More than 50 Crimean Tatars have been detained by the Russian intelligence service in Ukraine’s Russia-controlled Crimea region, Ukrainian officials said on September 4.

Ukrainian Ombudswoman Lyudmyla Denisova said Russia’s Federal Security Service, the FSB, had first detained five minority Crimean Tatar activists, including well-known activist Nariman Dzhelyal, the deputy chairman of the Mejlis representative body for the Tatars in Crimea, and raided their homes.

In response, more than 50 Crimean Tatars gathered in front of the FSB's branch in Crimea's capital, Simferopol, to protest the detentions.

“As a result, more than 50 Crimean Tatars have been detained," Denisova wrote on Facebook on September 4.

Some of them were brutally forced onto police buses, Denisova said, adding that two journalists were among those detained.

“They were shoved into buses with force and beaten and taken to different police precincts in the temporarily occupied Crimea, where they're being questioned without lawyers present,” she said.

Denisova called on “the entire international community to use all possible leverage...in order to end repressions against the indigenous population.”

Russian authorities have not yet commented on the arrests.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy demanded the release of the detained Crimean Tatars in a tweet on September 4.

“The occupants of Crimea once again resort to persecution of Crimean Tatars. Regular raids and detentions take place in their homes,” Zelenskyy wrote. “All those detained must be freed!”

Since Russia seized Crimea in 2014, Russian authorities have prosecuted dozens of Crimean Tatars for allegedly belonging to the Hizb ut-Tahrir Islamic group, which is banned in Russia but not in Ukraine.

Moscow’s takeover of the peninsula was vocally opposed by many Crimean Tatars, who are a sizable minority in the region.

Exiled from their homeland to Central Asia by the Soviet authorities under dictator Josef Stalin during World War II, many Crimean Tatars are very wary of Russia and Moscow's rule.

Rights groups and Western governments have denounced what they describe as a campaign of repression by the Russian-imposed authorities in Crimea who are targeting members of the Turkic-speaking Crimean Tatar community and others who have spoken out against Moscow's takeover of the peninsula.

Russia took control of Crimea from Ukraine in March 2014 after sending in troops, seizing key facilities, and staging a referendum dismissed as illegal by at least 100 countries. Moscow also backs separatists in a war against government forces that has killed more than 13,200 people in eastern Ukraine since April 2014.

With reporting by AP and dpa

CETINJE, Montenegro -- The new head of the Serbian Orthodox Church in Montenegro has been inaugurated, arriving by helicopter under the protection of police who dispersed hundreds of protesters with tear gas.

The decision to anoint Bishop Joanikije II as the new Metropolitan of Montenegro at a historic monastery in the town of Cetinje, the former capital, has provoked ethnic tensions in the small Balkan nation.

Demonstrators said the choice of venue was an insult to Montenegro's centuries-old struggle for sovereignty and independence.

Protesters have clashed with police, setting up road barriers with trash containers, tires, and stones to prevent church and state dignitaries from attending the inauguration.

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Montenegro's Church Leader Inaugurated Amid Clashes

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Riot police responded by using tear gas and firing gunshots in the air.

Hospital officials in Cetinje said at least 60 people were injured in the clashes, including 30 police officers. At least 15 people were arrested.

The protesters broke through a police blockade at the entrance to Cetinje and threw stones at them, shouting, "This is Montenegro!” and “This is not Serbia!” Montenegrin state RTCG TV said.

Montenegrins remain deeply divided over their country’s ties with Serbia and the Serbian Orthodox Church. About 30 percent of the country's population of 600,000 identifies as Serb, and the Serbian Orthodox Church is the predominant religion in the country.

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Serbian Patriarch Arrives In Montenegro For Controversial Ceremony

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Pro-independence Montenegrins have advocated for a recognized Orthodox Christian Church separate from the Serbian one.

Joanikije’s inauguration ceremony started with the arrival on September 4 of the head of the Serbian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Porfirije, in Podgorica, Montenegro's capital.

Patriarch Porfirije attended the inauguration of Joanikije, whose predecessor, Metropolitan Amfilohije, died in October at age 82 after contracting COVID-19.

The Serbian Orthodox Church played a key role in demonstrations last year that helped topple a long-ruling pro-Western government. Montenegro’s new government includes staunchly pro-Serb and pro-Russian parties.

Prime Minister Zdravko Krivokapic and some government ministers close to the Serbian Orthodox Church supported the installment of Joanikije in Cetinje.

