Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto accused the European Union's Executive Commissionon July 30 of orchestrating a stoppage of some Russian oil supplies into the bloc through Ukraine and warned that the dispute could lead to an energy crisis. Ukraine adopted sanctions against LUKoil in June which prohibited the transit of its oil across the Druzhba pipeline through Ukraine and into Hungary and Slovakia. Szijjarto said that “despite the threat to the energy security of two EU member states…it was Brussels, not Kyiv, that invented the whole thing,” Szijjarto said. Hungary receives most of its crude from Russia, about half of which comes from LUKoil.

German citizen Rico Krieger, who was sentenced to death on terrorism charges by a Belarusian court, was pardoned by the country’s authoritarian ruler Alyaksandr Lukashenka on July 30 following a pardon request announced on the same day, according to a press release from Lukashenka’s office.

A Telegram channel associated with Lukashenka's office said he convened a meeting with Belarusian KGB director Ivan Tertel, Krieger’s lawyer, and Lyudmila Gladkaya, who works for a state-owned newspaper and recently published the details of the trial against Krieger.

"[Lukashenka] invited people involved in the [pardoning] process to hear details, thoughts, and to get 'opinions,'" the Pul Pergova channel said of the meeting that preceded the pardon.

Lukashenka's office provided no additional information about the pardon.

Details of Krieger's case were not known until the Vyasna human rights group reported earlier this month that he was sentenced to death in June for mercenary activity, terrorism, creating an extremist group, intentionally damaging a vehicle, and illegal operations with firearms and explosives.

According to Vyasna, it was the first trial in Belarus for "mercenary activity."

On July 25, the state-run Belarus-1 television channel aired the video of the 30-year-old Krieger shown sitting behind bars in handcuffs and “repenting” for the crimes he was sentenced for.

During the 17-minute video Krieger said he was sorry and expressed hope that Lukashenka, who has run Belarus with an iron fist for 30 years, will pardon him.

The practice of showing so-called repentance videos by opposition politicians or activists made under apparent duress after their arrests has been common in Belarus for years.

Krieger's "confession" appeared as though it was being used for propaganda purposes, with him speaking German with a voiceover translation into Russian.

After the broadcast, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said it was "unbearable how the Belarusian regime paraded a German national on television."

She said the Foreign Office and the German Embassy in Minsk were in "close contact" with Krieger and his family and were providing consular support.

"We must do everything to ensure that his rights are maintained and remain protected," Baerbock added.

The U.S. Treasury Department on July 30 announced sanctions on individuals and entities that have aided Iranian ballistic missile development and procurement through Tehran’s Ministry of Defense and Armed Forces Logistics.

The five individuals and seven entities are based in Iran, China, and Hong Kong.

The Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control said in a press release that those sanctioned have procured “various components, including accelerometers and gyroscopes, which serve as key inputs to Iran’s ballistic missile and unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) program.”

The Treasury Department alleged that one of the sanctioned Iranian companies -- the Electro Optic Sairan Industries Company -- also contributed to the Shahed Aviation Industries Research Center’s development of Shahed-series UAVs, which the Treasury said “are being used by Russian forces in Ukraine.”

The United States designated the Iranian Ministry of Defense and Armed Forces Logistics in 2007, citing weapons of mass destruction and their delivery, according to the press release. The ministry is connected to Iran’s ballistic missile program.

“Iran’s reckless proliferation of its ballistic missiles and UAVs risk further instability and endangers civilian lives,” Treasury Undersecretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Brian Nelson said. “The United States will continue to impose costs on those that facilitate Iran’s ability to produce these deadly weapons.”

The announcement came on the same day as the swearing in of Iranian President Masud Pezeshkian, a moderate reformist and former heart surgeon who won a snap election following the death of hard-line president Ebrahim Raisi in May.

While Pezeshkian is expected to be a more moderate Iranian president, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said “the supreme leader continues to call the shots” at a July 19 fireside chat.

Blinken “resolutely” affirmed that, per U.S. policy, Iran must not be allowed to get a nuclear weapon and said the U.S. has been “maximizing pressure on Iran across the board,” including through more than 600 sanctions on Iranian people and entities.

Skopje said on July 30 that it is looking into allegations of a cyberattack from North Macedonia on the Venezuelan elections. Venezuelan Attorney General Tarek William Saab blamed North Macedonia for a cyberattack that delayed vote-counting in the highly controversial reelection of President Nicolas Maduro, whose opposition candidate also declared victory. The Ministry of Digital Transformation in North Macedonia is not an investigative body, but Minister Stevan Andonovski said he “will make sure that no one is accused in the country without evidence for it and that we are not involved in the internal political battles of an authoritarian regime that has existed for years in that country.” To read the original story on RFE/RL’s North Macedonian Service, click here.

