Russian authorities plan to amend the Criminal Code by adding punishment for "Russophobia," defined as discrimination against Russian citizens and residents of the Russian Federation by foreigners and foreign officials abroad or calls for such actions.

The Interfax news agency reported on September 23 that it obtained a government document approving a draft law outlined by a group of lawmakers under which the trials of individuals charged with Russophobia can be held in absentia.

The Cabinet approved the draft but said the punishment for persons convicted of Russophobia should be revised.

The draft law says the punishment for Russophobia must be the "barring of convicted individuals from occupying certain posts and conducting certain activities in Russia."

However, the government said such a punishment does not make sense since it would affect individuals residing outside Russia.

The new article in the Criminal Code envisioning punishment for Russophobia will target only cases of Russophobia abroad. The document does not specify what is considered discrimination of Russian citizens and residents of the Russian Federation.

In recent years, especially after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Russian authorities have accused Western officials of what they called Russophobia.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has publicly cited what he has called "cancellation of the Russian culture" in the West.

Some Russian authorities, including the Foreign Ministry, have called Western sanctions imposed on Russian officials and entities over Moscow's full-scale aggression against Ukraine an "expression of Russophobia."

The term Russophobia was first introduced by Russian poet and diplomat Fyodor Tyutchev in the 19th century to describe pro-Western Russian liberals.

Timothy Snyder, Professor of History at Yale University, during his presentation at the UN Security Council in March 2023 described the term Russophobia as a tool used by modern Russia to justify its armed forces’ alleged war crimes in Ukraine.

Telegram will disclose users' phones and IP addresses to authorities at their requests, the messenger app's founder and CEO, Pavel Durov, said on September 23.

"To further deter criminals from abusing Telegram Search, we have updated our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy, ensuring they are consistent across the world. We’ve made it clear that the IP addresses and phone numbers of those who violate our rules can be disclosed to relevant authorities in response to valid legal requests," Durov wrote on Telegram.

"Over the last few weeks, a dedicated team of moderators, leveraging AI, has made Telegram Search much safer. All the problematic content we identified in Search is no longer accessible," Durov wrote.

Durov, a native of Russia, was detained in Paris last month and later released on a $5.5 million bail for alleged "complicity in the administration of an online platform to allow an illicit transaction, in an organized gang."

SEE ALSO:

Explainer: The Dark Side Of Telegram

French prosecutors accuse the 39-year-old Durov of complicity in allowing drug trafficking and the sharing of sexual images of children on Telegram, and of refusing to share documents demanded by authorities investigating illegal activity on the app.

After his release on bail, Durov -- who has citizenship in France as well as Russia, the United Arab Emirates, and the Caribbean archipelago of St. Kitts and Nevis -- said in early September that his arrest was "misguided."

He acknowledged then that Telegram was "not perfect" and that "growing pains" had "made it easier for criminals to abuse the platform," but Durov said the app was driven by the "intention to bring good and defend the basic rights of people, particularly where these rights are violated."

Last week, the National Coordination Center for Cybersecurity of Ukraine, the country that has been fighting Russia's invasion since February 2022, banned the use of the Telegram for state officials, military personnel, and employees of key infrastructure, citing security issues.

At least two of around 20 wives and mothers of mobilized Russian soldiers fighting in Ukraine have been charged with holding an unsanctioned public event after their weekend rally in front of the Defense Ministry in Moscow to demand their men be returned home.

The women were summoned to a police station and questioned after unfurling banners with their demands.

Two of them, Anna Bogatchenko and Anastasia Slavik, were charged, reported OVD-Info, which monitors rights abuses in Russia.

The protest in the Russian capital on September 21 coincided with the date two years ago when President Vladimir Putin signed a decree calling up men to what Russian officials call the "special military operation" in Ukraine.

The women demanded a meeting with Defense Minister Andrei Belousov and the demobilization of their loved ones.

After the women said they would camp out in front of the ministry building overnight, police forcibly dispersed them, briefly detaining some of them.

In October 2022, Putin announced the partial mobilization was over, but never signed a corresponding decree, publicly saying that there was no need for that.

He later announced that the mobilized men would remain in the armed forces until the end of the conflict.

The absence of a decree ending the partial mobilization allows the authorities to keep the men deployed in Ukraine as the legal regime continues to be in force.

After Putin announced the mobilization two years ago, hundreds of thousands of Russian citizens left the country, mostly for Kazakhstan, Georgia, Mongolia, and Turkey, to evade being called up.