Montenegro's previous leaders defied Russia to seal the country’s membership in NATO in 2017. Montenegro also is seeking to become a European Union member.

With reporting by AP

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi says talks to revive the Iran nuclear deal are on his government's agenda, but that they should not be held under "pressure" from Western countries.

Raisi told state television on September 4 that his government is "pursuing outcome-oriented negotiations."

France and Germany -- the two European Union countries in the deal -- have urged Iran to return to negotiations after a break in talks following Iranian elections in June that brought Raisi to power.

Iran does not hesitate to talk and negotiate, Raisi said. “But the Americans and the Westerners are looking for dialogue with pressure," he said.

"I ordered negotiations to be on the agenda, but not with the pressure they are pursuing," he added.

Six rounds of talks on reviving the 2015 deal have been held in Vienna since April.

In August, France, Germany, and Britain voiced grave concerns about reports that Iran had produced uranium enriched to 20 percent fissile purity, raising fears that Tehran might be pursuing nuclear weapons.

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Britain, France, Germany Voice 'Grave Concern' Over Iran's Uranium Enrichment

Later in the month, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) confirmed the reports that Iran had for the first time produced 20 percent pure metal uranium and said it had significantly increased its production capacity for 60 percent enriched uranium.

The nuclear accord, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), limits Tehran to refining uranium to 3.67 percent.

Iran, which says its nuclear ambitions are purely for civilian purposes, said it informs the IAEA about its activities. It also has said that its moves away from the deal would be reversed if the United States returned to the accord and lifted sanctions.

Iran's chief nuclear negotiator, Abbas Araqchi, said in July that "enough has been negotiated and now is the time for countries to decide." After six rounds, he said, “We are almost nearing its final stages.”

Under the deal between Iran and Britain, France, Germany, China, Russia, and the United States, Tehran agreed to suspend many of its nuclear activities in exchange for sanctions relief.

In 2018, then-President Donald Trump withdrew the United States from the deal and called for a broader agreement to include Iran's regional activities and missile program. President Joe Biden, who defeated Trump last year, has said that he wants Washington to rejoin the nuclear deal.

With reporting by Reuters

Dozens of people gathered in central Moscow on September 4 to protest the Russian government’s recent crackdown on independent media.

Participants at the rally on Chistoprudny Boulevard were mostly members of the Yabloko opposition party, journalists, and opposition candidates in Russia's September 19 parliamentary elections.

In their speeches, the candidates condemned the government’s recent designation of several independent media outlets and journalists as “foreign agents” – a label that implies an attempt to discredit the journalists or that applies additional government scrutiny.

"[Russian President Vladimir] Putin set up a goal for himself: All media have to be destroyed because they are bothering him," Marina Litvinovich, an opposition candidate, told the rally.

SEE ALSO:

Who Has Russia Labeled As A 'Foreign Agent'?

"My friends, we have to resist while we can. Many media will have to go underground,” she said.

The gathering was officially billed as a meeting between candidates and voters, to avoid accusations of staging an unauthorized rally.

Critics say the Kremlin has accelerated pressure on the country's independent media, opposition supporters, and human rights activists ahead of the elections, which are widely seen as an important part of Putin’s efforts to cement his rule before the next presidential election in 2024.

SEE ALSO:

Russian Independent Media Join Forces To Urge Putin To End 'Foreign Agent' Label

The “foreign agent” legislation was adopted in 2012 and has been modified several times. It requires nongovernmental organizations that receive foreign assistance and that the government deems to be engaged in political activity to be registered, to identify themselves as “foreign agents,” and to submit to audits.

In 2017, the Russian government placed RFE/RL's Russian Service on the "foreign agents" list, along with six other RFE/RL Russian-language news services and Current Time, the Russian-language network led by RFE/RL in cooperation with VOA.

Russia's top independent TV channel Dozhd and popular news site Meduza are also among the outlets designated as “foreign agents.”

Based on reporting by AP, Reuters, and RFE/RL’s Russian Service

Hundreds of protesters clashed with riot police in Montenegro on September 4 ahead of the inauguration of the new head of the Serbian Orthodox Church in the small Balkan nation.

Montenegrin state RTCG TV said protesters broke through a police blockade at the entrance to the country’s old capital, Cetinje, and threw stones at them, shouting, "This is Montenegro!" and "This is not Serbia!"

Metropolitan Bishop Joanikije II is scheduled to be formally installed as the top Serbian Orthodox church leader in Montenegro on September 5.

The ceremony -- planned to take place in Cetinje -- has angered opponents of the Serbian church in Montenegro, who say it is an insult to Montenegro's centuries-old struggle for sovereignty and independence.

