SKOPJE -- North Macedonia’s authorities say a fire that ripped a makeshift coronavirus treatment center has left at least 14 people dead.

The fire broke out following an explosion in a modular unit used to treat COVID-19 patients in the northwestern city of Tetovo late on September 8 before being put out by firefighters.

"A huge tragedy has occurred in the Tetovo COVID-19 center," Prime Minister Zoran Zaev said on Twitter.

"An explosion caused a fire. The fire was extinguished, but many lives were lost," he added.

Firefighters put out the blaze after a couple of hours while oxygen cylinders used to treat hospitalized coronavirus patients exploded, Tetovo deputy fire chief Saso Trajcevski said.

The Public Prosecutor's Office later said in a statement that "prosecutors have ordered autopsies to identify the bodies of the 14 people who died in the fire and we are looking into whether there are others dead."

"Some of the dead will need DNA analysis to determine their identities. According to initial information, there are no medical staff among the deceased."

The cause of the explosion is being investigated.

It is unclear how many patients were in the hospital when the fire broke out around 9 p.m.

An unspecified number of injured were transferred to a hospital in the capital, Skopje.

With less than one-third of North Macedonia's 2 million inhabitants fully vaccinated, the country has seen a significant spike in coronavirus infections and deaths since early August, prompting the government to reimpose restrictions on access to cafes, restaurants, and public events.

North Macedonia has recorded more than 6,100 fatalities due to COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic.

MOSCOW -- Russian police have detained three journalists as they protested outside the Justice Ministry against the government's widening crackdown on media outlets.

The September 8 detention of the three, from the online news site Vazhniye Istorii, comes amid mounting fears about the ongoing Kremlin campaign to squeeze independent journalism in Russia ahead of this month's elections.

Vazhniye Istorii is among dozens of media outlets and individual journalists that have been labeled "foreign agents" under a decade-old law. The designation carries ominous Soviet-era connotations, and comes with onerous labeling requirement that have threatened the financing of some media outlets.

SEE ALSO:

Who Has Russia Labeled As A 'Foreign Agent'?

The three -- identified as Alesya Marokhovskaya, Polina Uzhvak, and Irina Dolinina -- picketed outside the Justice Ministry, calling on the authorities to abolish the law. They held up small placards reading, "There are no foreign agents, there are journalists."

Video from the independent TV station Dozhd, which has also been designated a "foreign agent," showed police detaining the three and escorting them into a police van.

Vazhniye Istorii had no immediate comment on the detentions.

Dolinina and Marokhovskaya are among the 47 media entities and individual reporter now designated by the Justice Ministry.

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and several of its Russian-language publications have also been designated as "foreign agents."

The picket coincided with a wider campaign launched earlier on September 8 by many of Russia's leading independent media outlets against the "foreign agent" law.

SEE ALSO:

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

The publisher of another media outlet that released investigative reports on alleged corruption and abuses by top government officials was labeled with a similar designation: "undesirable."

Two other news outlets shut down after authorities accused them of links to "undesirable" organizations.

Belarusian officials say Russian fighter jets have arrived to help patrol Belarus's borders, as part of a new joint military effort.

The arrival of the Sukhoi jets, announced on September 8, comes a day ahead of a critical meeting between Belarusian leader Alyaksandr Lukashenka and Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow.

The Russian jets "arrived at the Baranovichi airfield to form a joint training center for the air force and air defense forces of Belarus and Russia," the Belarusian Defense Ministry said in a statement.

The statement did not say how many jets arrived, or give further details.

The jets' arrival also comes two days ahead of major military exercises involving thousands of troops from both countries -- exercises that have prompted public statements of concern from some NATO countries.

Lukashenka and Putin's meeting comes with growing speculation that the two leaders could finalize an integration of the two countries planned decades ago, something known as the union state.

The project would be a major step toward reuniting the two countries, but also could undermined Belarus's sovereignty, something Lukashenka has strenuously resisted for years.

SEE ALSO:

For Years, Lukashenka Has Held The Kremlin At Arm's Length. That May All Be About To Change.

But Lukashenka has been increasingly isolated since a presidential election last year in which he claimed reelection to a sixth term. The vote was condemned by Belarus's opposition as rigged, and prompted months of street protests that Belarusian security forces have harshly cracked down on. Western governments have ignored Lukashenka's claim to reelection.

In recent weeks, Belarusian officials have given signals that Lukashenka might finally be moving to sign the last of a series of "road maps" that would finally lead to the union state.

Earlier this month, Lukashenka said Russia would soon deliver a huge military hardware consignment to Belarus, including aircraft, helicopters, and air-defense systems.

With reporting by Reuters

Top Ukrainian officials have dismissed an explosive CNN report that said Ukraine's main intelligence agency orchestrated a sting operation in neighboring Belarus in 2020 to arrest Russian mercenaries wanted for crimes in Ukraine.

The report, published on September 8, quoted three "former high-ranking Ukrainian military intelligence officials" as saying that Ukrainian intelligence, with help from U.S. security agencies, worked to fool a group of Russians into thinking they were flying to Venezuela as private soldiers to guard oil facilities there.

