Mikhail Afanasyev, the imprisoned editor in chief of the Novy fokus (New Focus) online newspaper covering the Siberian region of Khakassia, has been given a 2024 Free Media Award for journalistic bravery. The chief of the Center for Media Rights, Galina Arapova, accepted the award on Afanasyev's behalf at a ceremony in Oslo on September 17. Afanasyev was sentenced to 5 1/2 years in prison on a charge of discrediting Russia's armed forces after reporting about the refusal of local riot police officers to participate in Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. To read the original story by RFE/RL's Siberia.Realities, click here.

The European Union's top diplomat has called on Georgia to scrap legislation approved by lawmakers that curbs LGBT rights and allows for bans on cultural events such as Pride marches.

The so-called Family Values bill was pushed through parliament by the ruling Georgian Dream party on September 17. Opposition members boycotted the vote and protesters rallied against it outside parliament, underscoring the dramatically polarized political landscape in the Caucasus nation ahead of national elections in October.

"The Georgian Parliament adopted laws on 'family values and protection of minors’ which will undermine the fundamental rights of the people and increase discrimination & stigmatization,"Josep Borrell, the high representative of the EU for foreign affairs, wrote in a post on X on September 18.

"I call on Georgia to withdraw this legislation, further derailing the country from its EU path."

The package of legal changes, which came under the title On Family Values And Protection Of Minors, amends 18 current laws, including on free speech and expression, as well as broadcasting.

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Bulgarian Teachers Say They Face Threats For Opposing Anti-LGBT 'Propaganda In School' Law

It allows for bans on gatherings that promote the notion of a person identifying as a gender other than "his or her biological sex" or same-sex orientation or relationships.

The initiative passed by a vote of 84-0 in a chamber that most of the opposition has boycotted since May.

That's when Georgian Dream lawmakers approved a "foreign influence" bill that Georgians and Western governments liken to the decade-old "foreign agent" law used by Russian authorities to clamp down on dissent with broad discretion.

They ended up overriding a presidential veto of the legislation to enact it.

The United States and other Western states have expressed concern about the law, which requires organizations that receive more than 20 percent of their funding from abroad to register as "agents of foreign influence."

On September 16, the United States slapped sanctions on more than 60 Georgians, including two members of the government, who it said had "undermined" democracy and human rights in the country.

Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze met on September 17 with U.S. Ambassador Robin Dunnigan and warned that Georgia might revise ties with the United States in response to the new sanctions.

"If one more such step is taken, this might lead to a revision of Georgia's stance on U.S.-Georgian relations," Kobakhidze said in the meeting with Dunnigan, according to a statement by the prime minister's office.

SEE ALSO:

Georgia's Ruling Party Initiates Bill Cracking Down On LGBT Rights

Tens of thousands of Georgians demonstrated against the bill despite a brutal crackdown and violent retaliation. Most protesters referred to the bill as "the Russian law" because of its similarity to decade-old legislation in Russia that has contributed to a fierce clampdown on independent media and public dissent there.

The European Union reacted to the enactment of the bill by pausing EU accession negotiations, while the United States opted to launch a "comprehensive review" of relations with Georgia.

In setting election day for October 26, Georgian President Salome Zurabishvili called the vote a choice between "being Russia's slave or cooperation with Europe."

Opinion polls show that Georgian Dream remains the country's single most popular party ahead of the election.

Ukraine's unified heavyweight world boxing champion, Oleksandr Usyk, has been released at the Krakow airport in Poland after being detained late on September 17, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Telegram. A video appeared on social media showing Usyk in handcuffs at the airport. It remains unclear why the world champion was detained. He described on Instagram his brief detention as "a misunderstanding that was quickly resolved." The WBC, WBO, and WBA champion, who also won gold at the 2012 London Olympics, is considered a national hero in Ukraine. Usyk has publicly supported Ukraine's efforts to stand against Russia's ongoing attack of his homeland.

A suspected Ukrainian drone strike overnight in Russia's Tver region northwest of Moscow has reportedly hit an arms depot and left emergency workers scrambling to fight fires and evacuate local residents.

The Astra Telegram channel and other social media published videos that showed massive explosions and flames erupting into the night sky near the town of Toropets, located in the west of the Tver region. Other footage posted on social media showed rows of apartment buildings in the town with windows blown out from blast waves.

Footage later posted on social media showed large plumes of smoke rising from the scene and rows of apartment buildings in Toropets with windows blown out from blast waves.

Satellite imagery from NAZA showed multiple heat sources from the location and earthquake monitoring stations picked up seismic waves equal to a minor earthquake.

Reports indicated that the town is home to two Russian military units, one of which has been targeted by drone strikes twice in the past six months. Russia’s state news agency RIA Novosti reported in 2018 that an arms depot for storing missiles, ammunition, and explosives was being constructed in Toropets, which has a population of around 11,000 people.

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.

While Kyiv has not commented on the incident, a source in Ukraine's Security Service (SBU) told Reuters that a Ukrainian drone attack had destroyed a depot that stored missiles, guided bombs, and artillery ammunition.

An SBU source told the AFP news agency that the destroyed depot "contained missiles for Iskander tactical missile systems, Tochka-U tactical missile systems, guided aerial bombs, and artillery ammunition."