Montenegro, which declared independence from Serbia in 2006, is split between those who consider themselves Montenegrins and those who deny the existence of the Montenegrin nation.

About 30 percent of the country's population of 600,000 identifies as Serb. The Serbian Orthodox Church is the predominant religion in the country.

Pro-independence Montenegrins have advocated for a recognized Orthodox Christian church that is separate from the Serbian one.

Patriarch Porfirije, the head of the Serbian Orthodox Church, is set to attend the inauguration of Joanikije, whose predecessor as the church's leader in Montenegro, Amfilohije, died in October after contracting COVID-19.

Based on reporting by AP and RFE/RL’s Balkan Service

U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris spoke by phone with Kosovar President Vjosa Osmani on September 3 to convey U.S. gratitude for the country’s assistance in efforts to evacuate people from Afghanistan, a statement from Harris’s office said.

Harris affirmed the “strong relationship between the United States and Kosovo and expressed her appreciation for Kosovo’s temporary hosting of vulnerable Afghans,” the statement said.

Osmani’s office said in a statement that Harris emphasized that the United States is deeply grateful to Kosovo for the close cooperation, will, and generosity it has shown.

Kosovo agreed to temporarily host about 2,000 at-risk Afghans who worked with U.S.-led international forces while their immigration status to the United States is processed. About 500 Afghans have arrived in Kosovo so far. Kosovo authorities have said the Afghans can stay for up to a year.

During the call, Osmani and Harris also discussed the COVID-19 pandemic. Osmani expressed gratitude for the donation of more than half a million doses of the Pfizer/BioNtech vaccine, which Harris said will begin arriving in Kosovo this weekend. They are in addition to about 35,000 doses already delivered.

Harris also underscored U.S. support for the government’s efforts to strengthen rule of law and U.S. hopes for progress in the European Union-led Kosovo-Serbia dialogue process. The negotiations are aimed at resolving disputes between Serbia and Kosovo, a former province of Serbia that declared independence in 2008.

Serbia, Russia, and five EU nations have not recognized Kosovo as independent, while the United States and more than 110 other countries have.

Russia has branded four more media outlets as "foreign agents," adding to the growing list of news organizations and individual journalists caught up in what critics say is an accelerated Kremlin campaign against independent media ahead of nationwide legislative elections later this month.

The Justice Ministry announced on September 3 that it had added four legal entities to its controversial registry of "foreign media performing the functions of a foreign agent": Altair 2021 LLC, Vega 2021 LLC, Editor-in-Chief 2021 LLC, and Romashki Monolit LLC.

All four were founded by Russian journalists who had previously been named as individuals to the registry: former Open Media correspondents Maksim Glinken and Ilya Rozhdestvensky; former Open Media editor in chief Yulia Yarosh; and former Proyekt (The Project) journalists Yulia Lukyanova, Sonya Groysman, Maria Zheleznova, Olga Churakova, and Pyotr Manyakhin.

The investigative news outlet The Project was effectively neutered in mid-July when it was declared an "undesirable" organization in what was seen as a major escalation of the Kremlin's clampdown on independent media ahead of the September 17-19 elections, which will determine the next State Duma as well as some regional heads and city mayors.

SEE ALSO:

Russia Effectively Bans Investigative News Outlet By Declaring It 'Undesirable'

The Project has published a number of well-researched, unflattering, and sometimes embarrassing investigations into Russia's ruling elite.

Open Media was closed last month after its website was blocked by the Russian authorities. The news outlet said at the time it had not received an explanation for why it was blocked. While Open Media acknowledged having received a grant from self-exiled Kremlin critic Mikhail Khodorkovsky, it said it had never worked with "undesirable" organizations.

The four new entities to the "foreign agent" list adds to the number of independent media outlets and journalists identified as “foreign agents” or “undesirable” -- labels that imply an attempt to discredit the journalists or that apply additional government scrutiny.

SEE ALSO:

Who Has Russia Labeled As A 'Foreign Agent'?

Russia’s controversial “foreign agent” legislation was adopted in 2012 and has been modified repeatedly. It requires nongovernmental organizations that receive foreign assistance and that the government deems to be engaged in political activity to be registered, to identify themselves as “foreign agents,” and to submit to audits.

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 addition to the labeling requirements pertaining to all published messages and materials, the four newly named "foreign agent" legal entities must provide information to the Justice Ministry and report on their activities every six months.

