Protesters led by members of a prominent right-wing Ukrainian political group clashed with riot police near the offices of President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, injuring at least eight police officers.

The August 14 violence came during a rally organized by the National Corps, which was protesting a plan known as the Steinmeier Formula aimed at resolving the seven-year war that has pit Kremlin-backed separatists against Ukrainian troops and killed more than 13,000 people.

Police said the violence erupted when demonstrators tried to break through a police cordon, and police responded with tear gas.

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Interior Minister Denys Monastyrskiy said eight officers were injured. Zelenskiy was not in the offices at the time of the clash.

"The constitution guarantees the right to peaceful protests. Everyone who had undergone basic checks would have been allowed to enter the square in front of the president's office," he said in a post on Facebook.

The National Corps is a political organization that grew out of a notorious militia known as the Azov Batalion, which played a key role in defending the port city of Mariupol in the early days of the war in eastern Ukraine.

Azov, which has been formally incorporated into the official National Guard, was kicked off of Facebook in 2019 for its neo-Nazi rhetoric, and the National Corps was labeled a "nationalist hate group" by the U.S. State Department in 2018.

With reporting by Reuters

Russian President Vladimir Putin has called the wildfires ravaging parts of northern Siberia "absolutely unprecedented" and called for a better response by firefighters.

Putin's comments, in an August 14 video call with government officials, came as the total area burnt reached nearly 1.3 million hectares in Yakutia alone.

Known for frigid winters and hot Arctic summers, the Siberian region has suffered unusually devastating fires this year, following months of dry weather and record heat.

Yakutsk, the provincial capital, and other major population centers have been blanketed in choking smoke.

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The Volunteer Army Battling Siberia's Record-Breaking Wildfires

Meanwhile, parts of southern Siberia have also seen devastating flooding in recent months.

"We see, we understand that the scale of natural disasters is absolutely unprecedented," Putin said in the video conference.

Emergency Situations Minister Yevgeny Zinichev said more than 5,000 personnel, 19 aircraft, and hundreds of trucks have been deployed to the region. But he said thick smoke has also grounded firefighting planes.

In all, a total of 252 active fires were burning across the country, over more than 4.2 million hectares, according to the Natural Resources Ministry, or roughly an area the size of Switzerland.

Environmental experts say a 2007 decision by the government to disband a federal aviation network tasked to spot and combat fires has hampered firefighting efforts.

Weather officials and environmentalists have linked the growing intensity of annual Siberian fires to climate change.

With reporting by AP and dpa

Russian news agencies say eight people were killed when a Russian firefighting plane crashed while battling blazes in southern Turkey.

Interfax and TASS, citing the Defense Ministry, reported the Be-200 plane went down near the city of Adana on August 14.

The ministry was quoted as saying that five Russian military personnel and three Turkish citizens on board were killed.

The aircraft, a massive amphibious plane used to drop water in hard-to-reach locations, had been rented by Turkish emergency authorities to help battle some of the country's worst wildfires in modern history.

The fires have hit several Mediterranean resort towns hard in recent weeks, though President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on August 13 they had largely been contained.

Based on reporting by Interfax and TASS

SARAJEVO -- Hundreds of people have marched through the Bosnian capital celebrating the city's third Pride march in support of LGBT people.

No violence was reported at the August 14 event in Sarajevo, largely due to the heavy police presence that sealed off the area to prevent clashes with counterprotesters.

The march was only the third such event ever in Bosnia-Herzegovina, which is impoverished, ethnically divided, and largely conservative.

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Organizers say LGBT people have been further marginalized since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, which has killed more than 9,700 people overall in the country.

"We are resisting and saying that enough is enough. The pandemic has brought even more violence. It has locked us in four walls, in a circle of domestic violence. Time to say enough," said one of the organizers, Amar Catovic, in speech before the parliament building.

"We, lesbians, gays, bisexuals, trans, intersex, and queer people, take to the streets because the pandemic restrictions are our everyday realities," participating groups said in a public statement. "In the year behind us, the rights and freedoms of LGBTIQ+ people have further deteriorated."