Tver regional Governor Igor Rudenya said on Telegram that wreckage from a Ukrainian drone sparked the fire in Toropets but did not say what was burning. Rudenya said Russian air defenses were working to repel a "massive drone attack."

Russian state media reported that kindergartens and schools were temporarily closed in the Zapadnodvinsk district, which borders the Toropetsk district in the Tver region, without indicating why.

Astra reported that residents of the village of Tsikarevo, which is located along a lake to the east of Toropets and the arms depot, were unable to evacuate and were awaiting help. The news outlet said locals had requested five boats but that contact with them had been lost. Users on local chat groups wrote that the village had been destroyed.

Russia's Defense Ministry has not specifically commented on the incident, saying only that 54 Ukrainian drones had targeted five western Russian regions overnight and that all of the drones had been destroyed.

The Defense Ministry, without mentioning the Tver region, said half the drones had been shot down over the Kursk region, where Russian forces have launched a counterattack to push out Ukrainian forces that entered the region and took control of large swaths of Russian territory in a surprise incursion in August.

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Interactive Map: Ukraine's Surprise Invasion Of Russia's Kursk Region

The rest of the drones, according to the Russian Defense Ministry, were shot down over the Bryansk, Smolensk, Oryol, and Belgorod regions.

Regional authorities in the western Smolensk region bordering Belarus and in the Bryansk region bordering Ukraine also said drones had been shot down.

Kyiv has previously said its strikes against Russia are intended to hit military, energy, and transportation infrastructure that are key to Russia's ongoing attack on Ukraine.

Meanwhile in Ukraine, Russian drone and missile strikes targeted energy facilities in the northeastern city of Sumy. One person was killed in Kropyvnytskiy, the capital of the Kirovohrad region in central Ukraine.

WASHINGTON -- The Biden administration and U.S. lawmakers promised to continue fighting for the freedom of Russian and Belarusian political prisoners as they welcomed Vladimir Kara-Murza back to the U.S. Capitol.

Kara-Murza, whose work with Congress was instrumental in passing the U.S. Magnitsky Act, which sets out sanctions for human rights violators in Russia, was among 16 political prisoners released by the Kremlin last month in exchange for eight Russians held in the West for crimes including murder, cybertheft, and espionage.

The 43-year old Kara-Murza, who was sentenced last year to a quarter-century in prison for his criticism of Russian President Vladimir Putin and the invasion of Ukraine, told a packed room at the Senate building in Washington on September 17 that there were many more political prisoners than the 1,300 indicated in public data and vowed to work with U.S. lawmakers to secure their freedom.

"There are so so many people in Russian prisons today who are there for the only reason that they have opposed, publicly opposed, Putin's murderous war on aggression. It's the fastest-growing segment of Russian prisoners," he said. "Now that I have been saved, I think about all those who have been left behind."

SEE ALSO:

Putin 'In The Dock': Freed Activist Pivovarov Says Russian Opposition, Ukrainians Share Goal

Kara-Murza highlighted the case of Yury Kokhovets, who was sentenced a day earlier by a Moscow court to five years in prison for anti-war comments he made to RFE/RL's Russian Service in July 2022.

U.S. officials and lawmakers who worked to free Kara-Murza were present at the reception and said they will continue to use administrative tools to fight for those left behind in Russian prisons.

"We're not going to stop working on behalf of those who are detained unjustly, and we're not going to forget the purpose of this cause," Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs James O'Brien said. "We have a lot of tools to and we will use them. We will continue to pursue their freedom as we work."

Senator Roger Wicker (Republican-Mississippi) told the audience that he just had a call to discuss plans to punish Russia further for its actions though he did not give any details.

Senator Ben Cardin (Democrat-Maryland), chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, called Kara-Murza's return to Capitol Hill a "day of celebration," but said the United States "must never forget" the other political prisoners left behind in Russia.

"There is a lot more that we need to do," he said.

Senator Jean Shaheen (Democrat-New Hampshire) said the United States must work to free Belarusian political prisoners as well.

Kara-Murza said putting a public spotlight on the political prisoners abroad was more than just talk.

"Whatever the cynics and the skeptics will tell you, advocacy works and public attention protects and public attention saves," he said.

Quarter-Century

Kara-Murza, a close associate of assassinated Russian politician Boris Nemtsov, worked with members of Congress to pass the Magnitsky Act in 2012, which gave the executive branch the right to place sanctions on Russian officials for human rights abuses and corruption.

Putin fought hard to overturn the law, which U.S. presidents have used to target people close to the Kremlin.

Kara-Murza was arrested in April 2022 shortly after returning to Russia from a trip to the United States and Europe, where he spoke out against the invasion.

Putin had weeks earlier outlawed criticism of the war and the Russian armed forces. Russian police and security services were quick to act on it, arresting people for social media posts and public acts.

In explaining his decision at the time to return, Kara-Murza said he was a Russian politician and had to be in his country to be politically relevant.

Representative Steve Cohen (Democrat-Tennesse), who was among the lawmakers actively pushing for his release, told Kara-Murza: "You have been to hell and back. Don't go again."

Kosovar Prime Minister Albin Kurti has dismissed as "unconscionable" demands made last week by Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic for the return of local Serbs to Kosovar institutions.