In 2017, the Russian government placed RFE/RL's Russian Service on the "foreign agents" list, along with six other RFE/RL Russian-language news services and Current Time, the Russian-language network run by RFF/RL in cooperation with Voice of America (VOA). The Russian Service of VOA was also added to the list.

At the end of 2020, the legislation was modified again to allow the Russian government to include individuals, including foreign journalists, on the "foreign agent" list and to impose restrictions on them.

The Kremlin denies claims by critics that it has clamped down on independent media through the use of the "foreign agent" and "undesirable" labels ahead of the legislative and local elections.

WASHINGTON -- The United States has announced sanctions against four Iranian intelligence operatives who sought to kidnap an American journalist as part of a wider attempt to silence critics of the government in Tehran, a move Iran has dismissed.

The Treasury Department announced on September 3 that it was designating senior Iran-based intelligence official Alireza Shahvaroghi Farahani as well as three subordinates, including Mahmoud Khazein, Kiya Sadeghi, and Omid Noori.

Farahani leads a network of intelligence operatives tasked with targeting Iranian dissidents in the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, and the United Arab Emirates, the Treasury Department said in its statement.

The four planned to abduct Masih Alinejad, a New York City-based Iranian-American activist and journalist, and transport her via speedboat to Venezuela for eventual return to Iran, according to a criminal complaint filed in July by the U.S. Justice Department.

The four are charged with conspiracy related to kidnapping, sanctions violations, bank and wire fraud, and money laundering.

“The Iranian government’s kidnapping plot is another example of its continued attempt to silence critical voices, wherever they may be,” Andrea Gacki, director of the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control, said in a statement. “Targeting dissidents abroad demonstrates that the government’s repression extends far beyond Iran’s borders.”

The sanctions block any property the four have in the United States as well as preventing any U.S. citizen from transacting with them.

Iran on September 4 dismissed the move, saying it reflects Washington’s “addiction to sanctions.”

"Supporters and merchants of sanctions, who see their sanctions toolbox empty due to Iran’s maximum resistance, are now resorting to Hollywood scenarios to keep the sanctions alive,” the Foreign Ministry said in a tweet on September 4, quoting spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh.

Catalan separatists sought help from Russia as they struggled to break with Spain, The New York Times has reported, citing intelligence files.

Josep Lluis Alay, a senior adviser to the self-exiled former Catalan President Carles Puigdemont, traveled to Moscow on at least two occasions in 2019 to meet with current Russian officials and former intelligence officers in an effort to receive support, the paper said on September 3, citing intelligence reports it reviewed.

Alay’s trips came less than two years after Puigdemont’s government held an independence referendum in October 2017 that passed with overwhelming support as anti-separatist voters largely boycotted it.

Spanish authorities declared the referendum illegal and imprisoned those political leaders who did not -- like Puidgdemont -- flee abroad. The European Union also declared the referendum illegal.

Alay and Puigdemont confirmed the trips to Moscow, which have not been previously reported, but insisted they were part of regular outreach to foreign officials and journalists. The finding by The New York Times suggested there was more to the visits to Moscow.

Alay told the paper that any suggestion that he was seeking Russian assistance was “a fantasy story created by Madrid.” No charges have been filed against the separatists with respect to their meetings in Moscow.

Western nations have accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of seeking to sow disruption in the West by supporting divisive political movements and support of the Catalan separatists would fit into that strategy, the paper said.

However, there is no evidence that the Kremlin provided assistance to the Catalan separatists, The New York Times said.

The paper pointed out that Tsunami Democratic, a secretive Catalonian protest group that disrupted operations at Barcelona’s airport and cut off a major highway linking Spain to northern Europe in 2019, emerged shortly after Alay's trip to Moscow.

It noted that intelligence reports say Alay played a key role in its creation, an allegation he rejects.

Alay also denied intelligence reports that just three days after the large-scale protests began in Barcelona, the capital of Catalonia, he discussed the region’s independence movement at a meeting with two Russians close to Putin.

He confirmed meeting in Barcelona with the two officials -- including a colonel in Russia’s Federal Protective Service, which oversees security for Putin -- but said it was only to “politely” greet them at the request of his Russian acquaintance Aleksandr Dmitrenko.

Intelligence reports claim that Dmitrenko, a Russian businessman who is married to a Catalan woman, had been helping Alay seek financial and technical assistance in Moscow for the creation of banking, telecommunications, and energy sectors separate from Spain.

The 33-year-old Dmitrenko sought Spanish citizenship but was rejected because of his Russian contacts, according to a Spanish Justice Ministry decision, The New York Times said.