Unidentified gunmen attacked a convoy of United Nations vehicles carrying local employees in the Dera Ismail Khan district of Pakistan's restive Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province, police told RFE/RL's Radio Mashaal on July 30. No one was injured in the incident, which occurred in an area connecting Dera Ismail Khan with the neighboring Tank district, Abdul Salam Khalid, Tank police chief told Radio Mashaal. "Apparently, the attackers were trying to kidnap UN staffers," said Khalid, who added that all UN personnel had been safely evacuated. Pakistan has witnessed a surge in violence mostly blamed on the Pakistani Taliban, known as Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan.

A Georgian citizen, Bondo Gagnidze, was killed in Ukraine's eastern region of Luhansk while fighting alongside Ukrainian armed forces against Russia's ongoing invasion, one of his friends, Vano Nadiradze, who is also fighting for Ukraine, told RFE/RL on July 30. The 47-year-old Gagnidze joined Kyiv's armed forces right after Russia launched its full-scale aggression against Ukraine in February 2022. Media reports in Georgia say Gagnidze is the 69th Georgian national killed in the war. To read the original story by RFE/RL's Georgian Service, click here.

A Russian court on July 29 sentenced former inmate Vladimir Shcherbakov to nine years in prison for beating to death an 82-year-old woman and robbing her house after returning last year from the war in Ukraine. Shcherbakov was recruited to the war in November 2023 from a prison, where he was serving a 6 1/2-year prison term for robbery. He was pardoned after serving in Ukraine. The number of crimes in Russia committed by former inmates recruited to the war from penitentiaries has been on the rise since early 2023. To read the original story by Current Time, click here.

Imprisoned Russian opposition politician Ilya Yashin, who is serving an 8 1/2-year prison term for his criticism of Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, has been unexpectedly transferred to an unknown location from correctional colony No. 3 in the western Smolensk region, the sixth prisoner to be moved in recent days.

Yashin's lawyer, Tatyana Solomina, was cited by his supporters on Telegram as saying on July 30 that her client's current location was not known.

Also on July 30, supporters of Kevin Lik, a 19-year-old man from Russia's North Caucasus region of Adygea, who was sentenced to four years in prison on a treason charge in December, was unexpectedly transferred from a penitentiary in the northwestern region of Arkhangelsk.

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The charge against Lik came after he allegedly took photos of a military unit from his apartment window. Investigators say he took pictures to assist Germany's secret services.

A day earlier, relatives, supporters, and lawyers of four other imprisoned activists -- former chiefs of late opposition politician Aleksei Navalny's teams in Bashkortostan and Novosibirsk, Lilia Chanysheva and Ksenia Fadeyeva, veteran human rights defender Oleg Orlov, and anti-war artist Sasha Skochilenko -- said they had been also unexpectedly transferred from prisons or detention centers to other unspecified penitentiaries and kept incommunicado since then.

Only Skolichenko's supporters were informed that she was transferred to an unidentified penitentiary in Moscow. The destinations of the other three remain unknown.

Yashin, 40, is an outspoken Kremlin critic and one of the few prominent opposition politicians who stayed in Russia after a wave of repression against those who have condemned Russia's aggression against Ukraine since the full-scale invasion was launched in February 2022.

The sentence handed to Yashin in December 2022 was the harshest among the cases against those charged with discrediting Russia's armed forces under a new law introduced days after the invasion commenced.

The criminal case against Yashin was launched in July 2022. The charge against him stemmed from YouTube posts about alleged crimes committed by the Russian military in the Ukrainian city of Bucha.

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Human rights groups have criticized Russian regulations with regard to the treatment of convicts, whose whereabouts can be kept under wraps during the period they are transferred from one penitentiary to another, a process known as "etap."

Etap is a process that involves trains with caged compartments specifically designed for prisoners, who are provided with little fresh air, no showers, and only limited access to food or a toilet.

The transfers can take days, weeks, or even months as the trains stop and convicts spend time in transit prisons. Convicts almost always face humiliation, beatings, and sometimes even death at the hands of their guards.

Flash flooding caused by torrential seasonal rains have killed 11 members of one family, including six children, in Pakistan's northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province, rescuers said on July 30. Two men and three women are also among the victims who were caught by the flash floods inside a house in the village of Bazid Khel in Kohat district, Javad Afridi, a spokesperson for the rescuers, said in a statement on July 30. Heavy rains have hit Pakistan since the start of this month, killing more than 60 people, mostly in Punjab and Balochistan provinces. To read the original story by RFE/RL's Radio Mashaal, click here.