The invasion of Ukraine has been a disaster for Russia, taking the lives of tens of thousands of soldiers, dragging down the county's economy, and ruining relations with the West.

Putin has outlawed criticism of the war and the armed forces to crush any opposition.

With reporting by OVD-Info

Grammy Award winner Shervin Hajipour, who was facing a prison sentence for creating the viral song Baraye, said on September 23 that his case had been closed and he'd been granted amnesty. In a social media post announcing the news, Hajipour expressed hope that his generation would be able to "live the life it deserves." An Iranian court in March sentenced the 27-year-old to three years and eight months in prison for "inciting unrest against national security" and "spreading propaganda against the regime." He was also ordered to write a song about U.S. "atrocities." The song Baraye became the anthem of the "Women, Life, Freedom" protests in Iran that followed the September 2022 death of Mahsa Amini while in police custody for allegedly improperly wearing a head scarf. To read the original story by RFE/RL's Radio Farda, click here.

The Supreme Court in Ukraine's Russian-occupied Crimea region said on September 23 that it sentenced a Ukrainian citizen identified as M. Seleznov to 14 years in prison for espionage. The Mediazona website identified the man as Mykhaylo Seleznov, whose trial was initially held in Russia's Sverdlovsk region in March and later transferred to Crimea. Seleznov was found guilty of collecting data about Russian military equipment in the partially occupied region of Zaporizhzhya for Ukrainian intelligence. It is not known how Seleznov pleaded. To read the original story by Current Time, click here.

The International Chess Federation (FIDE) has upheld a ban on Russian and Belarusian players imposed over Moscow's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, prompting an angry response from the Kremlin chiding FIDE for bowing to Western pressure.

At FIDE's general assembly in Budapest on September 22, delegates upheld the ban but backed a compromise that would consider allowing some competitors from Russia and Belarus to return to international events.

That came after delegates rejected a motion by Kyrgyzstan to fully reinstate the two countries, a move not only opposed by Kyiv, but the U.S. State Department and many players, including five-time world champion Magnus Carlsen.

Belarus has also been barred from many international sporting events for supporting the Kremlin by allowing Russian forces to use its territory to enter Ukraine.

In reaction to the decision, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on September 23 claimed FIDE had caved to Western and Ukrainian pressure.

"Unfortunately, FIDE is not free as well from the politicization of sport and the world of chess in particular," he said.

Forty-one delegates voted not to readmit Russian and Belarusian players, while 21 countries favored lifting the ban entirely and 27 abstained or were absent.

In the end, delegates from 66 countries supported a last-minute proposal by the FIDE Council to consult the International Olympic Committee (IOC) about letting some players and teams from Russia and Belarus, including those with disabilities or youth under 12 years of age, to return to international competition.

The FIDE Council is an oversight body chaired by FIDE President and former Russian Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich, who has sought to avoid criticism in both Russia and the West.

In line with the IOC's stance on the two countries, Russian and Belarusian players including 2021 and 2023 world championship runner-up Ian Nepomniachtchi are allowed to participate in international events under a neutral flag.

With reporting by Reuters

DUSHANBE -- Tajik officials have backed off comments that the energy situation in the country is improving, admitting that electricity rationing is being introduced a month earlier than usual this year.

Electricity rationing has turned into an annual routine in the tightly controlled former Soviet republic over the past three decades. It is usually introduced in late October or early November.

But the Barqi Tojik state energy holding announced over the weekend that rationing will be introduced as of September 22 due to "the upcoming longer and more severe winter period."

The company also explained the move by saying a water shortage at hydroelectric power plants and "the rise of the country's population" have exacerbated the situation.

Earlier in June, Energy Minister Daler Juma warned people to start thinking early about coal supplies to get ready for winter.

Immediately after the announcement by Barqi Tojik on September 21, some residents of Dushanbe, the capital, and several other towns and cities complained online about blackouts and criticized the government for failing to keep its decades-long promise to solve electricity shortages during the autumn and winter.

In August, Barqi Tojik said annual electricity rationing, which usually lasts for six to seven months from autumn to spring, will be scrapped only after the construction of the Roghun hydroelectric plant is completed.

The construction at Roghun was launched in October 2016, less than two months after the death of Islam Karimov, the first president of neighboring Uzbekistan, who had vehemently opposed the construction of the station for years, saying the dam would reduce water flows to his country's cotton fields.

In November 2018, Tajik President Emomali Rahmon officially unveiled the first of the plant's six planned turbines, announcing that "very soon we all will forget about energy rationing."