CNN said the Russians were duped into turning over evidence to Ukrainian agents who recruited them for the fake mercenary work. The plan allegedly went awry when the Russians, 32 in all, were unexpectedly diverted to Belarus and were arrested at a Minsk region resort by Belarusian security officials.

The arrest came just weeks before Belarus held a presidential election in which longtime ruler Alyaksandr Lukashenka ultimately declared victory, sparking unprecedented street protests amid allegations of widespread fraud.

SEE ALSO:

Kyiv Angry Over Belarus's Release Of Alleged Russian Mercenary Group

Ukraine's main security agency denied initial reports of its involvement last year.

In an interview with RFE/RL on September 8, Mykhaylo Podolyak, an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, dismissed the report and suggested that CNN had been duped.

"Let's start with the fact that there are no factual references in the material at all. An anonymous source then spoke about a possible event," Podolyak said. "In the [United] States themselves, they absolutely denied any participation in any such special operations. What position should it be? We should formally enter into a dialogue with anonymous sources."

"Who could CNN journalists talk to in Ukraine? What are these anonymous people whose words were used? And how to verify that these 'anonyms' are not related to Russian interests and influence?" Podolyak said.

Russia's main security agency, the Federal Security Service (FSB), meanwhile issued an unusually quick response to the CNN report, alleging Ukraine had committed an act of state terrorism.

The incident "is a criminal offense to begin with. It is the planned abduction of Russian citizens from the territory of a third country, and everything that happens, everything that we see from the Ukrainian special services, are acts of state terrorism," the FSB was quoted as saying by the TASS news agency.

In the aftermath of the arrests in August 2020, Zelenskiy spoke with Lukashenka by phone and called for the Russians who had been detained by Belarus to be transferred to Ukraine, according to a readout of the call released by Zelenskiy's office.

However, Lukashenka reportedly rejected that request.

The CNN report also said Ukraine received funding and technical support from the Central Intelligence Agency in setting up the ruse.

However, the report quoted an unnamed U.S. official as saying some U.S. officials were aware of the plot but had no involvement.

"I'll get rid of your rats" may be an unusual campaign slogan, but Leopold Valeryanovich is an unusual candidate: He's a cat.

Ahead of parliamentary elections and local balloting across Russia on September 17-19, voters in the Siberian city of Novosibirsk were surprised by a campaign stand set up on a downtown square urging them to cast ballots for the feline.

The campaign was announced on Facebook by local historian and activist Andrei Pozdnyakov, who reported: "The first supporters have already appeared for the cat-candidate, whose representatives are shamelessly bribing voters with bonbons."

Leopold Valeryanovich, a gray longhair with an angry expression, is apparently named after Kot Leopold, a popular Soviet-era cartoon cat whose tagline was "Let's all get along."

His patronymic, based on the name Valeryan, is reminiscent of a common Russian natural sedative called valeryanka, which is a treatment for insomnia, anxiety, and nervous exhaustion -- catnip for people, in a way.

It was not clear if the pictured cat was a Siberian cat, a natural breed from Siberia that is Russia's national cat.

Robert Coalson contributed to this report

NUR-SULTAN -- The leader of Kazakhstan's unregistered El Tiregi (People's Pillar) party has been charged with violating the law on public gatherings following a protest rally in the capital, Nur-Sultan.

Party activists told RFE/RL that Nurzhan Altaev was briefly detained by police at the September 7 event and charged the next day.

They said at least six El Tiregi members were sentenced to jail terms of between seven and 15 days after being detained in a group of around 25 people when police dispersed the rally.

The demonstrators were demanding the government's resignation, protesting against forced COVID-19 vaccination, and demanding the government abandon plans to build a new nuclear plant.

Two leading members of the party, Union of the Soviet-Afghan War Veterans in Kazakhstan Chairman Murat Mukhametzhanov and lawyer Nursultan Ermakhanov, were detained the day before the rally and jailed for 10 and 15 days, respectively.

Altaev quit the ruling Nur-Otan party and announced the creation of El Tiregi in late November 2020, saying no genuine opposition political forces were represented in the current parliament.

Russian military personnel in three settlements of the northwestern Murmansk region were gathered on September 7 to cast ballots early in Russia’s September 17-19 legislative elections, according to a report in Novaya gazeta the same day.

The Novaya gazeta story was based on reports from service members’ families collected by Oleg Cherkashin, an opposition candidate running for a seat in the Murmansk regional legislature.

According to the report, military polling station No. 492 was granted special permission by the regional election commission to hold early voting from September 7-10 because of scheduled military exercises.

SEE ALSO:

YouTube Blocks Russian Candidate's Call For Release Of 'Political Prisoners'

The exact time of the voting was not reported to the regional election commission or to election monitors -- who were therefore not present when ballots were being cast or counted.

In a video posted on the VK social network, Cherkashin accused United Russia of colluding with the Defense Ministry to falsify the election.