Afghanistan's Taliban rulers have announced that they are cutting ties with 14 Afghan diplomatic missions abroad and will cease to accept consular documents issued by those missions, in a move likely to cause further difficulties for Afghan citizens living abroad.

Following the Taliban's return to power in August 2021 in the wake of the withdrawal of U.S.-led forces from Afghanistan, some diplomatic missions abroad continued to pledge allegiance to the former government.

The move, which takes effect immediately, was announced by the Taliban Foreign Ministry in a message posted on X on July 30.

It refers to passports, visas, and other consular documents issued by Afghan missions in London, Belgium, Berlin, Bonn, Switzerland, Austria, France, Italy, Greece, Poland, Sweden, Norway, Canada, and Australia.

The Taliban "has repeatedly urged the Afghan political and consular in European countries to engage with Kabul to at least address consular service-related issues of Afghans and provide better services for Afghan citizens," the statement said.

"Unfortunately, the actions of most of the missions are carried out arbitrarily, without coordination, and in explicit violation of the existing accepted principles," it said.

Afghans in the countries affected by the move were urged in the statement to seek consular and embassy services in the diplomatic missions controlled by the Taliban.

Afghan embassies in Pakistan, China, and Russia are among those controlled by the Taliban government. In October, Afghan diplomatic missions in Spain and the Netherlands publicly accepted to offer their services to the Taliban authorities in Kabul.

Afghanistan's Taliban government has not been recognized by any country in the world, many of its leaders are under international sanctions, and the country's seat at the United Nations is still occupied by former Afghan President Ashraf Ghani's government.

However, countries such as China and Pakistan still have diplomatic missions in Kabul.

The UN has so far rejected the Taliban's bid for Afghanistan's seat in the organization three times.

At least four civilians were killed in Russian shelling of the eastern Ukrainian region of Donetsk, where Moscow has been pressing an offensive in recent weeks, regional Governor Vadym Filashkin said on July 30.

Live Briefing: Russia's Invasion Of Ukraine

RFE/RL's Live Briefing gives you all of the latest developments on Russia's full-scale invasion, Kyiv's counteroffensive, Western military aid, global reaction, and the plight of civilians. For all of RFE/RL's coverage of the war in Ukraine, click here.

"On July 29, the Russians killed four residents of Donetsk region -- three in Toretsk and one in Hrodivka. Another five people in the region were injured during the day," Filashkin wrote on Telegram on July 30.

Russian forces have intensified their attacks in Donetsk over the past several days in the direction of Toretsk and the mining city of Pokrovsk, where constant shelling has prompted the evacuation of hundreds of civilians from the area, local officials told RFE/RL.

"The city is 20 kilometers from the front line," Serhiy Dobriak, the head of the Pokrovsk military administration, told RFE/RL.

The Ukrainian military said early on July 30 that 149 close combat clashes took place during the previous 24 hours, most of them in the Pokrovsk direction, where Ukrainian forces stopped 52 Russian attacks.

In the southern region of Kherson, eight people were wounded and infrastructure was damaged in shelling by Russian forces of Chornobayivka, regional Governor Oleksandr Prokudin said on Telegram on July 30.

"The Russian military targeted critical infrastructure facilities and port infrastructure; residential quarters of settlements in the region, in particular, a multistory building and 24 private houses. Gas pipelines were also damaged," he said. "Due to the Russian aggression, eight people were wounded."

In Russia, the acting governor of the Kursk region, Aleksei Smirnov, said four Ukrainian missiles were shot down over the region early on July 30.

Smirnov said the missiles were shot down over the Oktyabrsky and Kurchatovsky districts of the region. On social media, residents reported an explosion in the sky over the city of Kursk, as well. There were no immediate reports of casualties or damage. Ukraine has not commented on the claim.

The Russian claims could not be independently verified.

Since the early days of Russia's unprovoked full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Moscow's forces have systematically targeted Ukrainian energy and civilian infrastructure facilities, causing casualties and huge damage. In turn, Ukraine has started targeting oil-refining facilities and other energy infrastructure inside Russia that mainly work for the military.

Aleksei Smirnov, the Russian governor of the Kursk border region, said on July 30 that rescuers finally extinguished a huge fire at an oil depot after suspected Ukrainian military drones struck the oil refining installation on July 28.

On July 29, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy met with Ukrainian forces who have been holding off Russian attempts to make advances into the northeastern Kharkiv region.

Zelenskiy traveled to Vovchansk, a Ukrainian settlement just 5 kilometers from the Russian border in Kharkiv region where Moscow's forces attempted a breakthrough a couple of months ago but were largely stopped by Ukrainian troops.