The decision said Dmitrenko “receives missions” from Russian intelligence and also “does different jobs” for leaders of Russian organized crime.

Dmitrenko did not respond to the paper's requests for comment.

With reporting by The New York Times

VLADIVOSTOK, Russia -- Russian President Vladimir Putin says private businesses, including Japanese firms, operating on the disputed Kurile Islands will receive tax breaks in an effort to boost the local economy.

Speaking at the Eastern Economic Forum in the Far Eastern city of Vladivostok on September 3, Putin said private companies registered and physically present on the Kurile Islands will receive income and property tax breaks for 10 years.

"We have to create competitive conditions for our [Japanese] partners. It means the existing parameters of the tax burden, loan prices, the speed and quality of the state services for businesses here must be globally competitive," Putin said.

The sparsely populated islands have suffered economically since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 as investment dropped and people left for better living standards on mainland Russia.

The Soviet Union seized the Kurile islands in the final days of World War II from Japan, which continues to assert territorial rights to the islands that it calls the Northern Territories. The dispute has kept Russia and Japan from signing a peace treaty formally ending the war.

Decades of diplomatic efforts to negotiate a settlement have failed to produce a solution to the issue.

"We think that the absence of the [peace treaty formally ending the World War II) in our bilateral relations is nonsense.... We have never refused from the dialogue on the peace treaty.... However, we must consider the realities, one of which is the necessity to secure a peaceful future and therefore to guarantee that there will be no U.S. armed forces, especially missile-assault systems near our borders," Putin said at the forum, adding that Moscow is awaiting Tokyo's response on that.

The three-day Eastern Economic Forum started in Vladivostok on September 2.

The United States is sending more than half a million doses of Pfizer’s coronavirus vaccine to Kosovo amid a spike in cases and related deaths in the Balkan nation.

The White House said in a statement sent to RFE/RL that the United States will begin shipping the 503,100 doses starting on September 3.

RFE/RL's Coronavirus Coverage

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

The United States last month sent 35,000 doses to Kosovo.

“The United States is committed to bringing the same urgency to international vaccination efforts that we have demonstrated at home and we have been working hard to get as many safe and effective vaccines to Kosovo as fast as possible,” the White House said in its statement.

Kosovo, which has a population of 1.8 million, is facing a surge in new infections.

The country reported 32 deaths from COVID-19 on September 2, a record high, and more than 1,600 new cases.

NATO has 3,600 troops from 28 countries stationed in Kosovo.

Russia's media watchdog has blocked six providers of virtual proxy networks (VPNs), which people can use to circumvent government restrictions on the Internet.

The move, announced on September 3, comes as Russian authorities tighten control of the Internet, blocking access to dozens of websites ahead of parliamentary elections this month.

The Russian watchdog, Roskomnadzor, justified the new restrictions by saying that allowing access to blocked content "created conditions for illegal activities, including those related to the distribution of drugs, child pornography, extremism, and suicidal tendencies."

The targeted VPN providers, including the widely used Nord VPN and Express VPN, are among Russia's most popular, but several other companies offer similar services.

The Russian government in recent years has ramped up control over the Internet under the guise of fighting extremism and protecting minors.

Critics have denounced official oversight of the web as censorship aimed at silencing dissent.

The authorities have also stepped up repression of opposition lawmakers and activists ahead of Russia's nationwide legislative elections, which are scheduled for September 17-19, with nearly all vocal Kremlin critics barred from running.

With reporting by dpa and AFP

Jailed Russian opposition politician Aleksei Navalny says he has distributed the financial part of the Boris Nemtsov Prize, 10,000 euros ($11,850), he received in February, among the families of four political prisoners.

Navalny wrote on Instagram on September 3 that he had asked Nemtsov's daughter, Zhanna, to give 2,500 euros to each family "whose situation is worse than mine."

One recipient will be the family of Pavel Zelensky, a member of Navalny’s defunct Anti-Corruption Foundation, who is serving a two-year prison term he was handed in January after a court convicted him on extremism charges for two posts on Twitter.

The family of Andrei Borovikov, the leader of Navalny’s team in the northwestern city of Arkhangelsk, will also receive a share of the money. Borovikov was sentenced in April to 2 1/2 years in prison for “distributing pornography” by sharing a video by the German rock band Rammstein in 2014, in a case Amnesty International described as “utterly absurd.”