Tajik authorities said at the time that the $3.9 billion project on the Vakhsh River would not only make the country self-sufficient in electricity, but would allow the export of some of its output to neighboring Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Uzbekistan.

Tajiks have complained that despite the energy shortages, the country has been selling energy to Afghanistan and other countries anyway. Officials said earlier that Tajikistan exported 715 million kilowatt-hours for more than $27 million in the first six months of 2024.

Last winter, electricity rationing was introduced for the first time in Dushanbe.

The Pakistani Taliban on September 23 denied involvement in a bombing attack the previous day on a police convoy that was escorting foreign ambassadors in the country's restive northwest.

One officer was killed and four wounded in the roadside bombing attack on September 22, when a police vehicle was escorting about a dozen foreign diplomats to a business meeting in the Swat district.

The convoy included diplomats from Russia, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Vietnam, Ethiopia, Rwanda, Zimbabwe, Indonesia, and Portugal.

The diplomats were on their way back from an event organized by local businessmen to promote tourism in the Swat district. Once a Taliban stronghold, Swat has experienced a rise in attacks tied to Islamic militarism.

The attack drew strong condemnation from Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, and other officials.

No one claimed responsibility for the attack, but Mohammad Khurasani, a spokesman for the Pakistani Taliban, known as Tehrik-e Taliban, denied detonating the improvised explosive device that hit a police vehicle accompanying the convoy.

The attack on September 22 came months after a suicide bomber in northwestern Pakistan rammed his explosive-laden car into a vehicle, killing five Chinese nationals and their Pakistani driver in Shangla, a district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province.

The Chinese victims were construction workers and engineers who were working on Dasu Dam, the biggest hydropower project in Pakistan. Since then, Pakistan has beefed up security for foreigners and envoys traveling in the region.

Pakistani counterterrorist forces maintain a strong presence in the Swat Valley, which has long been a hotbed of Islamist militant insurgency. The militants have stepped up their attacks since late 2022 after breaking a cease-fire with the government.

In 2012, Islamist militants shot and wounded Nobel Peace Prize laureate Malala Yousafzai in the valley.

With reporting by AP and Reuters

Russia launched late-night air strikes on the Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhya, damaging several high-rise apartment blocks and leaving at least 16 civilians wounded, including a 15-year-old boy, Ukrainian officials said on September 23.

The Ukrainian Interior Ministry said rescuers had evacuated residents from several damaged buildings.

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.

News of the Russian strike on Zaporizhzhya comes a day after Ukrainian officials reported a similar Russian attack on residential high-rise apartments the city of Kharkiv in which 21 people were wounded.

Russia denies targeting civilians, but thousands of Ukrainians have died in such strikes since President Vladimir Putin launched the unprovoked, full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

The latest strike also comes with President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in the United States to attend this week's UN General Assembly and to meet with world leaders, including President Joe Biden.

The Ukrainian Interior Ministry said preliminary information indicated that Russia had used KAB guided glide bombs in the attack on Zaporizhzhya.

KAB bombs are a retrofitted Soviet weapon that the Russia military has used in eastern Ukraine. Ukrainian officials had said it had been used in the most recent attack in Kharkiv as well.

Zaporizhzhya Governor Ivan Fedorov said several residential buildings had been damaged by the blast wave and debris, sparking a fire.

He sent tents had been set up to help residents of the damaged buildings.

Fedorov said that in total, Russia conducted 363 air and ground strikes in the past day on 12 settlements in the broader Zaporizhzhya region.

Russia also launched two guided missiles and four attack drones targeting Ukraine overnight, the Ukrainian Air Force said on September 23.

Three of the drones were shot down over the northeastern Sumy region, it said.

The two missiles and one drone "did not reach their targets due to the active antiaircraft missile defense of the Defense Forces of Ukraine," the air force said.

Meanwhile, the Russian Foreign Ministry was quoted by Reuters as saying on September 23 that at least 31 civilians had been killed and 256 wounded in the Ukrainian incursion into Russia's Kursk region as of September 5.

In the United States, Zelenskiy visited a Pennsylvania arms plant producing munitions critical for his country's war effort on September 22.

The Scranton plant is one of the few facilities in the United States that manufactures 155-mm artillery shells. Ukraine has consumed millions of rounds of the shells since the war began in February 2022.

The Ukrainian president is hoping to receive permission to fire U.S. long-range missiles deep into Russia to strike critical assets like airfields and arms depots critical for Moscow's war effort. Zelenskiy will also outline his plan for victory on the battlefield.

"This fall will determine the future of this war," he said in a post on X alongside his nightly video address.