"Kharkiv direction. The forward command post of the Special Operations Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, in the area of Vovchansk," Zelenskiy wrote on X. "Today, I had the honor to be there to congratulate our Special Forces warriors on their professional day and to present them with state awards," Zelenskiy wrote, adding, "I am grateful for their bravery and heroic operations behind enemy lines, as well as during the defense and de-occupation of our cities and villages."

A recent decision by Hungary to make it easier for Russian and Belarusian nationals to enter that country is triggering criticism within the EU, with the leader of the biggest political bloc warning it could open the doors to spies.

In a letter to European Council President Charles Michel, Manfred Weber, head of the European People’s party (EPP), said the Hungarian move raised “serious national security concerns.”

The "questionable" new rules "create grave loopholes for espionage activities...potentially allowing large numbers of Russians to enter Hungary with minimal supervision, posing a serious risk to national security," Weber said in his letter, a copy of which was obtained by the Financial Times.

Earlier this month, Hungary published details of a new fast-track visa system for citizens of eight countries -- including Russia and Belarus -- to enter Hungary without security checks or other restrictions. Budapest has said many would be employed in the building of a nuclear power plant that is contracted to Russia’s Rosatom.

Russian citizens do not face a ban on entering the EU and the border control-free Schengen zone, which also includes non-EU members Norway and Switzerland, if they possess a valid visa and have no ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

But Western sanctions in response to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine include a ban on Russian-owned airlines operating in EU airspace, making it more difficult for Russian nationals to travel to the bloc. At the same time, rules on issuing working permits are a matter for each EU member state.

In his letter, Weber called for EU leaders “to adopt the most stringent measures to immediately protect the integrity of the Schengen area, limit the security risk that has already arisen, and prevent member states from taking similar initiatives in the future.”

Orban, long criticized for his friendly ties with Putin, faced a fresh backlash earlier this month after traveling to Moscow to meet with the Russian leader after a stop in Kyiv. Holding the EU’s six-month rotating presidency, Orban cast the visit as a peace mission, but EU leaders made clear he did not represent them on his travels.

Many countries have since refused to send their ministers to meetings held in Hungary, prompting them to be rescheduled in Brussels.

Rasa Jukneviciene, a member of the European Parliament and a former Lithuanian defense minister, was critical of Orban's actions in an interview with Current Time.

“A lot of people are taken aback [by Hungary’s decision], although we shouldn’t be because Hungary and Orban’s actions have been destroying the EU from inside," she said. "But our patience will run out sooner or later."

Though many hope that Hungary’s government will change through a democratic process, "until then no one wants to expel the entire Hungarian nation out of the EU," she said.

Throughout Russia’s full-scale war in Ukraine, Orban has broken with other EU leaders by refusing to provide Kyiv with weapons to defend against Russian forces and has routinely delayed, watered down, or blocked efforts to send financial aid to Kyiv and impose sanctions on Moscow.

The EU’s longest-serving leader, Orban has become an icon to some conservative populists for his firm opposition to immigration and LGBTQ+ rights. He has also cracked down on the press and judiciary in Hungary and been accused by the EU of violating rule-of-law and democracy standards.

Kyrgyz government spokesman Nazirbek Borubaev said on July 30 that 94 percent of the 972-kilometer Kyrgyz-Tajik border had been agreed upon by officials from the two Central Asian nations. Borubaev added that discussions between Kyrgyz and Tajik officials on defining the remaining sections of the border will be held on August 11-17. The governor of Tajikistan's Sughd region, Rajabboi Ahmadzoda, confirmed that 94 percent of the border had been agreed on. The delimitation of the Kyrgyz-Tajik border has been an issue for decades. Several deadly clashes have taken place along the border's disputed segments in recent years. To read the original story by RFE/RL's Kyrgyz Service, click here.

The U.S. Director of National Intelligence said "foreign actors" are conducting and planning "influence operations" targeting the November elections using increasingly refined tactics "to better hide their hand."

"Foreign actors are turning to commercial firms, such as marketing and public relations companies, to leverage these firms' expertise in communications, technical sophistication, and to complicate attribution," said the Election Security Update for late July issued by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) on July 29.

The report notes that such companies "are often able to operate more nimbly and with fewer bureaucratic hurdles than government entities."

The U.S. intelligence community expects Russia, China, and Iran to continue to attempt to influence U.S. politics and policies to "benefit their interests and undermine U.S. democracy and Washington's standing in the world."

"Moscow is leveraging Russia-based influence-for-hire firms to shape public opinion in the United States, including with election-related operations," the report says.

"These firms have created influence platforms, directly and discreetly engaged Americans, and used improved tools to tailor content for U.S. audiences, while hiding Russia's hand."

U.S. intelligence considers Russia the "predominant threat to U.S. elections," and believes Moscow "is working to better hide its hand."