Kurti, responding to Vucic's demands for the first time, also said on September 17 that they were part of an "aggressive campaign for new conflicts."

The response came as senior representatives from Serbia and Kosovo gathered in Brussels for internationally mediated talks on implementing past commitments aimed at normalizing relations between the Balkan neighbors.

The countries' chief negotiators in the so-called "dialogue" -- Serbia's director for relations with Kosovo, Petar Petkovic, and Kosovar Deputy Prime Minister Besnik Bislimi -- met separately with EU envoy Miroslav Lajcak, but he was unable to bring the parties together for a trilateral meeting.

Lajcak said he would continue to be available to the parties "and we will continue in the coming weeks." Bislimi and Petkovic blamed each other for the failure of the sides to agree to a three-way meeting.

Similar meetings have recently fallen through despite heavy public pressure from outside diplomats keen to patch a security risk in Southeastern Europe and regain regional momentum for further Western integration and stem the influence of outside powers Russia and China.

Belgrade has never acknowledged the independence that Pristina declared in 2008, and violent flare-ups and standoffs persist between Kosovar authorities and tens of thousands of ethnic Serbs in northern Kosovo in a region still scarred by brutal wars and ethnic cleansing in the 1990s.

Among the demands Vucic laid out last week are new local elections in the north, the return of Serbs to the Kosovo Police force and judiciary, and the withdrawal of Kosovo Police special units from the northern region. He said it was his intention to boost Belgrade's support for Serbs in Kosovo "significantly and dramatically."

"His demands, his measures, are out of desperation and represent irrationality and are not peaceful at all, but rather part of the aggressive campaign for new conflicts that undoubtedly have no place in Kosovo," Kurti said in his response.

Vucic said his demands must be met in order to make progress in the dialogue between Belgrade and Pristina.

He also urged Serbs who had quit jobs with police and other Kosovar institutions in protest nearly two years ago to retake the jobs, and he laid out administrative plans to help Serbs draw salaries and other financial benefits on the Serbian side of the joint border.

Some Serbs have expressed anger and said they feel betrayed by Vucic's about-face.

The demands were welcomed by the European Union as a positive move.

Tensions have been high in Kosovo since Pristina shut down several Serbian-backed parallel institutions at the end of August. Pristina calls the so-called "parallel" institutions backed by Belgrade "illegal."

Kurti said his own demands were "peaceful and rational" compared to those of the Serbian leader.

First among them are that Serbia hand over Milan Radoicic, who is wanted in Kosovo in connection with an armed attack in Banjska last year. Radoicic, the fugitive former vice president of the Serbian List party accused of leading and organizing the attack, is believed to be in Serbia.

Kosovar authorities last week announced the indictment of 45 individuals on terrorism charges over a commando-style operation at a monastery in northern Kosovo last year that killed an ethnic Albanian police officer and wounded another.

Kurti also said Kosovo wants an agreement on normalization of relations to be signed and it also wants the withdrawal of a letter from former Prime Minister Ana Brnabic rejecting Kosovo's independence and a seat for Kosovo at the United Nations.

Lajcak said Serbia had already withdrawn the letter, but Vucic neither confirmed nor denied this when he was asked about it last week.

Kosovo and Serbia have been negotiating normalization since 2011 through the Brussels dialogue, supervised by the EU. They reached an agreement on normalization steps in early 2023, but key elements of the deal remain unfulfilled. Kosovo insists that this agreement must be signed first, although the EU says it is binding on the parties regardless of signature.

Kosovo, which is majority ethnic Albanian, has faced increased criticism from international partners, including the United States and European Union, over "unilateral" and "uncoordinated" actions affecting the daily lives of its ethnic Serb minority.

Belgrade and EU and U.S. officials have also pressed for Pristina to lay the legal groundwork to establish an association of mostly Serb municipalities that it originally pledged to create more than a decade ago.

Kosovar officials have countered that the Serbian side is trying to implement measures halfway, including from oral commitments made in Ohrid early last year.

An EU Monitoring Mission (EUMM) patrol in Georgia was temporarily detained on September 17 near the boundary with the breakaway region of Abkhazia, the mission said in a statement. EUMM said the patrol was held up by "security actors" while conducting a routine patrol near the disputed boundary between Georgia and Abkhazia in the Khurcha area. The monitors were later released unharmed. The patrol was detained by representatives of the Russian occupation forces in the occupied territory near Khurcha, RFE/RL reported, citing the State Security Service, which controls the area on the Georgian side. The EUMM expressed "deep concern about any actions that prevent its monitors from carrying out their mandated activities." The EUMM was established after the 2008 war between Georgia and Russia to monitor the boundary. To read the original story by RFE/RL's Georgian Service, click here.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on September 17 told the leaders of the five Central Asian states that the development of cooperation with their countries was "a strategic goal" for Germany.

"Never before has the exchange between our societies been so close -- and it is constantly increasing: politically, economically, and culturally," Scholz said, adding that Berlin wants "to continue and further intensify this."

Speaking in Astana at the second summit of the Central Asian states and Germany, Scholz said that "especially in times of global uncertainty, we need close, trusting international partners."

Scholz last met with the Central Asian leaders at their first summit with Germany held in Berlin in September 2023 amid efforts to counter Russian influence in the region.