“United Russia understands that it cannot win the election honestly and so it is beginning to do things like this, even involving the military and anyone else they can get,” he said. “And it is easy to guess what the results of this voting will be when there are no monitors and the commanding officer is standing over them and watching how they vote.”

SEE ALSO:

Vote Now, Get Bonus Later: Putin Accused Of Bribing Electorate To Save Ruling Party

The Russian authorities have long been accused by activists and the opposition of using various means to pressure service personnel and state-sector workers to vote for United Russia, the ruling party that is loyal to President Vladimir Putin.

In August, Putin signed off on one-time payments of 15,000 rubles ($200) to firefighters, police officers, prosecutors, and soldiers, a move that many saw as an attempt to buy the votes of key constituencies in the face of United Russia’s declining popularity.

RFE/RL senior correspondent Robert Coalson contributed to this report.

The International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) has suspended the head of Belarus's Ice Hockey Federation for five years, saying he used his post to intimidate Belarusian athletes who did not support authoritarian ruler Alyaksandr Lukashenka and his government.

In a statement on September 8, the IIHF said that the decision was made after a 10-month investigation by the IIHF disciplinary board, which found Dzmitry Baskau "to be in violation of the IIHF Code of Conduct," as well as having violated Article 5 of the Olympic Charter for politicizing sport.

"The board cited sufficient evidence that [Baskau] has tried to directly influence others to support the Belarus government and has threatened and discriminated Belarusian athletes because of their political opinion," the statement said.

"The board also determined that [Baskau] abused his position as a representative of ice hockey in order to support the current president of Belarus," Lukashenka, it added.

The ban applies to all national and international ice-hockey activities for five years, the IIHF said.

Baskau who is known as a close ally of Lukashenka, has also been implicated in the killing of an anti-Lukashenka protester, Raman Bandarenka, in November 2020.

The IIHF decision comes as Lukashenka's regime continues a crackdown on the opposition, independent journalists, and rights defenders that started after a disputed August 2020 presidential election that awarded Lukashenka a sixth term, sparking an unprecedented wave of protests.

Several Belarusian athletes have been handed jail terms of 10 to 15 days in recent months for their open support of the protests demanding Lukashenka's resignation. Several other prominent Belarusian athletes have defected to other countries over the situation inside the former Soviet republic.

SEE ALSO:

Belarusian Olympian Tsimanouskaya Plans To Represent Poland After Defection

In January, nearly 350 Belarusian athletes and other members of the sports community signed an open letter calling for the presidential election to be annulled and for all "political prisoners" and those detained during mass demonstrations that followed to be released.

Embed share

Belarusian Athletes Purged For Opposing Lukashenka

Embed share

The code has been copied to your clipboard.

---

width px height px

---

The URL has been copied to your clipboard

No media source currently available

0:00 0:02:51 0:00

Thousands of protesters in Belarus, including dozens of journalists covering the protests, have been detained. Some have been handed prison terms and hundreds beaten by security officials while in detention and on the streets.

Several protesters have been killed in the violence, and some rights organizations say there is credible evidence of torture being used by security officials against some detainees.

ASHGABAT -- Turkmen Foreign Minister Rashid Meredov has been reportedly hospitalized with COVID-19 even as authorities continue to deny the presence of the coronavirus within the country's borders.

Two separate sources close to the government told RFE/RL on September 8 that the 61-year-old Meredov has not been seen in public since August 20 and is currently being treated for coronavirus in a newly built hospital in the village of Yzgant, in the south-central region of Ahal.

Media reports say that another sign of Meredov's illness is that Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov's upcoming visit to Uzbekistan is being prepared by Deputy Prime Minister Esenmurad Orazgeldyiev and not Meredov, who is also a deputy prime minister and normally is responsible for the organization of the president’s foreign trips.

Turkmenistan has not reported officially a single coronavirus infection since the pandemic started in March last year and the government remains steadfast in its zero-infections claim despite signs of outbreaks across the country such as increasingly overcrowded hospitals and changes to the academic year that have extended the summer holiday.

RFE/RL's correspondents have reported from across the country that number of people who were killed by COVID-19 has increased dramatically and many have to bury their loved ones in plastic bags as they cannot afford burial expenditures.

The bodies of victims of lung ailments are being delivered to relatives in special plastic bags, and there have been an unusually high number of fresh graves across the country, RFE/RL's correspondents have reported.

Latvia says it has prevented more than 1,000 people from illegally entering the Baltic country since a state of emergency was declared at its border with Belarus a month ago, amid accusations that Minsk is intentionally sending migrants into EU member states.

The Latvian State Border Guard said in a statement on September 8 that its officers turned away 27 migrants from crossing the border with Belarus the previous day, bringing the total number of attempted crossings during the crisis to 1,005.

The EU member state on August 10 declared a three-month state of emergency in several southern and southeastern regions following an influx of migrants coming from its neighbor.

The move gives armed border guards the power to use force to repel migrants illegally attempting to cross into Latvian territory.