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The ODNI report says China "probably does not plan to influence" the presidential election, though it may seek to "denigrate down-ballot candidates it sees as threatening its core interests."

Iran, the report says, will attempt "to fuel distrust in U.S. political institutions and increase social discord." Tehran has also "notably been active in exacerbating tensions over the Israel-Gaza conflict."

On July 30, Iran's ambassador to the UN, Amir Saeid Iravani, rejected the report, saying Tehran did not intend to sway the upcoming U.S. presidential election.

"Iran does not intend to and is not working on swaying the U.S. elections. Most of these accusations are psychological operations [aimed at] creating the impression of a busy election campaign," the official IRNA news agency quoted him as saying.

U.S. voters will cast their ballots on November 5. Former President Donald Trump is the Republican Party candidate, while current Vice President Kamala Harris is the presumptive candidate for the Democratic Party.

In addition, all 435 seats in the House of Representatives and 34 of the 100 seats in the Senate are being contested.

Masud Pezeshkian was sworn in as Iran's new president in parliament on July 30 after he won a snap presidential election earlier this month and inherited an economy hammered by mismanagement and sanctions and a society that has shown it will take to the streets to demand basic freedoms.

"I as the president, in front of the Holy Koran and the people of Iran, swear to almighty God to be the guardian of the official religion and the Islamic republic system and the constitution of the country," Pezeshkian said in the ceremony broadcast live on state TV.

On July 28, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei formally endorsed Pezeshkian and instructed him to focus on cultivating relations with Iran's neighbors rather than Western states after the new president voiced openness to talking with the West.

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Moderate reformist Pezeshkian, a 69-year-old former heart surgeon, defeated ultraconservative hard-liner Saeed Jalili in a July 5 runoff with nearly 54 percent of the vote. Jalili received just over 44 percent.

The snap election was called after the death of hard-line President Ebrahim Raisi in a helicopter crash in May. The first round of voting on June 28 had voter participation of 39 percent -- a record-low turnout for a presidential election in the history of the Islamic republic.

Iran's theocracy, installed after the Islamic Revolution of 1979, has long maintained that it derives its legitimacy from strong popular support that translates into high voter turnout, but poor participation in recent elections and deadly antiestablishment protests have challenged the legitimacy of the current leadership.

The runoff vote on July 5 saw turnout rise to around 49 percent.

The inauguration ceremony was attended by senior officials from countries including Armenia, Tajikistan, Azerbaijan, Egypt, Sudan, Iraq, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Cuba, and Brazil. European Union envoy Enrique Mora also attended.

Regional allies backed by Iran were also in Tehran, such as Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh and the head of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Ziyad al-Nakhalah. Both groups have been designated as terrorists by the United States and European Union. Lebanon's Hizballah and Yemen's Huthi rebels also sent representatives.

Haniyeh and Nakhalah, whose groups have been fighting Israel in the Gaza Strip since Hamas's October 7 attack on Israel, met with Khamenei and Pezeshkian. Since his election, Pezeshkian has reaffirmed support for the "axis of resistance," Iran's loose network of militant groups and proxies, against Israel and the United States.

Khamenei, in his endorsement decree, described Pezeshkian as a "wise, honest, popular, and scholarly" individual.

The United States has noted the result of the election but said that elections in Iran are neither free nor fair.

"As a result, a significant number of Iranians chose not to participate at all," a U.S. State Department spokesman said in comments to RFE/RL's Radio Farda on July 7.

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"We have no expectation these elections will lead to fundamental change in Iran’s direction or more respect for the human rights of its citizens. As the candidates themselves have said, Iranian policy is set by the supreme leader.

"The election will not have a significant impact on [Washington's] approach to Iran either. Our concerns about Iran’s behavior are unchanged. At the same time, we remain committed to diplomacy when it advances American interests," the spokesman said.

The United States in 2018 withdrew from a 2015 landmark nuclear agreement between Tehran and world powers that eased international economic sanctions in exchange for limits to Tehran's nuclear program.

Washington cited Tehran's violation of the spirit of the pact and support for extremists in the region -- charges Iran has denied -- and reimposed sanctions targeting Iran's economy and oil sector.

Iran has since scaled back its own commitments and expanded its nuclear program.

"We call on the Western countries to realize [the need] for building relations based on mutual respect and equality. We are ready to negotiate an easing of tensions with states that have not realized until now the place that Iran occupies [in the world]," Pezeshkian said.

He also vowed to continue fighting against the sanctions imposed on Iran. "I think that this is Iran’s unalienable right to have normal relations with the world and I will not bow down in the fight against tough sanctions," he said.

With reporting by AFP

Saber-fencing world champion Olha Kharlan won Ukraine's first medal at the Paris Olympics on July 29, giving her country something to celebrate as it battles invading Russian forces.