The host of the second summit, Kazakh President Qasym-Zhomart Toqaev, expressed gratitude to German entities that have established cooperation between "one of the world's leading nations in terms of economic and technological innovations" and the countries of Central Asia.

Central Asia is a "dynamically developing region with an enormous potential for development and wide opportunities for mutually profitable partnership," Toqaev said at the summit.

"By uniting east and west, north and south, Central Asia can become a center of attraction of technologies, localization of production, and producing outputs with a high added value," he said, adding that the region was "open for cooperation in different spheres."

Presidents Sadyr Japarov of Kyrgyzstan, Emomali Rahmon of Tajikistan, Serdar Berdymukhammedov of Turkmenistan, and Shavkat Mirziyoev of Uzbekistan also stressed the importance of cooperation with Germany, but not all agree with Scholz on recognition of the Taliban-led government in Afghanistan, which he said came to power "illegally."

Scholz also called ongoing developments in Afghanistan "depressing" and stressed that the situation faced by Afghan women under Taliban rule was "intolerable."

Human Rights Watch (HRW) last week issued a statement calling on Scholz to focus on human rights in the five tightly controlled Central Asian nations during this year's summit.

"Serious human rights concerns across the region include suppression of the rights to protest and express opinions, including online, jailing of activists, torture in detention, crackdowns on civil society, violence against women, impunity for abusive security forces, and a lack of free and fair elections," the HRW statement said.

"The German government cannot pretend closer ties with Central Asia are possible without a significant improvement in human rights in the region. The upcoming summit offers a chance to make this clear," it added.

With reporting by dpa and Tengrinews

The Brest regional court in Belarus said on September 17 that five people were handed prison terms a day earlier over taking part in the 2020 mass rallies protesting the official results of a presidential vote that declared authoritarian ruler Alyaksandr Lukashenka the winner. Political prisoner Henadz Vasilyuk, who is serving an 18-month prison term he was handed in February over "likes" on social networks, was sentenced to two years in prison. His wife, Hanna, was sentenced to one year in prison, while three others -- Dzyanis Andrashchuk, Mikalay Pratasevich, and Raman Parfyonau -- were each handed 18-month prison terms. All were found guilty of "organizing actions that blatantly disrupt social order." To read the original story by RFE/RL's Belarus Service, click here.

At least nine people were killed and 2,750 were wounded when pagers exploded simultaneously in Lebanon, the health minister said on September 17 after the Iranian-backed Hizballah militant group said two of its members and a girl were among those killed in the "mysterious" explosions.

Health Minister Firass Abiad said 200 of the injuries were critical, and Iran's ambassador in Beirut was among those injured, Iranian media reported.

Lebanese Information Minister Ziad Makary condemned the detonation of the pagers as an "Israeli aggression," while Hizballah said Israel would receive "its fair punishment" for the blasts.

Mojtaba Amani, Iran's ambassador in Beirut, was injured, Iranian media reported. The Fars news agency, which is close to the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, quoted an unidentified informed source as saying that Amani suffered a "superficial injury" as a result of a pager explosion.

The news channel of the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Mehr news agency also reported that Amani was injured.

The pagers that exploded were the latest models of the devices that Hizballah imported into the country in recent month, Reuters reported, citing three unidentified sources.

Reports from Lebanon indicate that "hundreds" of members of the Lebanese Hizballah group, including fighters and aid workers, were injured in the explosion of the pagers in southern Lebanon and its suburbs.

The Lebanese Foreign Ministry called it an "Israeli cyberattack," adding that some of the pagers that exploded were in Syria. The ministry also said in a statement that it was preparing to submit a complaint to the UN Security Council.

"This dangerous and deliberate Israeli escalation is accompanied by Israeli threats to expand the scope of the war against Lebanon on a large scale, and by the intransigence of Israeli's positions calling for more bloodshed, destruction, and devastation," it said.

Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert, the UN special coordinator for Lebanon, said in a statement that she deplored the attack, warning that it "marked an extremely concerning escalation."

Without commenting directly on the explosions, an Israeli military spokesman said the chief of staff, Major General Herzi Halevi, had met with senior officers to assess the situation. No policy change was announced but "vigilance must continue to be maintained," he said, according to Reuters.

The United States was not aware in advance and had no involvement in the explosions, State Department spokesman Matthew Miller told reporters.

The blasts came after weeks of private diplomacy by the United States to discourage Iran from retaliating against Israel for the killing of Ismail Haniyeh, the Hamas political chief, in Tehran.

Amos Yadlin, the former head of Israeli military intelligence, told RFE/RL that whoever carried out the pager-explosion operation intended to send a "clear message" to Hizballah.

Yadlin said it could be a response to a plot to assassinate a senior Israeli security official that the Israeli security apparatus announced. He also noted that Hizballah continues its attacks on Israel as it tries to link itself to the Gaza conflict, and Hizballah leader Hassan Nasrallah does not want to stop these attacks.

The Israeli government decided on September 16 to add the safe return of its citizens to the north as a goal in the war. This was part of an Israeli cabinet announcement that was expanding its war objectives and the focus of its almost yearlong campaign against the extremist group Hamas, which has been designated a terrorist organization by the United States and European Union, in Gaza to confront Hizballah on its northern border with Lebanon.