Latvia, along with Lithuania and Poland, has seen a surge of migrants arriving from Belarus in recent months, with European officials accusing Minsk of orchestrating the illegal crossings in retaliation for sanctions over a crackdown by authoritarian ruler Alyaksandr Lukashenka on the country's pro-democracy movement following a disputed presidential election in August 2020.

Most of the migrants are from the Middle East, including Iraq and Afghanistan.

Moscow-imposed authorities in Ukraine's Crimea region have detained another Crimean Tatar after his home was searched.

The Crimean Solidarity public group said that police detained Eldar Menseitov on September 7 after searching his home in the town of Molodizhne, near the Crimean capital, Simferopol.

Menseitov is a defense witness in the ongoing trial in absentia of veteran Crimean Tatar leader Mustafa Dzhemilev. Dzhemilev is charged with illegally crossing the border, possession of an illegal firearm, and negligence while keeping a firearm.

Dzhemilev, who is a Ukrainian lawmaker, and his supporters have rejected the charges, saying they are politically motivated.

Ukrainian Ombudswoman Lyudmyla Denisova also condemned Menseitov's detainment, calling it the continuation of "Russia's practice of shameful repression of the Crimean Tatar people."

"I demand the Russian Federation immediately stop persecuting the indigenous people of the Crimean Peninsula and releases all illegally held citizens of Ukraine,” Denisova's statement on Facebook said.

Menseitov is a former deputy chairman of the Crimean Tatars’ self-governing body, Mejlis, which was labeled as extremist and banned by Russia-imposed authorities.

Menseitov's detainment came the same day Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) publicly accused five other Crimean Tatars detained over the weekend of sabotaging a gas pipeline.

The FSB claimed on September 7 that Ukrainian military intelligence procured an explosive device and promised a cash reward of $2,000 to the men to plant it at the pipeline. A day earlier, Ukraine dismissed the charges against the five men as fabricated.

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 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.

Russia's Emergency Situations Ministry reports that Minister Yevgeny Zinichev has died "while carrying out his service duties" during exercises being carried out in the Arctic, although multiple reports have sprung up contradicting the official version of the 55-year-old's death.

"The Emergency Situations Ministry of the Russian Federation informs with sorrow that while carrying out his service duties, during interdepartmental exercises on defending the Arctic zone from extraordinary situations, and while attempting to rescue a person, the chief of the Emergency Situations Ministry, Yevgeny Zinichev, has tragically died," the Emergency Situations Ministry said in a statement on September 8.

It added that Zinichev died in the city of Norilsk, but gave no further details.

However, the independent RBK, Tayga.info, and RTVi media outlets quoted unnamed sources as saying that Zinichev died in a tourist area near Lake Lama, about 120 kilometers from Norilsk.

RBK and RTVi suggested their sources said Zinichev died after traveling to an area in or near the Putoransky Nature Reserve the day after opening the exercises.

The reports could not immediately be corroborated.

RT Editor in Chief Margarita Simonyan said in a tweet that Zinichev died after he fell off a cliff while trying to grab a cameraman who himself had just slipped. The cameraman is also dead, she said, citing eyewitnesses.

The Emergency Situations Ministry later identified the cameraman as well-known Russian filmmaker Aleksandr Melnik. He was 63.

President Vladimir Putin "expressed deep condolences" to Zinichev's relatives and friends, the Kremlin website said, adding that Putin and Zinichev, both natives of St. Petersburg, had worked together for many years.

Zinichev was in the region to oversee large-scale drills and to visit the construction site of a new fire station in Norilsk, as well as a search-and-rescue team in the area.

Before becoming head of the Emergency Situations Ministry in October 2018, Zinichev held a number of jobs including as former deputy director of the Federal Security Service, part of Putin's personal security detail, and briefly as acting regional governor of Kaliningrad for two months in 2016.

With reporting by TASS, RIA Novisti, RBK, and Interfax

Regional authorities say more than 6,000 people were convicted and sentenced in the first half of the year for violations of the law on public gatherings in the Russian capital, Moscow.

According to the latest report by the Moscow directorate of the Supreme Court's judicial department, about 90 percent of the 6,727 cases related to violations of the law on public gatherings ended with convictions, while 625 were returned to police due to technical issues and 45 were closed without further investigation. Total fines imposed on those found guilty in the cases was almost 66 million rubles (more than $900,000), it added.

The percentage of cases that ended in jail sentences for those convicted was 21 percent, the data showed. By comparison, the human rights group OVD-Info says that for all of 2019, only 4 percent of cases involving violations of the law on public gatherings ended with guilty parties being incarcerated.

The vast majority of the cases were related to a series of demonstrations in support of jailed opposition politician Aleksei Navalny.

Navalny, President Vladimir Putin's most-vocal critic, was arrested in January upon returning from Germany, where he had been treated for a near-fatal poison attack he has blamed on the Kremlin.

The arrest sparked two major rallies -- on January 23 and January 31 -- resulting in the detention of more than 10,000 of his supporters.

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.

That sparked further nationwide protests, and a ratcheting up of the government's crackdown on unsanctioned demonstrations as September 19 elections that will choose members of the State Duma, 39 regional parliaments, and nine regional governors approach amid waning support for the ruling Kremlin-backed United Russia party.