Kharlan overcame a six-point deficit to beat South Korea's Choi Sebin 15-14 for the bronze medal one year after her refusal to shake hands with a Russian opponent nearly cost her a trip to the Olympics.

Kharlan was disqualified by the International Fencing Federation at the World Fencing Championships last year for violating fencing's rules when she refused to shake the hand of Anna Smirnova, a Russian competing as a neutral athlete, after defeating her. Kharlan instead offered a touch of her saber's blade.

International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Thomas Bach later reinstated her so that she could continue competing at the world championships and to ensure her a place in the Paris Olympics.

The incident angered Smirnova and highlighted the tension over whether to allow Russian athletes to compete in international events following Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

The IOC decided earlier this year to allow only individual Russian and Belarusian athletes competing as neutrals. There are 15 Russian athletes and 17 Belarusian athletes taking part.

After the IOC stepped in to guarantee Kharlan a "unique exception" and a spot at the 2024 Olympics, fencing's governing body made handshakes after a match optional.

On her way to the individual Olympic bronze in Paris, Kharlan defeated Shihomi Fukushima from Japan; Anna Bashta, a former Russian fencer who now competes for Azerbaijan; and Anna Marton of Hungary.

The five-time Olympian and four-time world champion in the event said her latest medal was nothing like the others she won at the previous Olympics, including a team gold in 2008 in Beijing.

"I brought a medal to my country, and it's the first one, and it's going to be a good start for all our athletes who are here because it's really tough to compete when in your country is at war," she said.

Asked whether she had thought her Olympic dream was over because of her refusal to shake hands with Smirnova, Kharlan said what she went through "represents my country, what it goes through, and I wouldn't change anything. This is my story."

In Olympic swimming, Romanian teenager David Popovici powered to the gold medal in the men's 200-meter freestyle, edging Britain's Matthew Richards by a fingertip. It was the 19-year-old Popovici's first Olympic medal after missing out in Tokyo, where he was fourth.

Also on July 29, the organizers of the Paris Olympics confirmed that the accreditation of four journalists with TASS had been revoked. Organizing Committee spokeswoman Anne Descamps said that "competent authorities" made the decision.

Three of the affected journalists covered the opening ceremony on July 26 and other events without incident, according to TASS.

The decision to withdraw accreditation lies with the Paris 2024 Organizing Committee, according to French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin's office, which gave no further details. Over 100 journalists and professionals, including Russians, have been denied visas for the Olympics over espionage concerns.

With reporting by RFE/RL's Ukrainian and Romanian services and AFP

The Paris 2024 Organizing Committee confirmed on July 29 that the accreditation of four journalists with the Russian state-run news agency TASS had been revoked. Organizing Committee spokeswoman Anne Descamps said that "competent authorities" made the decision and the committee was not involved. Three of the affected journalists covered the opening ceremony and other events without incident, according to TASS. The decision to withdraw accreditation lies with the Paris 2024 Organizing Committee, according to French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin's office, which gave no further details. Over 100 journalists and professionals, including Russians, have been denied visas for the Olympics over espionage concerns.

Thousands of Pakistanis have been protesting for nearly a week in the port city of Gwadar against a growing Chinese presence in Balochistan and what members of the Baluch community say is a pattern of "forced disappearances" that they blame on Pakistani authorities.

Pakistan's army said on July 29 that the protests recently turned violent, leaving one soldier dead and at least 16 injured.

According to Baloch United Committee head Mahrang Baloch, the protest, which began on July 24, revolves around the exploitation of resources and the oppression of the Baluch ethnic minority.

"Gwadar is a very sensitive city," Balochistan Interior Minister Mir Ziaullah Lango told RFE/RL, pointing out that there are a number of Chinese nationals living in there.

Gwadar is a port city in western Pakistan on the Iranian border. It is a key nexus for China's Belt and Road Initiative, an economic-development program criticized by the West for exploitive tendencies throughout the Global South. Beijing has invested about $65 billion in Belt and Road Initiative projects in Pakistan.

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Gwadar has been the scene of protests and security concerns in the past. In 2021, Islamabad and Beijing announced plans to install barbed wire around Gwadar, but the move was postponed after mass protests.

Baloch said the gas, coal, and resources of Balochistan belong to the people living in the region, rather than international powers.

"Balochistan and Gwadar are ours," Baloch said. "We cannot live under oppression. We will not allow anyone to exploit us."

Lango said 25 protesters had been arrested for "interfering with the work of the government," but Nadia Baloch, a leader of the Baloch United Committee and Mahrang Baloch's sister, told RFE/RL more than 300 protesters had been arrested following raids throughout Balochistan.

