On August 15, the Taliban entered the outskirts of the Afghan capital, the only major city left in government hands, and vowed not to take it by force, as talks with senior officials were said to be under way on a peaceful transfer of power.
Here are some of the most compelling photographs from the 32nd week of 2021 from around RFE/RL's region.
The Taliban has captured dozens of districts from Afghan government forces since the start of the international military withdrawal on May 1.
As the Taliban takes one province after another while closing in on Kabul, prices for the all-concealing burqas are skyrocketing as Afghan women don't want to be targeted by the hard-line Islamist militants.
RFE/RL archival photos of the construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961. All of the photographs in this slide show were culled from the RFE/RL archives at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University.
Tens-of-thousands of people have been flooding into the Afghan capital, Kabul, and gathering at the Pakistan border to escape the escalating fighting between Taliban militants and government forces.
Russia completed joint military exercises with troops from Uzbekistan and host Tajikistan on August 10 as the Taliban gained control of much of northern Afghanistan, which borders both of those Moscow allies.
Maksim, a young man who was photographed arm in arm with a riot policeman when Belarus's political future seemed to hang in the balance on August 9, 2020, speaks about his experience that night and why he believes sanctions won't change anything.
Photojournalist Anatoliy Stepanov talks about his experience covering the conflict in eastern Ukraine.
Reservists from the Ukrainian Territorial Defence Forces trained on the streets of Kyiv on August 9 to practice defending the capital and key government buildings.
Heavy fighting damaged dozens of buildings and forced civilians to flee after Taliban militants overran six Afghan provincial capitals, including the strategic northern provincial capital of Kunduz.
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