The group's demands include passage of a law on same-sex partnerships and a plan to end discrimination of LGBT people in Bosnia.

Dozens of LGBT opponents held their own gathering elsewhere in Sarajevo, saying they wanted to defend the country's traditional values from an "aggressive" LGBT ideology.

With reporting by AP

Heavy rains have triggered widespread flooding in southern Russia, forcing the evacuation of more than 1,500 people, officials say.

Authorities in the Krasnodar region said on August 14 that more than 1,400 houses had been flooded following storms and heavy rains that swept the area this week. About 108,000 residents of 11 settlements were left without power.

The regional emergency headquarters said a total of 1,531 people had been evacuated. The Black Sea resort city of Anapa was among the worst affected.

Emergency officials have warned that heavy rains were expected to continue for another two days.

Across the Black Sea to the south, Turkey has been hit by heavy rains and flooding this week that have killed at least 44 people and left more missing.

Based on reporting by AP, AFP, and TASS

Russia reported a new daily high of 819 for COVID-19 deaths, a day after Moscow reported the highest number of monthly deaths in the city since the start of the pandemic.

The new figure reported on August 14 comes as the country's daily death toll continues to rise after infections peaked in July. Authorities blame the infectious Delta variant and a slow vaccination rate.

Independent demographers and health experts have cast doubt on the official figures, saying the authorities are severely undercounting both the death toll and the number of overall infections.

RFE/RL's Coronavirus Coverage

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

Moscow said late on August 13 that the mortality rate in the city in July was 70 percent higher than before the pandemic in 2019 and 60 percent higher than in the same month last year.

A total of 17,237 deaths in Moscow in July is the highest monthly death toll since the pandemic began. Most of the excess deaths were caused by the coronavirus outbreak, the Moscow Health Department said.

"The dynamics is linked to the sharp rise of infections due to the spread of a new strain of the coronavirus in June as well as abnormally hot weather in the city in recent months," said the department, adding that high temperatures made COVID-19 patients feel even worse.

Russia's official total coronavirus death toll stands at 169,683.

Rosstat, the government statistics agency, keeps a separate count from the pandemic task force and says it recorded around 315,000 deaths related to COVID-19 between April 2020 and June this year.

Despite having approved four different vaccines, including the Sputnik V vaccine, the authorities have struggled to persuade Russians to get vaccinated, resulting in the country having some of the lowest vaccinations rates among major industrialized states.

With reporting by Reuters

The U.S. Treasury Department has imposed sanctions on an alleged oil smuggler and companies it said provide support to the Quds Force of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps.

The sanctions target Mahmood Rashid Amur al-Habsi, an oil trader from Oman, and a network of businesses, two based in Oman, one based in Liberia, and one based in Romania, the Treasury Department said in a statement on August 13.

The action freezes any U.S. assets of those blacklisted and generally bars Americans from dealing with them.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement that the Quds Force used revenues from sales of Iranian petroleum to fund its "malign activities" and used foreign intermediaries to obscure its involvement.

The United States "will continue to expose and disrupt those supporting such efforts," Blinken said.

The United States has designated the Quds Force a foreign terrorist organization, and in January 2020 killed its leader, General Qasem Soleimani, in a drone strike.

The sanctions come as efforts to revive the 2015 Iran nuclear deal with world powers have stalled, with indications that Washington is losing patience over Tehran's delays in returning to the talks in Vienna.

Negotiations to seek a way to bring both sides back into full compliance began in April. The last round took place on June 20.

A senior European Union official said last week that Iran is ready to resume the talks as soon as early September. Iran's new president, Ebrahim Raisi, took office earlier this month.

Based on reporting by Reuters and dpa

A top U.S. diplomat has called on Belarus to stop allowing migrants to illegally cross into Lithuania and other neighboring countries.

Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman raised the migrant situation along Lithuania's border with Belarus in a call on August 13 with Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis, the U.S. State Department said in a statement.