Videos showing protesters being dragged into police cars have circulated online, and the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan condemned the arrest of the protesters and called for the release of all those arrested.

Lango told RFE/RL's Radio Mashaal that the published videos and images were edited.

The Pakistani Army said the casualties among the soldiers who guarded the protest resulted from "unprovoked assaults by the violent protesters."

Baluch leaders claim that several protesters were injured by the army but gave no details about the number injured or their condition.

Nadia Baloch also cited “forced disappearances” as a motivation for the protests. The Pakistani Army claims that the number of missing people is fewer than 1,000.

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Army spokesman Major General Ahmed Sharif said at a May 7 press conference that Baluch people had joined armed groups and were not actually missing.

A Pakistani government commission that investigates forced disappearances said it had registered 197 cases in the first six months of 2024.

With reporting by Reuters

Less than three weeks after the Moscow City Court upheld a 30-month sentence handed down to veteran rights activist Oleg Orlov, he was moved from a detention center in the city of Syzran, the Memorial human rights group said on July 29. The group said Orlov's lawyer was informed that his client had been transferred to an unspecified facility. Detention center officials refused to say why and when Orlov was transferred. The 71-year-old was sentenced in February on a charge of repeatedly discrediting Russia's military. The charge stems from Orlov's public condemnation of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. To read the original story by RFE/RL's Russian Service, click here.

Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico said on July 29 that his country would halt diesel supplies to Ukraine if Kyiv failed to restore oil flows from Russian group LUKoil through its territory. Kyiv put LUKoil on a sanctions list last month, stopping the company's oil from passing through Ukraine to Slovak and Hungarian refineries. Fico said if the transit of Russian crude through Ukraine is not renewed in a short time, Slovakian refiner Slovnaft will not continue to supply diesel to Ukraine. Fico said that he proposed a technical solution to restore the stopped oil flows on July 26 to Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal. He gave no details other that it would involve multiple countries. Slovakia and Hungary have opposed Western military aid to Ukraine as it fights Russia's invasion.

Prosecutors have asked a military court in Russia to sentence two alleged members of the late Chechen field commander Shamil Basayev's group to 24 years in prison each over their alleged participation in a terrorist attack in Chechnya in 2005. Nazhmudin Dudiyev and Ibragim Donashev are currently serving prison terms of 18 and 19 years respectively for taking part in a deadly attack in 2000 on Russian riot police in Chechnya. Basayev was blamed for many terrorist attacks in the North Caucasus between 1994 and 2006, when he died in an explosion in neighboring Ingushetia. To read the original story by RFE/RL's Caucasus.Realities, click here.

Two former leaders of the late Russian opposition politician Aleksei Navalny’s teams in Ufa and Tomsk, Lilia Chanysheva and Ksenia Fadeyeva, have been transferred from the prisons where they were being held and their current whereabouts are not known.

Chanysheva was transferred from correctional colony No. 28 in the Perm region to an unknown facility without her relatives being informed.

Chanysheva's husband, Almaz Gatin, wrote on X on July 29 that when he arrived at the prison the day before to deliver a package for his wife, officials told him she had been transferred to another facility on July 27 but refused to say where and why Chanysheva was transferred.

"I ask all for help to find my spouse: Please let me know if you know anything about Chanysheva's whereabouts," Gatin wrote.

A lawyer for Fadeyeva is quoted by Mediazona as saying his client had been removed from correctional colony No. 9 in the Novosibirsk region and that prison officials refused to answer questions about where, why, and when she was transferred.

Fadeyeva was sentenced in December to nine years in prison by a court in Tomsk after being found guilty of organizing the activities of an extremist community. She was also stripped of her mandate as a deputy in the Tomsk City Duma.

Chanysheva was initially sentenced to 7 1/2 years in prison in June 2023 after a court in Ufa, the capital of Bashkortostan, also found her guilty of creating an extremist community, inciting extremism, and establishing an organization that violates citizens' rights.

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In April, the Supreme Court of Bashkortostan extended Chanysheva's prison sentence by two years after an appeal by prosecutors who said her initial sentence for extremism was too lenient.

Chanysheva headed the local unit of Navalny's network of regional campaign groups until his team disbanded after a Moscow prosecutor went to court to have them branded "extremist" in 2021.

The label effectively outlawed the group.

Chanysheva's defense team have said the charges appeared to be retroactive to the period of time before the organization she worked for had been legally classified as extremist.

Navalny died on February 16 in an Arctic prison while serving a 19-year term on extremism and other charges he and his supporters said were trumped up and politically motivated.

Several opposition leaders and associates of Navalny have since been charged with establishing an extremist group.

Since Russia launched its full-scale unprovoked invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, several of Navalny's former associates have been charged with discrediting the Russian armed forces, distributing "false" news about the military, and extremism.