Nasrallah must understand that his actions will lead to a shift in Israeli policy, Yadlin told RFE/RL.

"However, whether this policy shift will result in a full-scale war or a limited military operation will become clear in the coming days. In any case, we are now in a new phase," he said

The events coincide with the return of U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken to the region to try to revive cease-fire talks on the Israeli-Hamas war.

While the focus of the war has been on Gaza, exchanges of fire between Israeli forces and Hizballah, Hamas's ally in Lebanon, have killed hundreds of people, mostly militants in Lebanon and dozens of civilians and soldiers in Israel, and caused tens of thousands of people on both sides of the border to flee.

Israel's announcement on expanding its objectives came a day after Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said that "military action" was the only way left for Israel's northern communities to return to their homes.

U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin discussed Middle East tensions with Gallant on September 17, the Pentagon announced.

"Secretary Austin spoke by phone today with his Israeli counterpart to touch base regarding ongoing tensions in the Middle East and the threats facing Israel," Pentagon spokesman Major General Pat Ryder told journalists.

Ryder declined to say whether the explosions were discussed.

With reporting by Reuters, AFP, and AP

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on September 17 announced the new five-year makeup of the EU's executive arm, saying its "core priorities...are built around prosperity, security, democracy" against a backdrop of competitiveness.

She recently said the so-called "college" of the commission would reflect an emphasis on collective security through the introduction of a "full-fledged defense commissioner" as the bloc grapples with fallout from the ongoing war in Ukraine and other perceived threats.

To that end, she chose conservative former two-term Lithuanian Prime Minister Andrius Kubilius as commissioner for defense and space.

But the inclusion of one of Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni's allies from the hard-right Brothers of Italy party among the expanded list of six vice presidents for von der Leyen's second term also signaled an effort to more broadly distribute influence and respond to accusations that the 65-year-old German had consolidated too much power in her first five years.

She said the Meloni ally, Raffaele Fitto, would be executive vice president for cohesion and reforms, adding, "We will draw on his extensive experience to help modernize and strengthen our cohesion, investment, and growth policies."

In the announcement of her picks, von der Leyen also touted the inclusion of 11 women, saying, "that is 40 percent" of the commission, after she had pushed the other 26 EU members who each nominate a potential commissioner to increase gender balance among the nominees.

One returnee, the controversial commissioner for enlargement from Hungary, Oliver Varhely, was handed the health and animal-welfare post.

Irishman Michael McGrath was placed in charge of democracy, justice, and the rule of law, a portfolio that could put him at the fore of efforts to rein in disputes over perceived democratic backsliding among member states like Hungary.

Magnus Brunner, who has been Austria's finance minister, was given the thorny task of leading the internal affairs and migration portfolio amid conspicuous debate over the bloc's borders and immigration policies.

One day before the planned announcement, France's commissioner for the EU's internal market, Thierry Breton, abruptly resigned and asked his country to nominate someone else in an effort to encourage von der Leyen to give "an allegedly more influential portfolio for France."

Von der Leyen placed French Foreign Minister Stephane Sejourne in one of the six vice-presidential seats, in charge of prosperity and industrial strategy.

Von der Leyen is in charge of selecting portfolios among each of the 26 candidates.

Von der Leyen has set out goals for the commission that include rethinking the foundations of security and further boosting Ukraine's defense in the face of Russia's 2 1/2-year-old full-scale invasion.

Some of the other urgent challenges currently facing the bloc are perceived threats to transatlantic relations, divisions over Israel's ongoing war with U.S.- and EU-designated terrorist group Hamas in the Gaza Strip, and tensions over the bloc's agricultural, industrial, and environmental goals, especially in light of the European Green Deal adopted in 2019.

Von der Leyen has also laid out priorities like the stiffening of EU borders and a merit-based approach to long-stalled EU enlargement.

The top European Commission post is one of three key institutional presidencies, along with the leadership of the European Council, that defines the general political direction and priorities of the bloc and the European Parliament.

Moscow resident Yury Kokhovets has been sentenced to five years in prison for condemning Russia's invasion of Ukraine during an interview on the street in July 2022 with a reporter from RFE/RL.

The Moscow City Court handed down the decision on September 17, cancelling a lower court's decision in April to sentence Kokhovets to five years of "forced labor."

Kokhovets was immediately taken into custody after the decision was pronounced.

The punishment defined as forced labor in Russia means that convicts do not serve their terms in prison, but instead can choose to stay home and be sent to work at a nearby industrial facility as designated by the Federal Penitentiary Service.

A certain portion of their salaries are deducted by the state.

The Moscow City Court, however, said it changed the sentence after finding Kokhovets guilty of "distributing false information about the Russian military on the basis of political hatred."

In July 2022, Kokhovets was approached by an RFE/RL journalist who asked him if he thought a detente between Russia and NATO countries was needed.

"Of course we need (de-escalation), but it all depends on our government. It is our government that started it all.... It is Russia who created all these problems," Kokhovets told RFE/RL.

"I don't see any problems with NATO, it is not planning to attack anyone."

Live Briefing: Russia's Invasion Of Ukraine

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He added that Russian forces had killed civilians in the Kyiv suburb of Bucha "for no reason at all." Moscow denies accusations it has committed war crimes in Ukraine.