Belarusian strongman Alyaksandr Lukashenka should "immediately halt a campaign of orchestrating irregular migrant flows across its borders," Sherman said during the call, according to the statement.

Sherman also reaffirmed U.S. support for the Belarusian pro-democracy movement.

Lithuania since last month has seen a surge of mostly Iraqi migrants crossing the border with Belarus. In recent weeks Latvia and Poland have witnessed a similar wave, prompting authorities in the EU member states to beef up their border security and start pushing back illegal migrants.

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EU Welcomes Suspension Of Iraqi Flights To Belarus Amid Migrant Surge

Poland, the Baltic states, and EU officials have said the migrant flows are being orchestrated by Lukashenka in retaliation for EU sanctions over his government's crackdown on the country's pro-democracy movement.

The European Union said on August 10 that it hopes for a stabilization of the situation after Iraq suspended flights from Baghdad to Minsk.

Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda on August 13 signed a decree that calls for deploying members of the armed forces to the border to counter the increase in illegal migration.

Nauseda signed the decree expanding the powers of the military in the border area after a request from parliament, the Baltic News Service reported.

The move allows the military to stop and search people and vehicles and permits the use of unspecified "special equipment."

Some 4,026 individuals have illegally crossed into Lithuania from Belarus this year, the Lithuanian Interior Ministry said on August 3. That compares with only 74 in all of last year.

With reporting by Reuters and dpa

Russia has refused to renew a visa for a BBC journalist in Moscow, effectively expelling her from the country.

The BBC on August 13 called the move against Sarah Rainsford "a direct assault on media freedom," while the British government urged Moscow "to reconsider this retrograde step against an award-winning BBC journalist which can only do further damage to media freedom in Russia."

The move comes as the authorities crack down on the opposition and independent media before parliamentary elections in September.

Russian state news channel Rossia-24 said authorities had rejected extending Rainsford's accreditation to work as a foreign journalist beyond the end of this month when her visa expires, meaning she'll have to leave the country.

The decision was a response to London's treatment of Russian journalists from state-backed Russian broadcaster RT and news outlet Sputnik, both of which have had issues getting accreditation to cover international events, Rossia-24 said.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said that Moscow had warned London about the issue many times and that it will take "corresponding measures" in response to its treatment of Russian journalists.

"We have made regular statements, urging the British to end persecution of Russian journalists," she said. She added that BBC representatives had been at the ministry in recent days and that everything had been explained to them in detail.

The U.K. Foreign, Commonwealth, and Development Office rejected Moscow's claim of discriminatory action against Russian journalists based in Britain and insisted that "Russian journalists continue to work freely in the U.K., provided they act within the law and the regulatory framework."

Rainsford described the news as "devastating."

"Being expelled from Russia, a country I've lived in for almost 1/3 of my life -- and reported for years -- is devastating," she wrote on Twitter.

"The expulsion of Sarah Rainsford is a direct assault on media freedom, which we condemn unreservedly," BBC Director-General Tim Davie said in a statement. "Sarah is an exceptional and fearless journalist. She is a fluent Russian speaker who provides independent and in-depth reporting of Russia and the former Soviet Union. Her journalism informs the BBC's audiences of hundreds of millions of people around the world."

Rainsford is part of a team that provides the British public service broadcaster's English-language outlets with content about Russia and the former Soviet Union. The BBC also operates a Russian-language service.

With reporting by AFP, BBC, and Reuters

Swiss police say they seized a historically significant painting stolen from a Serbian castle three decades ago.

Vlaho Bukovac's Blagovestanski Sabor, which depicts a 1861 assembly of prominent Serbs in the then-Austro-Hungarian empire, was recovered in a raid in Zurich on August 11, police said.

"This painting is considered an important national cultural property in Serbia," police said.

Blagovestanski Sabor, or the Annunciation Assembly, is viewed as a significant event in the history of the Serbs.