The former leader of Navalny’s team in the Altai region, Vadim Ostanin, was sentenced last year to nine years in prison on an extremism charge.

It became known in May that Chanysheva officially asked President Vladimir Putin for clemency.

Georgia's Constitutional Court on July 29 said it would consolidate cases against the controversial "foreign agent" law after 32 opposition lawmakers filed a lawsuit against the legislation. The court's chair, Merab Turava, said the lawsuit, along with two similar lawsuits filed against the law in question by President Salome Zurabishvili and nongovernmental and media organizations earlier, will be looked into jointly on an unspecified day. Zurabishvili vetoed the law in May, but parliament, which is dominated by the ruling Georgian Dream party, overrode her veto. Party officials argue the law is needed because they are the only force that can maintain national sovereignty in the face of foreign forces that don't have Georgia’s best interests in mind. Signed into law on June 4, it has jeopardized the country's aspirations to join the European Union. To read the original story by RFE/RL's Georgian Service, click here.

The United States on July 29 announced two assistance packages for Ukraine valued at $1.7 billion.

White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said the presidential package, valued at up to $200 million, will include air-defense interceptors, munitions for HIMARS, artillery and mortar rounds, and Javelin and other anti-tank missiles.

The U.S. Defense Department also announced $1.5 billion through the security-assistance-initiative funds.

The resources will "augment Ukraine's air defense" through long-range firing capability and anti-tank weapons, as well as equipment to sustain previous donations by the United States, Kirby said.

According to a July 29 report by the Pew Research Center, over half of Americans are worried about the growing length of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and the costs associated with providing aid.

Despite bipartisan support for Ukraine aid in Congress, the U.S. public is divided on the degree of support that Washington should provide, a survey by Pew Research Center found.

Pew Research Center said that while 48 percent of Americans believe the United States has a responsibility to help Ukraine, 49 percent disagree.

Despite recent campaigns to increase support for Ukraine among Republicans in Congress, Pew Research Center reported that nearly half of Republicans say Washington is providing too much aid to Ukraine, compared to 29 percent of Americans overall. Only 19 percent of Americans say the United States is not providing enough support.

While Republican presidential nominee and former President Donald Trump has claimed that he would end Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 24 hours if he was elected, only 34 percent of Americans say the war poses a "major threat" to U.S. interests, the report said.

Likewise, Pew Research Center found that Democrats are more likely than Republicans to say that they are worried that Russia will take over Ukraine and invade other countries in Europe.

Despite opposition to aid, there is "broad public support for keeping strict economic sanctions" on Russia, according to the Pew Research Center survey of nearly 9,500 people at the beginning of July.

Turkish and Armenian diplomats will meet on July 30 on the Armenia-Turkey border, the Foreign Ministries of the two countries said on July 29 amid efforts to normalize relations.

It will be the fifth meeting of special representatives of Yerevan and Baku since they were appointed in December 2021 to advance the normalization process.

The meeting will see the envoys discuss "confidence-building measures that could be developed between the two countries," Turkish Foreign Ministry spokesman Oncu Keceli said, according to AFP.

At their last meeting in Vienna, the parties agreed to open the land border for citizens of third countries, but there has been no progress on implementation.

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian on July 26 visited the Margara (Alican in Turkish) border crossing, which Yerevan recently renovated in hopes of a breakthrough.

Armenia has said Yerevan seeks full normalization of relations with Ankara, including the opening of their border and the establishment of diplomatic ties.

The border has been shut since diplomatic relations between the two neighbors were severed in 1993 over Nagorno-Karabakh, an enclave in Azerbaijan that until September 2023 was populated predominantly by ethnic Armenians. Azerbaijan and Armenia fought wars in the 1990s and in 2023 over control of Nagorno-Karabakh.

Baku recaptured Nagorno-Karabakh in a lightning offensive in September 2023 that led to the exodus of all Armenians from the territory.

Beyond Nagorno-Karabakh, Armenia and Turkey disagree on whether the deaths of an estimated 1.5 million Armenian subjects of the Ottoman Empire more than 100 years ago was a genocide.

Turkey has vehemently rejected that the killings and deaths that began on April 24, 1915, with mass arrests of Armenian intellectuals and activists in Constantinople, now Istanbul, constituted a genocide.

In recent years about three dozen countries, including Russia, France, Germany, and the United States, have recognized it as genocide.

Pashinian has urged Armenians to "overcome the trauma" of the massacre and stop yearning for their "lost homeland."

Speaking on April 24 at an event to mark the anniversary of the start of the 1915 events, Pashinian said the enduring trauma prevents many Armenians from objectively assessing international affairs and the challenges facing Armenia.

With reporting by AFP