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Russian Man Gets Prison Sentence For Sharing Rammstein Video

The families of two other activists, Yan Sidorov and Vladislav Mordasov, will also receive the money from Navalny. The two were convicted for “attempting to organize mass disturbances” and sentenced in 2019 to more than six years each in a penal colony -- sentences that were subsequently reduced to four years.

Navalny was awarded with the Boris Nemtsov Prize for "courage in defending democratic values in Russia" in February.

The annual prize was established by the Boris Nemtsov Foundation. Nemtsov, an opposition politician and an ardent critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin, was gunned down in early 2015 near the Kremlin.

Five men from Russia's volatile North Caucasus region of Chechnya were found guilty of involvement in Nemtsov's killing and sentenced to prison terms, but critics, including relatives and colleagues of Nemtsov, say Russian authorities failed to determine who ordered the action.

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

The Kremlin critic has insisted that his poisoning was ordered directly by Putin, which the Kremlin has denied.

In February, a Moscow court ruled that while recovering in Germany, Navalny violated the terms of parole from an old embezzlement case that is widely considered as being politically motivated. Navalny's 3 1/2 year suspended sentence from the case was converted to a jail term, though the court said he will serve 2 1/2 years in prison given time he had already served.

HOMEL, Belarus -- A well-known Belarusian human rights lawyer and his two assistants have gone on trial after providing legal assistance to activists, journalists, and other people who were persecuted in an ongoing crackdown by authoritarian ruler Alyaksandr Lukashenka's regime.

The trial of Leanid Sudalenka and associates Tatsyana Lasitsa and Maria Tarasenka began behind closed doors on September 3 at a court in the southeastern city of Homel.

The three are charged with the "organization and preparation of actions grossly violating public order and financing such activities."

They face up to three years in prison if convicted.

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.

Sudalenka, a prominent human rights defender for two decades, has been repeatedly targeted by the Belarusian authorities.

In April, police in Homel searched his home while the activist was in Sweden.

The ongoing crackdown started after an August 2020 presidential election awarded Lukashenka a sixth term, sparking an unprecedented wave of protests amid allegations the vote was rigged.

Mass protests against Lukashenka were met with the heavy-handed, and sometimes violent, detention of tens of thousands of people. Much of the opposition leadership has been jailed or forced into exile.

Several protesters have been killed and thousands arrested during mass demonstrations demanding Lukashenka's resignation. There have also been what human rights groups call credible reports of torture in the crackdown.

ALMATY, Kazakhstan -- Veteran pro-democracy and human rights activist Irina Savostina has died in Almaty at the age of 87.

Savostina's relatives and associates said that she died on September 2 of complications caused by diabetes.

In the 1990s, Savostina was considered one of the most influential public figures in the Central Asian country.

She led the Pokoleniye (Generation) movement to defend pensioners' rights and organized numerous rallies in the former Soviet republic's largest city, Almaty, protesting government plans to increase the retirement age, utility price hikes, and demanding higher social allowances for pensioners.

Savostina supported opposition parties and movements and publicly called on the government and Kazakhstan's leadership to implement economic and democratic reforms in the country.

One of her main slogans known to the public was "Kazakhstan will be free only when democracy wins in the country."

Born in the Russian capital, Moscow, Savostina moved to Russia's Far East when she was 5 years old after her parents were exiled there during Soviet dictator Josef Stalin's repressions, known as the Great Terror.

She lived in Kazakhstan from 1947 and and became a Kazakh citizen after the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991.

UFA, Russia -- The prosecution has asked a court in the Russian city of Ufa to sentence a woman to four years in prison because she sent a small amount of money to the elderly mother of a jailed opposition activist.

Prosecutors asked the court on September 2 to find Ilmira Bikbayeva guilty of financially supporting extremism after she sent a total of about 6,000 rubles ($82) over several installments to the mother of Airat Dilmukhametov, a prominent opposition activist who was sentenced to nine years in prison on extremism charges last year.

Bikbayeva, 59, who went on trial in February in Ufa, the capital of the Bashkortostan region, has pleaded not guilty in the case, insisting that she just wanted to support the woman, who was struggling financially.

Investigators say the money Bikbayeva sent was used by Dilmukhametov for conducting extremist activities.

Rights activists have scoffed at the notion, saying the amount is a little more than one-10th of an average monthly salary in Russia.

In early August, Bikbayeva learned that she was added to a federal list of extremists before the court ruling on her case after she discovered her bank accounts and credit cards had been frozen without warning.