At the meeting, the Serbian elite sought political autonomy for territories inhabited mostly by Serbs from the empire, which then controlled much of Central and Southern Europe.

Police arrested a 44-year-old Serb and a 76-year-old Swiss-Serbian dual national in the raid on a house in the Swiss financial center.

The painting was stolen in 1993 from Celarevo Castle in northern Serbia.

Swiss police said they worked in close cooperation with Serbian authorities in the investigation.

Serbian media reported that the two men tried to sell the painting for several hundred thousands dollars.

Based on reporting by AFP and Neue Zuericher Zeitung

A court in Belarus has designated leading independent news outlet Tut.by and its new media site, Zerkalo.io, as "extremist."

The site Zerkalo.io was created last month by journalists from Tut.by after Belarusian authorities blocked its popular news site, froze the company's bank accounts, and detained a number of staff for alleged tax evasion.

Tut.by was one of the more prominent websites covering the crackdown on protests after a disputed presidential election last summer gave strongman Alyaksandr Lukashenka a sixth term in office despite widespread allegations of fraud.

The Interior Ministry said that in addition to the two news sites, their social-media platforms were also banned and anyone sharing information from the outlets could face jail time or fines.

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.

Both sites are a "platform for the propaganda of extremist activities aimed at inciting social hostility or discord, organizing and carrying out mass riots, as well as inciting political and ideological enmity," the Interior Ministry said.

In response, Zerkalo.io said in a statement that it would appeal the ruling because it did nothing wrong. It vowed to continue working from abroad.

Previously, Belarusian authorities labeled the Polish-funded Belsat television channel and a popular sports portal as "extremist" for the critical coverage of the government amid an intensifying crackdown on the media and civil society.

Authorities have also shuttered the popular Nasha Niva newspaper, the Minsk office of RFE/RL, and dozens of regional publications.

Since the beginning of the year, more than a hundred police searches have taken place in the editorial offices and apartments of journalists in Belarus. Dozens of media workers are either in detention or face charges.

PETROPAVL, Kazakhstan -- Authorities in the northern Kazakh city of Petropavl have reportedly started the process of reopening a case into the alleged killing of a 25-year-old man by police in 2017.

Anatoly Reibant's mother, who has been on a hunger strike for 19 days demanding justice, told RFE/RL that officials on August 13 handed her a letter saying that the regional prosecutor's office had requested the Prosecutor-General's Office in Nur-Sultan, the capital, reopen the case.

Reibant, a father of two, died weeks after he sustained multiple facial fractures while in police custody.

His parents say he died after he was severely beaten by several police officers, while a court has ruled it a suicide.

The mother, Irina Reibant, started a hunger strike on July 25, four days after local law enforcement officials rejected a request to reopen the case of his death.

Police brutality in the tightly controlled Central Asian state has been an issue for decades.

The 61-year-old mother told RFE/RL that physicians who accompanied the officials at her home recommended she stop the hunger strike.

"I refused to stop the hunger strike, saying to them that I will continue it until the case is returned to a court and those responsible for my son's death are convicted," Reibant said.

She added that officials promised to grant her husband, who has a cancer condition, disability status and to provide him with an additional annual financial allowance.

ABINSK, Russia -- A court in southwestern Russia has handed a three-year prison term to a Jehovah's Witness amid an ongoing crackdown on the religious group that has been banned in Russia since 2017.

The Abinsk district court in the Krasnodar region sentenced Vasily Meleshko on August 12 after finding him guilty of taking part in the activities of an "extremist organization."

Meleshko admitted to being a Jehovah's Witness but rejected the charge.

Yaroslav Sivulsky of the European Association of Jehovah's Witnesses told RFE/RL that Meleshko and his wife had been members of the local parish for 30 years and that the authorities had never caused any problems for them before.

The United States has condemned Russia's ongoing crackdown on Jehovah's Witnesses and other peaceful religious minorities.