Through an unrelenting campaign of intimidation and criminal prosecutions the authorities have purged the electoral field of all but a select few government critics.

BISHKEK -- Authorities in Kyrgyzstan have added new charges against Jenish Moldokmatov, the jailed leader of the opposition party Turan, which he denies.

Moldokmatov, an outspoken critic of President Sadyr Japarov, was arrested in May and charged with the seizure of buildings during anti-government rallies against the official results of parliamentary elections in October 2020.

His lawyer, Kantemir Turdaliev, told RFE/RL on September 7 that his client has been additionally charged with the attempted seizure of power, the organization of mass disorder, threatening or attacking law enforcement officers, and stealing a firearm.

Turdaliev said Moldokmatov did not sign papers acknowledging the new charges and has refused to cooperate with the investigators.

Moldokmatov already rejected the earlier charges, saying they are politically motivated.

He ran for a parliamentary seat in the October vote and participated along with thousands of other Kyrgyz in street protests that followed the official results.

The rallies eventually led to the resignations of the government and then-President Sooronbai Jeenbekov.

Current President Sadyr Japarov was among several prominent politicians freed from prison by protesters during the postelection unrest.

He had been serving a 10-year prison sentence for hostage taking during a protest against a mining operation in northeast Kyrgyzstan in October 2013. Japarov maintains his conviction was politically motivated.

Japarov easily won the January presidential election.

Despite some reforms, Japarov has been criticized by rights groups for failing to follow through on promises of more freedoms. They say existing Kyrgyz laws on countering extremism have been applied unevenly and that their overly broad definition has allowed for their misuse against political opponents, journalists, and religious and ethnic minorities.

Moldokmatov's arrest on May 6 came three days after Japarov signed into law constitutional amendments approved by a nationwide referendum in April that has been criticized by his opponents as a move to concentrate power.

MOSCOW -- The death toll from a gas explosion in a high-rise apartment block in the Moscow region has risen to seven.

Emergency officials in the city of Noginsk near Moscow said on September 9 that two more bodies had been recovered by rescue teams.

On September 8, when the explosion destroyed three floors in the nine-story residential building, officials said two persons were found dead at the site while at least five were missing.

Later in the day, rescue teams found three more bodies under the debris. Officials said 17 people were injured.

Personnel from the Emergencies Ministry continue to search for more possible victims.

Authorities in Noginsk announced a three-day mourning period to honor the victims.

Gas explosions occur with some frequency in Russia due to aging pipelines and infrastructure, as well as lax safety standards.

With reporting by TASS, RIA Novosti, and Interfax

The Supreme Court of Russia's Republic of Mordovia says it will decide within a week on the date of a hearing into a request to transfer Paul Whelan, a former U.S. Marine who is serving a lengthy prison term in Russia on espionage charges he calls trumped up, to the United States to serve out the rest of his sentence.

Whelan's lawyer, Olga Karlova, told the Interfax news agency on September 8 that court officials had informed her client's defense team by phone that a decision on the date will be made by September 14.

Hours earlier Karlova and Whelan's second lawyer, Vladimir Zherebenkov, told Interfax that a hearing on the issue had been set for 10:00 a.m. on September 27.

Whelan's lawyers, Olga Karlova and Vladimir Zherebenkov, told the Interfax news agency on September 8 that a hearing on the issue had been set for 10:00 a.m. on September 27.

Whelan's defense team initially asked the Moscow City Court to consider their client's request to be handed over to the United States to finish serving his sentence. But the court refused to consider the matter over jurisdictional issues and forwarded it to Mordovia, where Whelan is currently serving his term.

Mordovia is a region located about 350 kilometers east of Moscow historically known as the location of Russia's toughest prisons, including Soviet-era labor camps for political prisoners.

Whelan was arrested in Moscow in December 2018 on espionage charges and sentenced to 16 years in prison in May 2020 following a trial that was condemned by the United States as a "mockery of justice."

A holder of U.S., Canadian, British, and Irish passports, Whelan has rejected the espionage charges and has accused his prison guards of mistreatment.

The United States has criticized the Russian authorities for their "shameful treatment" of Whelan.

Whelan was head of global security at a U.S. auto-parts supplier when he was arrested. He and his relatives insist he visited Russia to attend a wedding.

He is one of several Americans to face trial in Russia in recent years on charges that their families, supporters, and in some cases the U.S. government, have said are trumped up.

Another former U.S. Marine, Trevor Reed, is serving a nine-year prison term in Mordovia as well. He was sentenced in July 2020 on charges of assaulting two Russian police officers.

The U.S. government and Reed deny the allegations and questioned the fairness of his judicial proceedings.

Reports have surfaced several times of a possible swap involving Whelan, Read, and two Russians -- arms dealer Viktor Bout and drug smuggler Konstantin Yaroshenko -- who are serving lengthy sentences in U.S. prisons.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Yevgeny Ivanov said on August 25 that Washington's unspecified "unconstructive" position makes a prisoner swap unlikely.