SEE ALSO:

Ufa Woman Learns Midtrial That Her Bank Cards Are Frozen Due To 'Extremist' Label

Dilmukhametov, who has insisted that the case against him is politically motivated, was arrested in March 2019 and sentenced to nine years in prison after a court found him guilty of calling on people to violate Russia's territorial integrity and for making public calls for extremism and to support terrorism.

The charge against Dilmukhametov stemmed from a video statement he made in 2018 urging the creation of a "real" federation in Russia with more autonomous rights given to ethnic republics and regions.

NALCHIK, Russia -- A court in Russia's North Caucasus region of Kabardino-Balkaria has given a suspended two-year prison sentence to an activist who has no hands after finding him guilty of attacking police.

The city court in Kabardino-Balkaria's capital, Nalchik, convicted and sentenced Aslan Iritov, the leader of Volny Aul (Free Village) rights organization, on September 2.

Iritov had pleaded not guilty and rejects the charge.

The probe against the activist was launched in 2017 after he resisted police officers who came to his house on the eve of a protest rally.

After a struggle, investigators accused Iritov of head-butting one police officer and attempting to strangle another.

A probe was also launched against several of the police officers involved after medical examinations revealed that Iritov's wife, daughter, and brother, who tried to stop the brawl, sustained serious injuries during the incident.

With reporting by Caucasian Knot

The Russian government is considering allowing state-owned oil producer Rosneft to ship gas to Europe via the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, a move that could preempt the imposition of volume restrictions by the European Union.

State-owned energy giant Gazprom, the country's largest producer of natural gas, owns Nord Stream 2 and has a monopoly on Russian gas exports.

Gazprom is expected to complete construction of Nord Stream 2 , which runs from Russia to Germany on the Baltic Sea floor, later this year. The pipeline will have the capacity to deliver 55 billion cubic meters (bcm) of gas a year.

However, EU energy regulations forbid a company that owns a pipeline from filling more than 50 percent of its capacity with its own gas. A German court on August 25 ruled that Nord Stream 2 is not exempt from EU rules.

That would force Gazprom to fill 27.5 bcm with gas from other Russian producers.

Russian Energy Minister Aleksandr Novak told Interfax on September 2 that the government had received a request from Rosneft to export gas through the pipeline. He said a decision will be made at a later date.

Rosneft CEO Igor Sechin had earlier sent a letter to President Vladimir Putin requesting the right to export 10 bcm of gas through Nord Stream 2.

Ukraine has been seeking to stop the almost-complete pipeline and, having failed to convince the United States to impose more sanctions, has called on Europe to observe its own laws and restrict Gazprom from filling up the pipeline with its own gas.

Kyiv stands to lose as much as $2 billion a year in fees should the Kremlin reroute all Russian natural gas bound for Europe that currently transits Ukraine through the new pipeline.

With reporting by Interfax and Kommersant

Russia has refused to extend the mandate of international observers to monitor two border crossing points with Ukraine, a U.S. official said.

“The United States deeply regrets that the Russian Federation has indicated that it will not join consensus to extend the mission’s mandate and financing arrangement at the end of September,” Courtney Austrian, the charge d’affaires at the U.S. Mission to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), said in a September 2 statement.

Austrian said the OSCE mission has carried out its mandate to provide “impartial reporting” of border crossing at two points in a professional manner and served as a tool to build confidence between Russia and Ukraine.

She said the Kremlin’s decision to end the mandate “looks to be just the latest in a long line of broken promises and the most recent demonstration that maintaining positive relations with its neighbors is simply not a priority for Russia.”

There was no immediate reaction by Russia to Austrian’s comments.

Russia is accused of sending troops and weapons over the border into eastern Ukraine and fomenting a war in an attempt to destabilize its neighbor and bring it back into its orbit.

The war, now in its eighth year, has resulted in the death of more than 13,200 people and devastated Ukraine’s economy.

KYIV -- A Ukrainian court has extended by two months the house arrest of Viktor Medvedchuk, a Kremlin-leaning lawmaker and tycoon who is accused of supporting fighters in two eastern provinces.

Medvedchuk, who heads Opposition Platform-For Life, the second-largest party in the parliament, will remain under house arrest until October 31, the court said.

The 67-year-old Medvedchuk, who has a close personal relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin, is accused of funneling profits from his businesses into the two separatist-controlled regions in eastern Ukraine.

Ukraine has been battling the Russia-backed separatists since 2014 in a war that has killed more than 13,200.

Medvedchuk denies the charges and calls them politically motivated.

The lawmaker was first placed under house arrest in May after Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU) searched his home and office in Kyiv.