SEE ALSO:

Russia's Crackdown On Jehovah's Witnesses Continues, With At Least Seven More Sentenced

For decades, the Jehovah's Witnesses have been viewed with suspicion in Russia, where the dominant Orthodox Church is championed by President Vladimir Putin.

The Christian group is known for door-to-door preaching, close Bible study, rejection of military service, and refusal to mark national and religious holidays or birthdays.

Since the faith was outlawed, many Jehovah's Witnesses have been imprisoned in Russia and Crimea, which was seized by Moscow from Ukraine in 2014.

According to the group, dozens of Jehovah's Witnesses have either been convicted of extremism or have been held in pretrial detention.

The Moscow-based Memorial Human Rights Center has recognized dozens of Jehovah's Witnesses who've been charged with or convicted of extremism as political prisoners.

KHABAROVSK, Russia -- A son of the jailed former governor of Russia's Far Eastern region of Khabarovsk has been denied registration for next month's parliamentary elections.

Khabarovsk's election commission on August 13 announced its decision regarding the application of Anton Furgal, saying that some 5,000 of almost 15,800 signatures of the hopeful's supporters were not valid due to numerous issues, including using "a wrong ink color."

Furgal, 29, said he will appeal the decision.

SEE ALSO:

Disqualified In 2019, Prospective Russian Duma Candidate Pulls Out All The Stops This Time

His father, Sergei Furgal of the nationalist Liberal Democratic Party of Russia, was elected in 2018 to the post of the region's governor in a runoff that he won handily against the longtime incumbent from the Kremlin-backed ruling United Russia party.

His arrest in July 2020 on charges of involvement in two murders in 2004-05 sparked mass protests in the capital, Khabarovsk, and several other towns and cities in the region by his supporters almost daily for many months.

The protests highlighted growing discontent in the Far East over what demonstrators see as Moscow-dominated policies that often neglect their views and interests.

On September 19, Russia will vote to choose members of the Russian parliament's lower chamber, the State Duma, 39 regional parliaments, and nine regional governors.

In the run-up to the elections, the Kremlin has cracked down on opposition political figures and independent media as the popularity of United Russia and President Vladimir Putin has been declining amid Kremlin efforts to deal with an economy suffering from the coronavirus pandemic and years of ongoing international sanctions.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel will hold talks in Moscow with Russian President Vladimir Putin on August 20, the German and Russian governments announced on August 13.

Merkel’s office earlier announced she would visit the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, on August 22.

It will be Merkel’s first trip to the Russian capital since January 2020, although she has held telephone consultations with Putin several times since then, including as recently as July 21.

“The parties are expected to discuss the current state of relations and the prospects for cooperation in various areas, as well as to consider a number of international and regional matters,” the Kremlin’s announcement read.

The trip comes at a time of strained relations between Russia and Germany, in particular following the August 2020 nerve-agent poisoning of Russian opposition politician Aleksei Navalny, the 2019 assassination in Berlin of a Georgian citizen of Chechen origin that Berlin has blamed on Moscow, and a 2015 cyberattack against the German Bundestag.

Berlin has been a key supporter of Kyiv since Russia annexed Ukraine’s Crimea region and began actively supporting separatist formations in parts of eastern Ukraine in 2014. That conflict has claimed more than 13,000 lives.

However, Germany has been criticized for its backing of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline project that will soon double Russian natural-gas supplies to Germany. The United States and other countries have warned that the project would increase dependency on Russian energy supplies and deprive Ukraine of badly needed transit fees.

Berlin has raised the possibility of creating a mechanism to compensate Ukraine for lost revenues.

Merkel and Putin will also likely discuss the rapidly deteriorating security situation in Afghanistan.

Merkel is currently nearing the end of her fourth term as chancellor and will leave office after German elections on September 26.

With reporting by dpa, AP, and Reuters

Russian authorities have effectively banned a Belgian nongovernmental organization after declaring it an “undesirable” organization amid a Kremlin clampdown on civil society.