Kokhovets pleaded partially guilty, denying that his statements during the interview with RFE/RL were hatred-based. He also stated at the trial that he was exercising his constitutional right to freely express his opinion while talking with the RFE/RL journalist.

At the September 17 hearing, Kokhovets also said he did not know that talking to RFE/RL was a violation of the Criminal Code and that he had no idea that the interview he gave to RFE/RL would be published on the Internet.

His lawyer said at the original trial that her client had no hatred toward anyone when he talked to RFE/RL.

According to Yelena Sheremetyeva, the "proof" of her client's guilt was based purely on a forensic linguistic examination of his speech, which according to her, had been held with gross violations, namely that the two people who studied his statements were not state-licensed linguists.

The linguistic forensics study was carried out by math teacher Natalya Kryukova and interpreter Aleksandr Tarasov, who also conducted similar linguistic examinations in the cases of the closure of the Memorial Human Rights Center in 2021 and the imprisonment of Memorial's co-chairman, Oleg Orlov, in February this year.

With reporting by RusNews and Mediazona

A Moscow court on September 17 transferred Vyacheslav Akhmedov, the director of the Defense Ministry's Patriot Park -- a military-themed complex near Moscow -- to house arrest after he was arrested last month on fraud charges. The deputy chief of the Defense Ministry's Department for Innovative Development, Major General Vladimir Shesterov, and former Deputy Defense Minister Pavel Popov were also arrested in the case. Several top military and Defense Ministry officials have been arrested on corruption charges since President Vladimir Putin dismissed Sergei Shoigu as defense minister in May and replaced him with former First Deputy Prime Minister Andrei Belousov. To read the original story by RFE/RL's Russian Service, click here.

Lawmakers in Georgia have approved in a third and final reading restrictive new laws curbing LGBT rights and allowing for bans on cultural events such as Pride marches in a vote boycotted by the opposition, underscoring a dramatically polarized political landscape ahead of national elections in October.

A group of protesters outside the parliament building in downtown Tbilisi on September 17 held signs decrying the draft legislation as ignoring the real problems of Georgian families.

SEE ALSO:

Georgian Dream Plays Geopolitics To Shore Up Support At Home

The package of legal changes, which came under the title On Family Values And Protection Of Minors, amends 18 current laws, including on free speech and expression, as well as broadcasting.

It allows for bans on gatherings that promote the notion of a person identifying as a gender other than "his or her biological sex" or same-sex orientation or relationships.

The initiative was brought forward by the ruling Georgian Dream party and passed by a vote of 84-0 in a chamber that most of the opposition has boycotted since May.

That's when Georgian Dream lawmakers approved a "foreign influence" bill that Georgians and Western governments liken to the decade-old "foreign agent" law used by Russian authorities to clamp down on dissent with broad discretion.

They ended up overriding a presidential veto of the legislation to enact it.

The United States and other Western states expressed concern about the law, which requires organizations that receive more than 20 percent of their funding from abroad to register as "agents of foreign influence."

On September 16, the United States slapped sanctions on more than 60 Georgians, including two members of the government, who it said had "undermined" democracy and human rights in the country.

Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze met on September 17 with U.S. Ambassador Robin Dunnigan and warned that Georgia might revise ties with the United States in response to the new sanctions.

"If one more such step is taken, this might lead to a revision of Georgia's stance on U.S.-Georgian relations," Kobakhidze said in the meeting with Dunnigan, according to a statement by the prime minister's office.

SEE ALSO:

Georgia's Ruling Party Initiates Bill Cracking Down On LGBT Rights

Tens of thousands of Georgians demonstrated against the bill despite a brutal crackdown and violent retaliation. Most protesters referred to the bill as "the Russian law" because of its similarity to decade-old legislation in Russia that has contributed to a fierce clampdown on independent media and public dissent there.

The European Union reacted to the enactment of the bill by pausing EU accession negotiations, while the United States opted to launch a "comprehensive review" of relations with Georgia.

In setting election day for October 26, Georgian President Salome Zurabishvili called the vote a choice between "being Russia's slave or cooperation with Europe."

Opinion polls show that Georgian Dream remains the country's single most popular party ahead of the election.

With reporting by AFP

Human Rights Watch (HRW) has accused Iran's leadership of an ongoing "brutal repression" of women and peaceful dissenters in the two years since the death of 22-year-old Kurdish-Iranian student Mahsa Amini while in police custody over a dress-code violation unleashed nationwide protests.

The international watchdog issued its statement on the September 16 anniversary of Amini's death, the same day recently inaugurated Iranian President Masud Pezeshkian pledged at his first press conference that he would use his authority to ensure the country's feared morality police no longer "bother" women.

But Pezeshkian faces an uphill climb limiting the power and influence of the morality police and other hard-line conservative institutions under the reign of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who wields ultimate religious and political authority in Iran.

"The authorities have failed to answer for the killing of hundreds and the arrest of thousands, and they have systematically continued their suppression of opponents, civil society, and human rights defenders," HRW quoted acting Iran researcher Nahid Naghshbandi as saying.

"A change in government and a new president have so far done nothing to alter the authorities' repressive actions toward dissent."

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'Women, Life, Freedom': Iran's Protest Movement Magnifies Defiance, Camaraderie 2 Years On

Iran is facing major economic difficulties, much of it brought on by Western sanctions, and growing anger among citizens in many cases led by women's groups over human rights violations at home.