With reporting by TASS and Interfax

Bulgaria is headed for snap elections after the Socialists became the third party to fail to form a government since July elections, returning their mandate on September 7.

Although deadlines are vague under Bulgaria's constitution, the president must now dissolve parliament and call for a fresh vote, which would be the country's third this year.

"Unfortunately, new elections and negotiations await us," President Rumen Radev said.

The Socialists came in third in the vote but got the chance to form a majority government after the failure of the populist There Is Such A People (ITN) and the second-place party of former Prime Minister Boyko Borisov, GERB.

A presidential election is scheduled for November.

"We received no support," said Socialist leader Kornelia Ninova, referring to the three protest parties, who were seen as possible partners but rejected the Socialists.

The ITN won the July 11 elections to take 65 seats, while GERB has 63 seats and the Socialists 36 in the 240-seat parliament.

Based on reporting by dpa

U.S. President Joe Biden's administration has appointed an outspoken critic of Russia’s Nord Stream 2 pipeline to oversee policy for Central and Eastern Europe at the State Department following backlash over its decision to allow the project to move ahead.

Robin Dunnigan, who served as deputy assistant secretary for energy diplomacy in the State Department's Bureau of Energy Resources from 2014 to 2017, will help craft policy toward Ukraine, Belarus, and Moldova, as well as Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic, a spokesperson told RFE/RL.

She takes over Eastern Europe duties from Deputy Assistant Secretary George Kent, who served in 2019 as a key witness in the Ukraine-centric impeachment trial of then-President Donald Trump.

Dunnigan was an early critic of Russian plans to build a second natural-gas pipeline to Germany along the floor of the Baltic Sea to reroute European exports around Ukraine, potentially depriving Kyiv of as much as $2 billion a year in transit fees.

The $11 billion Nord Stream 2 project will soon be completed after the Biden administration in May agreed to waive sanctions on its Swiss-based operator in an attempt to deescalate tensions with Germany.

The decision angered countries in Central and Eastern Europe, which see the pipeline as a security threat.

"You have to ask: Why would you support Ukraine with one hand and strangle it with the other," she told a conference of policymakers in November 2015 as the West supported Kyiv with military and economic aid to help it battle Kremlin-backed fighters in eastern Ukraine.

"Nord Stream 2 actually threatens not only Ukraine's survivability and their resources, but it is a risk to fuel diversification in Europe, especially Southeastern Europe," Dunnigan said at the time.

The Biden administration and Germany reached an agreement in July on steps to help Ukraine handle the economic fallout resulting from the completion of Nord Stream 2, including investing in the country’s alternative energy industry, a compromise that Kyiv considers inadequate.

The Biden administration recently appointed Amos Hochstein, who served as the State Department’s energy envoy from 2014 to 2017, to oversee the implementation of the agreement with Germany.

Hochstein, who also served as a board member on Ukraine's state-owned natural gas company Naftogaz, oversaw the Bureau of Energy Resources when Dunnigan served there.

"I am hoping that Dunnigan’s background in energy is going to help people in the State Department understand how critical energy security is for Ukraine as a country. It can’t succeed unless it has energy security," said Daniel Vajdich, president of Washington-based lobby firm Yorktown Solutions, whose clients include Naftogaz.

Dunnigan took up her new position on September 7. Her focus on energy security will not be directed solely toward Ukraine.

The United States has been seeking to help the wider Central and Eastern Europe region reduce its dependency on Russian fossil fuels by investing in energy infrastructure projects through the Three Sea Initiative, a forum of 12 nations including Hungary, Czech Republic, Poland, and Austria.

Dunnigan had been serving at the U.S. Embassy in Austria for the past three years, first as deputy chief of mission and most recently as charge d'affaires to Austria.

Kent served as chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv from 2015 to 2018 before returning to Washington to oversee policy toward Eastern Europe and the South Caucasus.

He has been outspoken about endemic corruption in Ukraine and repeatedly called on the country's leaders to pursue investigations of top officials and tycoons, including Austria-based energy billionaire Dmytro Firtash.

Kent will hand over policy for Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Georgia to Erika Olson, the former director for Northern European, Baltic, and Arctic security affairs at the State Department.

Olson will also oversee South Europe, including Turkey, Greece, and Cyprus, the State Department spokesperson said.

The moves are part of the regular rotation of staff at the State Department. The spokesperson did not say what position Kent will hold next.

The United States has warned that time is running out for a "strict return" to the frayed nuclear deal at the center of negotiations between Iran and world powers.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken's injunction came after Iran's new hard-line president, Ebrahim Raisi, pushed back on September 8 against a confidential report by the UN's nuclear watchdog accusing Tehran of blocking inspectors' access to atomic sites.

Raisi told European Council President Charles Michel by phone that Iran's "serious cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency is a clear example of Iran's will to be transparent about its nuclear activities," according to a statement from Raisi's office.

The European Union is mediating ongoing efforts between Iran and world powers to revive the 2015 nuclear deal that has been deteriorating since the United States withdrew from it three years ago.