The Prosecutor-General's Office said in a statement on August 13 that the International Partnership for Human Rights (IPHR) “poses a threat to the foundations of the constitutional order and security of the Russian Federation.”

There were no immediate comments from the Brussels-based group, which reports on human rights developments, mainly in countries in the former Soviet Union.

Dozens of foreign nongovernmental organizations have been recognized "undesirable" in Russia in recent months.

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'Undesirable' And 'Foreign': How Russia Is Muzzling The Media In An Escalating Crackdown

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The "undesirable" organization law, adopted in May 2015 and since updated, 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 June, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed into law a bill that expands the scope of the “undesirable” law to include criminalizing participation in the activities of foreign nongovernmental organizations recognized as such in Russia.

SEE ALSO:

'Undesirable' Organizations In Russia

Also on August 13, Bloomberg cited a Russian Foreign Ministry official as saying that BBC journalist Sarah Rainsford had been ordered by Russian authorities to leave the country by the end of August.

A report by Russia's state-run Rossia-24 television channel described the move as retaliation against what it called Britain’s discrimination against Russian media.

The report did not give details.

With reporting by Rossia-24 and Bloomberg

Kyrgyz authorities have questioned former Kyrgyz President Sooronbai Jeenbekov as part of a widening investigation into alleged corruption during the development of the Kumtor gold-mine project.

The State Committee for National Security (UKMK) said on August 13 that Jeenbekov was considered a witness in the case and that his questioning related to the 2016-17 period when he served as the Central Asian nation's prime minister.

Jeenbekov served as president from 2017 until his resignation last year, following street protests triggered by disputed parliamentary elections.

Kumtor has been a target of financial and environmental disagreements for years and is currently the subject of an ongoing battle for control between the Kyrgyz state and the mine's Canadian operator, Centerra Gold.

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

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

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

Jeenbekov's questioning comes less than two weeks after Kyrgyzstan’s first president, Askar Akaev, visited Bishkek for the first time since he was ousted by demonstrations in 2005 to be questioned about the Kumtor case.

Akaev left for Moscow last weekend after spending several days in the country.

Several former top officials have been arrested in connection with the case in recent months, including former Prime Minister Temir Sariev, who is still in custody.

Another detained ex-prime minister, Omurbek Babanov, was released last month and allowed to travel abroad to receive medical treatment for an unspecified illness.

Deputy Prime Minister Taiyrbek Sarpashev was remanded in custody in the case.

MOSCOW -- Prosecutors have asked a Moscow court to sentence Kira Yarmysh, the spokeswoman of jailed opposition politician Aleksei Navalny, to two years of so-called "restricted freedom."

The prosecutor asked the Preobrazhensky District court on August 12 to convict Yarmysh of publicly calling for the violation of anti-pandemic restrictions by urging people to take part in unsanctioned rallies to support Navalny in January.

Yarmysh's lawyer, Veronika Polyakova, posted on Twitter that prosectors want Yarmysh subjected to a curfew between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m. and banned from leaving Moscow or changing her permanent address.

A verdict in the case is expected on August 16.

SEE ALSO:

Navalny's Brother Gets Suspended Sentence In Latest 'Sanitary' Case

Last week, Navalny's brother Oleg was found guilty in the same case on the same charges and handed a one-year suspended sentence and a one-year probation period.

Hours before Oleg Navalny’s sentence was pronounced, another Navalny associate, Nikolai Lyaskin was given one year of "restricted freedom" in the case, which has become known as the "sanitary case."

One of Navalny's closest associates, Lyubov Sobol, was found guilty and given an 18-month parole-like sentence on August 3 in the same case. Media reports that she fled Russia after that have not been confirmed either by her or her associates.

On August 2, January rally participant Dani Akel was fined 100,000 rubles (almost $1,400) on similar charges.

SEE ALSO:

Navalny Associate Sobol Given Parole-Like Sentence In 'Sanitary' Case

Other individuals charged in the case include municipal lawyers Dmitry Baranovsky and Lyusya Shtein; the chief of the Physicians' Alliance NGO, Anastasia Vasilyeva; a leading member of the Pussy Riot protest group, Maria Alyokhina; and a coordinator of Navalny's team in Moscow, Oleg Stepanov.