Amini's parents were reportedly surrounded at their home in the city of Saghez and prevented from leaving as part of a clampdown on public signs of mourning that also included a roundup of activists or their families.

Imprisoned Iranian Nobel Peace laureate and longtime women's rights activist Narges Mohammadi issued a plea on September 16 urging the international community to act to end the oppression of women in Iran and other theocratic and authoritarian regimes.

Mohammadi hailed the Women, Life, Freedom movement sparked by Amini's death as part of a lasting "commitment to achieving democracy, freedom, and equality and to defeating theocratic despotism."

Speaking at his first press conference since taking office in late July following the death of a hard-line predecessor, relative moderate Pezeshkian said, "Morality police were not supposed to confront [women]. I will follow up so they don't bother them."

A female journalist in the room noted she had been forced to take a different route to the press conference to avoid a morality patrol.

"Imprisoned women in Iran are reviving the 'Women, Life, Freedom' movement through hunger strikes, protest letters, and sit-ins, continuing their activism despite severe sentences," HRW said.

The Sobesednik publishing house in Russia has suspended for up to three months production at all of its outlets, including its popular newspaper, following a decision by authorities to place the company on the list of "foreign agents," Yelena Milchanovska, a Sobesednik correspondent, said on September 17. The Justice Ministry added Sobesednik, which launched its operations in 1984, to its list of "foreign agents" on September 13. The company has said it will appeal the move. In recent years, Sobesednik has been one of the few outlets to criticize the Kremlin and give a platform to opposition figures and activists. To read the original story by RFE/RL's North.Realities, click here.

Noted Russian opposition activist Vitaly Ioffe was killed in the northwestern city of St. Peterburg, a relative told RFE/RL on September 17. Russian media also reported about Ioffe's killing, citing his daughter and other sources. The Mash Telegram channel, which is close to the Kremlin, reported that a 20-year-old St. Petersburg resident was detained after he turned himself in to police in the nearby city of Vyborg and confessed to the killing. Officials have not commented on a possible motive. Ioffe was known for his criticism of the Russian government. He openly condemned Russia's ongoing invasion of Ukraine launched in February 2022. To read the original story by RFE/RL's North.Realities, click here.

Russia's Investigative Committee said on September 17 that nine people were arrested in the Siberian region of Krasnoyarsk after the deaths of three people who died while receiving IV treatments. Those arrested were charged with providing illegal medical services at home for fees. According to the officials, the suspects illegally used strong and psychotropic substances through IV drips to people suffering from alcoholism or drug addiction without proper diagnoses. A search of the suspects' homes allegedly uncovered a large amount of illegal medical substances. To use the original story by RFE/RL's Siberia.Realities, click here.

Unknown attackers on September 16 threw a Molotov cocktail at the house of Dmitry Tyulenev, the father of popular Russian blogger in exile Danya Milokhin, who has openly condemned Moscow's invasion of Ukraine. Tyulenev says the fire damaged construction materials piled up near the house, adding the attackers left a written message, saying: "Danya Milokhin should go to the special military operation (the Kremlin's name for the war in Ukraine), and his family to hell." Police are investigating the attack. Milokhin has more than 18 million subscribers on TikTok. He left Russia for the United Arab Emirates in the autumn of 2022. To read the original story by RFE/RL's Russian Service, click here.

Investigators in the United States have arrested a 44-year-old Russian national in Sarasota, Florida, on an indictment charging him with conspiring to violate the Export Control Reform Act, to commit smuggling, to commit money laundering, and to defraud the United States, the Justice Department said on September 16. Denis Postovoi is suspected of illegally exporting from the United States to Russia microelectronic components with military applications via other countries starting in February 2022, right after Moscow launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The United States and other Western nations imposed sanctions on Russia over the invasion of its neighbor. To read the original story by RFE/RL's Russian Service, click here.

The Sumy region in northeastern Ukraine battled extensive power outages on September 17 after an overnight attack by Russian drones that sent emergency crews and Ukrainian officials scrambling to repair damage and tap into backup facilities for water and other utility infrastructure.

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The Sumy regional military administration said households in Sumy, Konotop, Ohktyr, and a handful of other communities were cut off from the electrical grid.

Acting Mayor Artem Kobzar said there were no casualties from the attack but that water pressure plummeted and electricity supplies were experiencing problems.

The Ukrainian Energy Ministry said Russia's attacks had caused a fire at a power substation and cut power to more than 281,000 consumers. Power was later partially restored, it said

Two weeks ago, authorities in Sumy expanded a list of areas for evacuation amid intensified Russian bombardment by drones and missiles.

A spokesman for a northern Ukrainian military unit, Vadym Mysnyk, told RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service that Russia's stepped-up shelling of energy facilities in Sumy appeared to be retaliation for the Ukrainian incursion into Russia's nearby Kursk region.

"It's just a matter of time before they dump it all on us," Mysnyk said. "Either here or in another city. But they'll hit Ukraine using everything they have -- the entire arsenal."

Ukraine's military said early on September 17 that it had downed 34 drones overnight but that 51 had been detected.