In a sign of things to come, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in February signed off on sanctions against Medvedchuk and three television stations believed to be owned by the tycoon in a move that caught the country by surprise.

Zelenskiy later described it as the start of his campaign to reduce the influence of a handful of tycoons who control the country from behind the scenes.

Civil society activists accuse Medvedchuk of undermining crucial reforms that would help Ukraine build a rules-based society and move closer to its goal of joining the European Union and NATO.

They also accuse his stations of spreading Russian disinformation.

The United States sanctioned Medvedchuk in 2014 for undermining democracy in Ukraine.

DUSHANBE -- A close relative of Tajik President Emomali Rahmon has been given a fine while some others received prison sentences over a stabbing incident that occurred in the Central Asian nation in May.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, an official at the Danghara district court in the southern Khatlon region told RFE/RL on September 1 that the decision was handed down in late July in the case against Amriddin Nakhshov, the 35-year-old nephew of Rahmon's wife. Nine other co-defendants were also found guilty.

According to the official, Nakhshov and four of the defendants were ordered to each pay fines of 60,000 somonis ($5,250), while the remaining five defendants were handed prison sentences of between three and five years for their roles in the brawl that took place in mid-May in downtown Danghara.

Nakhshov, who is the director-general of the Nakhsh gold company, and his associates were accused of attacking a group of workers from the Minu Farm company.

Police officials said at the time that 10 workers of Minu Farm were severely injured in the attack, of whom four sustained serious stab wounds.

Nakhshov was charged with hooliganism, while some of his co-defendants were additionally charged with breaking into private property.

A man who witnessed the incident told RFE/RL at the time that the brawl was caused by the refusal of Minu Farm's chief, Sayod Ghiyosov, to meet Nakhshov's demand related to an unspecified land ownership claim.

Minu Farm is linked to Shamsullo Sahibov, who is President Rahmon's son-in-law.

Earlier in August, Tajik Interior Minister Ramazon Rahimzoda told reporters that the trial of Nakhshov and his associates was over, but did not provide any details.

Minu Farm's leadership has issued a statement, saying that Amriddin Nakhshov "just tried to stop the brawl and called on the youth to stay away from disorder."

All of those convicted in the case are expected to be pardoned as a mass amnesty to mark the former Soviet republic's independence is expected to be approved by lawmakers in the coming days.

Rahmon has nine children. One of Rahmon’s daughters, Ozoda, is the president’s chief of staff, while his eldest son, Rustam Emomali, is the chairman of the parliament's upper chamber, Majlisi Milli (Supreme Assembly).

Several other members of Rahmon’s family and relatives occupy important official positions or control major businesses.

Rahmon, who runs the Central Asian nation since 1992, has been criticized for widespread corruption and a crackdown on dissent.

MOSCOW -- The walls of the apartment block in Moscow where prominent Russian human rights defender Lev Ponomaryov lives have been vandalized with hate messages on his 80th birthday.

Graffiti saying "Hide-out for the defender of terrorists" was found on September 2 on the walls outside his apartment, as well as on the building that houses Ponomaryov's For Defense of Inmates' Rights group.

Ponomaryov greeted the messages with a grin, calling them a "gift" and "congratulatory messages" as the veteran rights campaigner celebrated turning 80.

Police are investigating the incident.

In March, Ponomaryov shut his well-respected For Human Rights NGO due to the country's controversial laws on "foreign agents."

The organization was established as an unregistered group in 2019 after a Supreme Court ruling to liquidate his movement with the same name, which had conducted rights monitoring and advocacy for more than two decades.

The original group was shut down because Ponomaryov refused to register it as a foreign agent, a requirement of a 2012 law on nongovernmental organizations that receive foreign assistance and that the government deems to be engaged in political activity.

At the end of 2020, the legislation was modified to allow the Russian government to include individuals on its “foreign agents” list and to impose restrictions on them.

Ponomaryov is a former Soviet-era lawmaker and State Duma deputy who helped found the Memorial human rights group. In 1991, he headed the legislature's investigation into the August coup attempt against Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev.

On December 28, 2020, he was added as an individual to the Russian Justice Ministry's list of media accused of carrying out the functions of a "foreign agent." The government gave no explanation for including Ponomaryov on the register.

Russia's "foreign agents" legislation has been widely criticized by Western governments and Russian and international rights groups as an effort by the government of President Vladimir Putin to stifle dissent. Human Rights Watch has described the laws as “restrictive” and intended “to demonize independent groups.”

With reporting by Mediazona