh in the predominantly Kurdish province of Western Azerbaijan, according to Amnesty International.

It said the violence, which also included security forces using batons against the protesters, left dozens of people injured. A 27-year-old man was also shot dead by a person in civilian clothes.

Witnesses were quoted as saying most of those injured have refrained from seeking hospital treatment due to fear of arbitrary arrest, which Eltahawy said “speaks volumes about the authorities’ cruel methods of torture and other ill-treatment.”

Amnesty International said that the crackdown in Naqadeh came weeks after Iranian security forces fired live ammunition to “crush” mostly peaceful protests over water shortages in the southern province of Khuzestan.

The protests, which spread to other parts of Iran, left at least 11 protesters and bystanders, including a teenage boy, dead, and scores of others injured, the group said.

There has also been an ongoing wave of arrests on the outskirts of the city of Kermanshah in Kermanshah Province in response to July 26 protests in solidarity with Khuzestan.

VLADIKAVKAZ, Russia -- Authorities in Russia's North Caucasus region of North Ossetia have detained the chief physician of a hospital where a breakdown of the oxygen supply system left nine COVID-19 patients dead.

Vladimir Pliyev is accused of failing to enforce “security regulations,” the Investigative Committee said in a statement on August 10, adding that a court will decide on possible pretrial restriction measures.

On August 9, nine patients died in Pliyev's hospital in North Ossetia’s capital, Vladikavkaz, after an oxygen pipe burst underground, cutting supply to an intensive care ward.

"Work to repair the main [oxygen] supply line has been completed. The work of the entire system is now being tested," the region’s acting Health Minister Soslan Tebiyev told reporters on August 11.

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Nine Russian Coronavirus Patients Die After Oxygen Malfunction

Russia has seen a number of accidents in its coronavirus hospitals lead to the deaths of patients during the pandemic.

In June, three people died in a fire at a hospital in the Russian city of Ryazan, southeast of Moscow, with a faulty lung ventilator believed to be the cause of the blaze.

Several people also died in May 2020 in fires at hospitals in Moscow and St. Petersburg, with faulty ventilators likewise believed to have sparked the blazes.

As of August 11, Russian authorities have registered more than 6,512,000 coronavirus cases.

With over 167,000 deaths from the virus, Russia has the highest official COVID-19 toll in Europe -- even as authorities have been accused of downplaying the severity of the country's outbreak.

With reporting by TASS

German authorities say they have arrested a British citizen suspected of spying for Russia while working at Britain's embassy in Berlin.

The man, identified as David S., was arrested on August 10 in the city of Potsdam, near Berlin, Germany's Federal Prosecutor's Office said in a statement.

It said the suspect was hired as a local staff member at the embassy.

British police confirmed the arrest of a 57-year-old British national in Germany on suspicion of committing offenses relating to being engaged in "intelligence agent activity."

The Russian Embassy in Berlin declined to comment, saying the diplomatic mission "currently does not have any official information from the German side on this issue."

Berlin was taking the case "very seriously," a German Foreign Ministry spokesman said, adding that "spying on a close ally on German soil is not something we can accept."

According to the German statement, the suspect has allegedly cooperated with Russian intelligence since November 2020 and on at least one occasion passed documents linked to his job to Russian agents in exchange of financial compensation.

The arrest was the result of a joint investigation by German and British authorities.

A judge at the Federal Court of Justice in Karlsruhe is to decide later on August 11 on whether the Briton should be remanded in custody.

Moscow is at loggerheads with a number of Western capitals after several high-profile incidents in recent years, including a series of espionage scandals, that have resulted in diplomatic expulsions.

Earlier in June, German authorities arrested a Russian citizen accused of passing sensitive information from a German university to Moscow in return for cash.

And German prosecutors in February filed espionage charges against a German man suspected of passing the floor plan for the parliament building in Berlin to Russian intelligence services.

With reporting by AP, AFP, and Interfax

BISHKEK -- The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is calling on Kyrgyz President Sadyr Japarov to reject a “false information” bill recently approved by lawmakers, saying that the proposed legislation "imperils” press freedom in the Central Asian nation.

Kyrgyz authorities “should refrain from adding expansive but poorly defined new powers to unspecified state bodies that could easily be weaponized against journalists,” CPJ Program Director Carlos Martinez de la Serna said in the statement on August 10.

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The country “already has civil defamation codes on its books to address issues raised by the legislation,” he said.

Parliament in late July approved the bill that civil rights organizations and media groups in the former Soviet republic say contradicts Kyrgyzstan’s constitution and the country's international commitments, and violates human rights and freedom of speech.

The bill’s author, member of parliament Gulshat Asylbaeva, has argued that it is needed to combat the widespread use of fake accounts and troll farms aimed at discrediting political actors in Kyrgyzstan.

The bill envisages the creation of a government watchdog that would "react to complaints" regarding the content of online posts within two days. The sites where the content was posted would be obliged to follow any instructions received from the watchdog within 24 hours.

Under the bill, Internet providers must register their clients in a unified identification system and provide officials with full information related to users if a court or a state organ requests such data.

The bill also stipulates that owners of websites and social-network accounts must have their personal data and electronic e-mail addresses open and accessible to everyone, while anonymous Internet users would be located and cut off.

The proposed legislation is a revised version of an earlier draft law that was returned to parliament a year ago by then-President Sooronbai Jeenbekov following mass protests.

Disputed parliamentary elections sparked more mass rallies in October 2020, leading to the resignations of the government and Jeenbekov.

Sadyr Japarov easily won a presidential election in January and has initiated many legal changes that he says are needed to create a strong central branch of government to "establish order."

A journalistic investigation has brought new insights into the “key” role of a Russian military contractor in the civil war in Libya, including links to war crimes and Russia’s military.

The contents of a Samsung tablet left behind by an unidentified member of the Vagner Group after the contractor's fighters retreated from areas south of Tripoli in spring 2020 include frontline maps in Russian, the BBC said on August 11.

The British broadcaster said it also had acquired a “shopping list” of weapons and military equipment that was included in a document from January 2020. It mentions four tanks, hundreds of Kalashnikov rifles, a radar system, and other equipment that experts say could only have come from Russian military supplies.

An expert on the Vagner Group is quoted as saying the list pointed to the involvement of Dmitry Utkin, an ex-Russian military intelligence operative believed to have founded the group.

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Vagner Group is believed to have indirect ties to Russia's political elite and to be controlled by Yevgeny Prigozhin, a close associate of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Both Prigozhin and Russian authorities have denied any involvement with Vagner.

Vagner Group first came to public attention in 2014 when it was backing pro-Russia separatists in the conflict in eastern Ukraine.

The group has since been involved in countries including Syria, Mozambique, Sudan, and the Central African Republic.

In April 2019, Vagner mercenaries joined the forces of a rebel Libyan general, Khalifa Haftar, after he launched an attack on the UN-backed government in the capital, Tripoli. The conflict ended in a cease-fire in October.

The BBC investigation managed to gain access to two former fighters with the notoriously secretive group who revealed details about the organization's lack of any code of conduct.

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Reports Of Major Abuses By Russian Mercenaries In Central Africa

The investigation says one of the ex-members admitted to the killing of prisoners by members of the group.

"No one wants an extra mouth to feed," he is quoted as saying.

Contacted by the BBC, Prigozhin said through a spokesperson that he has no links to Vagner and had not heard of any violation of human rights in Libya by Russians. "I am sure that this is an absolute lie," he said.

The Russian Foreign Ministry told the broadcaster that the reports on Vagner's role in Libya are based on "rigged data" and were aimed at "discrediting Russia's policy" in Libya.