Most of them are under house arrest or curfew.

Aleksei Navalny was arrested on January 17 after returning to Russia from Germany, where he was treated for poisoning with a Novichok-type nerve agent that he says was ordered by Russian President Vladimir Putin.

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The Kremlin has denied any role in the incident.

More than 10,000 people were rounded up during nationwide rallies protesting Navalny's arrest organized in more than 100 Russian towns and cities on January 23 and January 31.

On February 2, Navalny was convicted of violating the terms of his suspended sentence related to an embezzlement case that he has called politically motivated. The remainder of Navalny's suspended sentence, 2 1/2 years, was then replaced by a real prison term.

That ruling sparked new protests that were also forcibly dispersed by police.

More than 1,400 people were detained by police in Moscow, St. Petersburg, and other Russian cities during those demonstrations.

The Investigative Committee said on August 12 that a person was detained in the city of Kirov, almost 900 kilometers northeast of Moscow, on suspicion of threatening via the Internet to kill a Moscow prosecutor involved in making the decision to seek a prison term for Navalny.

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has called on Belarus to immediately release journalist Syarhey Hardzievich, who was sentenced to 18 months in prison after being convicted of insulting authoritarian leader Alyaksandr Lukashenka and two police officers.

“The jailing of journalist Syarhey Hardzievich once again demonstrates Belarus authorities’ abuse of the law to silence independent journalists who cover law enforcement abuses,” said CPJ Program Director Carlos Martínez de la Serna in a statement issued on August 12.

“Authorities should not contest Hardzievich’s appeal and should immediately release him and other journalists unjustly held behind bars.”

Hardzievich, a correspondent with the independent regional news website Pershy Region, was sentenced on August 2 in the western region of Brest. Among the accusations was that Hardzievich reposted a social-media post that called Lukashenka "a rat."

He rejected the charges, saying that he will appeal the verdict.

Hardzievich was detained and placed under house arrest in December and later released and ordered not to leave his permanent address before the trial.

Belarusian authorities have targeted independent media and journalists, as well as dozens of nongovernmental organizations, forcibly expelled or jailed opposition leaders, and arrested tens of thousands of people since a crackdown on massive street protests began after Lukashenka claimed to have won a sixth presidential term in August 2020.

His reelection claim has been dismissed by the beleaguered opposition and the West, which has slapped multiple rounds of sanctions to pressure Lukashenka's government to ease the crackdown, talk with the opposition, and ensure a new, fair election.

Lukashenka denies voter fraud and has refused to negotiate with the opposition led by Svyatlana Tsikhanouskaya, who supporters say won the August 2020 vote.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) says it's keeping "close watch" on the situation in Belarus amid calls for the global lender to deny Alyaksandr Lukashenka's government access to newly allocated funds intended to help countries navigate the coronavirus crisis.

However, IMF spokesman Gerry Rice told Reuters on August 12, the Washington-based organization's actions are guided by the international community, which "continues to deal with the current government in the country" despite efforts to hold Minsk accountable for human rights abuses carried out following its disputed 2020 presidential election.

The U.S. Congress's bipartisan Friends of Belarus Caucus recently expressed "deep regret" over plans by the IMF to earmark nearly $1 billion in funds known as Special Drawing Rights (SDR) to Minsk, saying the money would "undermine the substantial efforts made by the democratic movement in Belarus to fight back against the regime's repression."

To spend their SDRs, countries first have to exchange them for approved hard currencies, requiring them to find a willing exchange partner.

However, in its August 2 letter to the IMF, the caucus warned that "the ability to access hard currency sends a message to authoritarian leaders that they can be rewarded for state-sponsored violence against their own citizens."

The Belarusian allocation is part of $650 billion in emergency SDR funds for IMF members that was approved by the body's board of governors on August 2. Described as the largest allocation in the IMF's history, the funds based on the size of individual countries' economies are to be made available on August 23.

IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said in announcing the allocation that the funds would "benefit all members, address the long-term global need for reserves, build confidence, and foster the resilience and stability of the global economy," but would "particularly help our most vulnerable countries struggling to cope with the impact of the COVID-19 crisis."

The move comes as Western governments have sought to escalate pressure on Lukashenka, who is accused of rigging the presidential election in August 2020 and cracking down on his political opposition.

On August 9, the first anniversary of Lukashenka's contentious claim to winning a sixth-straight term in office, the United States, Britain, and Canada added to existing punitive measures with a new round of trade and financial sanctions targeting specific economic sectors and individuals who support or enable Lukashenka's government.

The United States, the IMF's largest shareholder and financial contributor, has led the charge against Lukashenka, with President Joe Biden reaffirming that "the United States stands with the people of Belarus in their quest for democracy and universal human rights" after meeting with Belarusian opposition leader and claimed presidential victor Svyatlana Tsikhanouskaya at the White House last month.

SEE ALSO:

Hope And Horror: How Belarus Has Changed Since An Election Ignited A Crisis One Year Ago

However, experts suggest that as long as the IMF's members continue to recognize the government of Lukashenka, the international lender's hands are tied when it comes to taking more forceful action.

There is precedent for antidemocratic states being cut off from SDR funds, with Venezuela and Myanmar being denied access because their governments do not have broad recognition among the IMF's 190 members.

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.

Venezuela, for example, was cut off from existing SDR holdings and new allocations because Washington and more than 50 other countries consider opposition leader Juan Guaido to be the South American country's legitimate president following a flawed election in 2018.

IMF spokesman Rice said at the time that Venezuela would not gain access to SDR funds "until a new government is recognized."

However, despite Western condemnation of the Lukashenka's abuses amid anti-government demonstrations against the results of the August 2020 presidential election, the strongman leader's government continues to hold consensus recognition among IMF members.

And despite a growing rift between Belarus and Washington, highlighted by Minsk's revocation this week of its consent of the appointment of U.S. Ambassador to Belarus Julie Fisher and demands that the U.S. Embassy in Minsk reduce its staffing numbers, the countries continue to maintain diplomatic ties.

This puts Belarus more in the company of states such as China, Russia, and Iran, which continue to receive IMF funds despite criticism from Washington and other IMF members.

According to a source who spoke to Bloomberg on condition of anonymity, there have been no discussions within the IMF about rescinding recognition of Lukashenka's government.

The U.S. Treasury Department has said it would refrain from offering hard currency to countries against which it has imposed punitive sanctions. And Bloomberg, citing another source familiar with Treasury's plans, reported that Washington will focus on denying Minsk access to exchange partners, particularly among U.S. allies.

This means that Belarus could potentially still receive IMF funds, however -- a prospect that Dzmitry Kruk, a senior fellow at the Minsk-based Belarusian Economic Research and Outreach Center, told Bloomberg would be "like manna from heaven for Belarusian authorities."

With reporting by Al-Jazeera, Reuters, and Bloomberg

A second woman has died of injuries sustained in an August 12 explosion on a passenger bus in the Russian central city of Voronezh.

Voronezh regional Governor Aleksandr Gusev made the announcement on August 13 on his official Telegram channel.

Seventeen victims are being treated for their injures; at least four of them are in serious condition.

Officials say they suspect the blast was caused by gas cylinders installed on the bus.

Federal Security Service (FSB) investigators from Moscow are in Voronezh to work on the case.

The Investigative Committee has said a criminal investigation into the incident had been opened into possible safety violations.

An unnamed investigator was quoted as saying that no signs of explosives had been detected at the scene.

A representative of the bus line said that all the company’s buses run on diesel fuel and were not carrying gas canisters.

The explosion occurred while the bus was stopped and loading passengers.

A dashcam video of the explosion has been shared on social media.

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.

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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.

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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