The diplomatic riposte follows news of a confidential quarterly report from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) accusing Iran of blocking access to some of its nuclear sites for inspectors. The report also said Tehran continues to boost its stocks of uranium enriched above the percentage allowed in the 2015 accord.

"I'm not going to put a date on it, but we are getting closer to the point at which a strict return to compliance with the JCPOA [Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action] does not reproduce the benefits that that agreement achieved," Blinken said alongside German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas in response to a reporter's question during a visit to Germany.

Maas said that he had telephoned recently installed Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian to urge Tehran to "return more swiftly to the negotiating table."

Berlin expects Tehran to support the results so far from the Vienna negotiations but regards the delay in the EU-mediated talks signaled by Tehran as "far too long," Maas added.

Envoys from the United States and Russia, which is also a signatory to the deal, gathered in Moscow on September 8 for two days of talks expected to focus on the Iran deal.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said he was scheduled to meet with U.S. envoy Robert Malley "for a rather long time in order to discuss the whole situation and look ahead," the Russian diplomat told TASS news agency on September 8, when the first meeting was to be held.

"There are many problems, and, frankly speaking, now is one of those moments when it's extremely important not to make a mistake," Ryabkov said.

Reuters quoted a U.S. official as saying on condition of anonymity that the focus of the trip "will be on nuclear diplomacy with Iran and where we go from here."

The State Department announced earlier that Malley would travel to Moscow and Paris from September 7-10 to consult with Russia and European partners on "the need to quickly reach and implement an understanding on a mutual return to compliance" with the so-called JCPOA.

SEE ALSO:

Iran Says It Will 'Definitely' Continue Nuclear Talks

Former U.S. President Donald Trump withdrew from the accord in 2018 and reimposed tough sanctions that have crippled Iran’s economy.

Iran responded by gradually breaching its commitments under the deal.

Six rounds of talks on reviving the accord were held in Vienna between April and June to bring Tehran and Washington back into compliance. The talks have since stalled as Raisi took up the presidency in Tehran, but the parties to the original agreement are seeking to begin a new round in Vienna.

The IAEA in its recent report said Tehran had "seriously undermined" its inspectors at nuclear sites.

Raisi on September 8 fired back that "Of course, if the IAEA has a nonconstructive approach, it's unreasonable to expect a constructive response from Iran."

He added, "What's more, nonconstructive actions of course upset the negotiation process."

Under the 2015 deal between Iran and Britain, France, Germany, China, Russia, and the United States, Tehran agreed to curb its nuclear activities in exchange for sanctions relief.

With reporting by AFP, TASS, and Reuters

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) says Iran is blocking access to some of its nuclear sites and continues to boost its stocks of uranium enriched above the percentage allowed in its hobbled 2015 deal with world powers.

The IAEA said in a confidential report cited by Western news agencies on September 7 that Iran had also failed to answer questions including on uranium traces found at three undeclared sites.

"The director-general is increasingly concerned that even after some two years the safeguards issues outlined above in relation to the four locations in Iran not declared to the agency remain unresolved," the IAEA said in one of two quarterly reports on Iran.

Under the nuclear deal, Iran was not meant to enrich uranium above 3.67 percent, well below the 90 percent threshold needed for use in a nuclear weapon.

However, the report estimates that Iran now has 84.3 kilograms of uranium enriched to 20 percent, up from 62.8 kilograms when the IAEA last reported in May; as well as 10 kilograms enriched up to 60 percent (up from 2.4 kilograms).

The confidential reports by IAEA Director-General Rafael Grossi to IAEA member states are being issued ahead of next week's meeting of its 35-country board of governors.

SEE ALSO:

Iran Ready To Resume Talks On Nuclear Deal, But Not Under Western 'Pressure,' Raisi Says

The reports come as indirect talks between Tehran and Washington aimed at reviving the 2015 nuclear deal have stalled amid the change of government in Iran.

Six rounds of talks on reviving the accord were held in Vienna between April and June to bring Tehran and Washington back into compliance.

Former U.S. President Donald Trump withdrew from the nuclear accord in 2018 and reimposed tough sanctions that have crippled Iran's economy.

Iran responded by gradually decreasing its commitments under the deal and expanding its nuclear work.

Earlier this week, Iran's Foreign Ministry said Tehran will "definitely" continue the nuclear talks in Vienna, without specifying when the country will be ready to resume negotiations.

Under the 2015 deal between Iran and Britain, France, Germany, China, Russia, and the United States, Tehran agreed to curb its nuclear activities in exchange for sanctions relief.

With reporting by Reuters and AFP

UN special rapporteur Anais Marin has cited "terrible repression" and says the crackdown in Belarus on the country's human rights groups has hindered international monitoring of abuses there.

Marin said via video link on September 7 at which she discussed strongman Alyaksandr Lukashenka's targeting of the Vyasna human rights group that since she's not allowed in Belarus, Vyasna's volunteers were "crucial" to her work.