Kyiv claims to have gained control of more than 1,200 square kilometers of Russian territory since launching its surprise incursion into Russia's southern Kursk region in early August in an effort to gain leverage as Russia's full-scale invasion nears its 32nd month.

The General Staff of Ukraine's military said more than half of the 88 clashes that took place on the front on September 17 took place in the areas around Kurakhiv and Pokrovsk.

Fighting also continued in several other areas, including Lyman, Kupyansk, Kharkiv, Toretsk, Kramatorsk, Orihiv, and the Dnieper, the General Staff said.

A rescuer was killed in Russian shelling of a village in the Pokrovsk area, the State Emergency Service reported. The service also said that Russian forces hit Kharkiv with glide bombs, injuring four rescuers who were extinguishing a fire in a forest when they were hit. Three are in serious condition, the service said.

Russian forces captured the town of Ukrayinsk in the eastern Donetsk region, Russia's state-run RIA Novosti news agency and a pro-Russian war blogger reported. Russian troops raised their flag on a mine-ventilation shaft on the outskirts of the town, RIA Novosti said, citing an unidentified source in the Russian military.

Blogger Yury Podolyaka said Russian forces had taken the city "almost intact," allowing them to use it as a base for further offensive operations.

There was no immediate comment from the Russian or Ukrainian militaries.

The Ukrainian Navy said it destroyed several supply depots of the Russian armed forces around the port city of Mariupol. They were attacked with missiles and destroyed. Tons of ammunition was blown up in the process, the Ukrainian naval command said.

On September 16, Ukraine invited the United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) to visit the territory it has captured in the subsequent six weeks to confirm its adherence to humanitarian law.

The Kremlin called the invites a "provocation" and said it expected the UN and Red Cross to decline them.

Meanwhile, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov was reportedly planning to meet with senior ICRC officials in Moscow on September 17, less than a week after three Red Cross staff members were killed when artillery struck a planned aid distribution site in Donetsk.

Kyiv blamed Russian shelling for the deaths.

With reporting by Reuters and dpa

Russia's Supreme Court rejected an appeal filed by self-exiled television journalist Tatyana Lazareva against her status of a "foreign agent," her lawyer Leonid Solovyov said on September 17. In July, a Moscow court issued an arrest warrant for Lazareva, who was designated a "foreign agent" in July 2022 on a charge of justifying terrorism. The charge stems from a report Lazareva made about Ukrainian drones attacking sites inside Russia. In June, Russian authorities added Lazareva to the country's wanted list and the registry of "terrorists and extremists." Lazareva fled Russia after Moscow launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. To read the original story by RFE/RL's Russian Service, click here.

Facebook owner Meta said on September 16 that it was banning RT, Rossiya Segodnya, and other Russian state media networks from its platforms, claiming the outlets had used deceptive tactics to carry out covert influence operations online. The ban marks a sharp escalation in actions by the world's biggest social media company against Russian state media, after it spent years taking more limited steps such as blocking the outlets from running ads and reducing the reach of their posts. "After careful consideration, we expanded our ongoing enforcement against Russian state media outlets. Rossiya Segodnya, RT, and other related entities are now banned from our apps globally for foreign interference activity," the social media company said in a statement. Enforcement of the ban would roll out over the coming days, it said.

Iranian authorities have released Austrian citizen Christian Weber, detained for crimes allegedly committed in Iran's West Azerbaijan Province, to Austria's ambassador in Tehran, the Iranian judiciary's Mizan news agency reported on September 17. Austria had said in 2022 that one of its citizens was arrested in Iran for charges not related to the protests that broke out in the country after the death in custody of Mahsa Amini, a Kurdish Iranian woman. The news agency said the Austrian citizen was freed in consideration of Islamic mercy. He was handed over to his country's ambassador to arrange his exit, the agency said. Mizan did not specify the crime for which Weber was jailed. Calls to the Austrian Embassy before regular office hours went unanswered.

Afghanistan's Taliban-run Health Ministry on September 17 rejected reports saying the hard-line group has suspended or delayed a major polio vaccination drive.

Ministry spokesman Sharafat Zaman called such reports false and said there was no official directive to postpone or stop the anti-polio plans.

Instead, he said, Taliban health officials are trying to implement the vaccination campaign in a legitimate and technical way that benefits society.

A day earlier, AP quoted a top official from the World Health Organization (WHO) as saying it was aware of discussions to move away from house-to-house vaccinations and instead administer immunizations site-to-site in places like mosques.

Local and international observers have repeatedly warned of humanitarian challenges since the Taliban took control of the country as the U.S.-led international coalition withdrew in mid-2021, heightened by a lack of recognition of the group's government in Kabul.

The WHO has confirmed 18 polio cases in Afghanistan this year, up from six cases in 2023, and had announced a sweeping anti-polio drive for September.

A nationwide house-to-house anti-polio campaign in June was the first in at least five years, and WHO authorities said the scheme allowed its vaccinators to reach most of the children it was targeting.

Kamal Shah, a former communications officer at UNICEF, the UN agency responsible for humanitarian and other aid to children worldwide, has urged officials to better integrate the Taliban into polio vaccination efforts.

Afghanistan and neighboring Pakistan are the only countries in the world where polio is still endemic.

The WHO has warned that high cross-border traffic between those two countries heightens the risk of polio spreading.