"The terrible repression that is currently targeting Vyasna has a direct negative impact on our capacity in Geneva to follow up on allegations of human rights violations, to gather testimonies and to properly report on the repression, and this is probably no coincidence," Marin said.

At least 10 people, including the leader of Vyasna, were detained during sweeps by security forces of offices and homes of lawyers and activists in mid-July.

SEE ALSO:

Belarus Shuts Down More NGOs Amid Continued Crackdown

Vyasna has been crucial for many international media efforts to track repression since a disputed presidential election in August 2020 sparked a year of unprecedented protests, prompting mass arrests of tens of thousands, expulsions and media closures, and other persecution.

Marin said the detention of Vyasna's leadership was "arbitrary" but "politically motivated." She demanded that they "not be subjected to ill-treatment in detention."

"Last year, I assessed the situation in Belarus as catastrophic," Marin said. "I'm lacking words now to express my interpretation of the situation. I could not imagine it could get so much worse."

On September 6, leading Belarusian opposition figures Maryya Kalesnikava and Maksim Znak were sentenced to 11 and 10 years in prison for conspiracy in a process the United States called "shameful" amid the ongoing crackdown.

Based on reporting by Reuters

Russia's domestic intelligence agency, the Federal Security Bureau (FSB), has accused five detained Crimean Tatar activists of sabotaging a gas pipeline one day after Ukraine dismissed the charges as fabricated.

The FSB claimed on September 7 that Ukrainian military intelligence procured an explosive device and promised a cash reward of $2,000 to the men to plant it.

All five men -- including Nariman Dzhelyal, deputy chairman of the Crimean Tatars' self-governing assembly, the Mejlis, which was banned in Crimea after Russia's seizure of the peninsula in 2014 -- were arrested over the weekend.

Ukrainian Deputy Foreign Minister Emine Dzheppar on September 6 accused Russian investigators of fabricating charges against those arrested and mistreating them.

The five men could face a lengthy prison sentence if found guilty.

The gas pipeline, near the Crimean capital, Simferopol, was damaged in August.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said the arrests were in retaliation for the inaugural summit of the Crimean Platform, an international initiative to bring about the restoration of Ukrainian-Russian relations by ending the Russian occupation of Crimea.

SEE ALSO:

Zelenskiy Looks To International Forum To Return Russia-Annexed Crimea

EU foreign affairs spokesman Peter Stano said the bloc "considers the detentions to be politically motivated and illegal under international law," and call for the detainees' release.

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

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

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

Based on reporting by dpa

All six ministers from a junior grouping in Romania's ruling coalition have resigned to clear the way for a no-confidence vote against Prime Minister Florin Citu's centrist government.

The current coalition is made up of Citu's Liberal Party, Save Romania Union (USR)-PLUS, and an ethnic Hungarian group and controls a combined 56 percent of parliament.

"This morning we did what we announced," USR leader Dan Barna said on September 7. "We registered and resigned, together with the USR-PLUS ministers, at the prime minister's office. We are moving forward."

The timetable for bringing a no-confidence vote is still unclear.

Citu's coalition was thrown into crisis on September 1 when he dismissed his justice minister over his failure to approve a $12 billion community development plan.

Crisis talks last week failed to achieve a deal to support Citu, the National Liberal Party's candidate for prime minister in December 2020.

A no-confidence vote would require support from the leftist opposition Social Democrats, who have resisted signing onto such motions over the past week.

Citu reportedly still enjoys the support of President Klaus Iohannis.

The USR's Barna has said he wants to revive the current governing coalition without Citu.

Even before the coronavirus pandemic, Romania was struggling with a widening budget shortfall from years of political instability and fiscal largesse.

Based on reporting by AP and Reuters

ST. PETERSBURG, Russia -- A court in Russia's second-largest city, St. Petersburg, has extended the pretrial detention of blogger Yury Khovansky, who is charged with terrorism over a song he wrote mocking government efforts to resolve the deadly 2002 hostage-taking incident at Moscow's Dubrovka Theater.

The Kuibyshev district court on September 7 ruled that Khovansky's pretrial detention should be prolonged for at least another month.

The 31-year-old blogger, whose YouTube channel has more than 4.4 million subscribers, was detained in early June on suspicion of "justification of terrorism" for the performance of his song online last year.

In February, Khovansky publicly expressed regret over the song after the investigation into his performance was launched, saying he was "ashamed" of it.

Khovansky used what officials called "very offensive words" in the song when describing minors who were victims of the October 2002 tragedy at the Dubrovka Theater, where some 40 gunmen took hundreds of audience members, actors, and staff hostage and demanded the withdrawal of federal troops from Russia's Chechnya region.

The ordeal ended after 57 hours, when security forces stormed the building after pumping in toxic gas that neutralized the attackers but led to the deaths of many hostages.

The government says 130 people died, while an advocacy group for victims and relatives says the number is 174. Many choked on their own vomit, swallowed their tongues, or suffocated in cramped buses after security forces stormed the theater and dragged unconscious hostages out.

The Russian government has refused to reveal what gas was used in the operation, and relatives of victims accuse the government of seeking to cover up its role in the deaths of their family members.