In his video address, Zelenskiy said Ukraine was doing everything it could, by acquiring weapons and through diplomacy, "to consolidate our partners' support and force Russia into peace."

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy visited a Pennsylvania arms plant producing munitions critical for his country's war effort ahead of meetings this week with President Joe Biden and other world leaders. The Scranton plant is one of the few facilities in the United States that manufactures 155-mm artillery shells. Ukraine has consumed millions of rounds of the shells since the war began in February 2022. The Ukrainian president is hoping to receive permission to fire U.S. long-range missiles deep into Russia to strike critical assets like airfields and arms depots critical for Moscow's war effort. Zelenskiy will also outline his plan for victory on the battlefield.

New satellite images show a large crater at a Russian cosmodrome that experts say may be the result of a failed test of an intercontinental ballistic missile.

Four firetrucks are also visible in the September 21 images of the Plesetsk Cosmodrome, located in the Arkhangelsk region in Russia’s north, that RFE/RL obtained from Planet Labs.

An open source intelligence analyst who goes by @MeNMyRC1 and who studied the images said the hole may have been caused by the explosion of the intercontinental ballistic missile RS-28 Sarmat. Other analysts agreed with that assessment.

If true, it would be the fourth time a Sarmat launch has failed.

Russia claimed in April 2022 to have successfully launched the missile.

The Sarmat, which began development in the 2000s, is a liquid-fueled missile designed to travel up to 18,000 kilometers. At 35 meters in length, it can reportedly carry a 10-ton payload with a wide variety of warheads.

A Russian man convicted of murder and of cooking and eating the heart of one of his victims has returned home from the war in Ukraine, at least temporarily, local media reported.

Dmitry Malyshev was sent home to recover from injuries he received in fighting, Fyodor Kadovba, the head of the village of Rakhinka in the Volgograd region, told local outlet V1.ru.

“I saw him yesterday in the store. Said hello. As he told me, he is currently recuperating and will go back to the [war] zone,” Kadovba said.

Kadovba said it is the second time Malyshev has returned home earlier this year to recuperate. He said Malyshev has a jaw injury and shrapnel in his hand.

Malyshev, the head of an organized crime group, was sentenced in 2015 to 25 years in prison for killing three people, including two local businessmen and a Tajik citizen, whose heart he later ate.

He was among thousands of prisoners who accepted the Russian government's offer to fight in Ukraine in exchange for clemency.

Dozens of prisoners who have returned home from the war have gone on to commit violent crimes, including murder.

Moscow will not participate in a second peace summit planned by Ukraine for later this year, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on September 21. Kyiv organized the first peace summit in June in Switzerland with more than 80 countries backing a communiqué that called for Ukraine’s territorial integrity to be the basis of any peace agreement. Russia was not invited to that summit. Zakharova said any peace agreement should reflect the “situation on the ground and geopolitical reality.” Russia controls about 20 percent of Ukraine’s territory. Ukraine last month invaded Russia, seizing a swath of territory that would strengthen its negotiating position in any eventual peace talks.

A Russian citizen has been detained in Kazakhstan after Moscow put him on an international wanted list after he condemned the invasion of Ukraine.

Yevgeny Nakaznenko, who has been living in Kazakhstan since 2007, was detained in Almaty while trying to board a flight to Istanbul on a business trip.

Nakaznenko runs a foreign-language school in Kazakhstan.

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.

Moscow opened an investigation into Nakaznenko on charges of spreading "false information" about the Russian Army and "encouraging terrorism."

Russian President Vladimir Putin outlawed criticism of the war and the country's armed forces just weeks after he launched the invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022.

Hundreds of Russian citizens have been charged under the law, with many handed lengthy sentences.

In a video on his Instagram account, the businessman -- who is of Ukrainian ethnicity -- condemned the war and voiced his opinion about Russian politics, although it is unclear if that was the post that triggered the arrest warrant.

A pro-Russian Kazakh blogger, Anton Budarov, who saw the video, called on Russian authorities to punish Nakaznenko, according to opposition journalist Yevgenia Baltatarova.

An Almaty court has placed Nakaznenko in pretrial detention until the end of October. He faces possible extradition to Russia.

OVD-Info, a human rights group, said Nakaznenko was unaware of the charges against him and was not trying to flee Kazakhstan.

Russia put Nakaznenko on its list of "terrorists and extremists" on August 8, by which time police had opened their case against him.

Nakaznenko is not the first Russian citizen detained by Kazakhstan at the request of Moscow for anti-war comments.

Tens of thousands of Russians have moved to Kazakhstan to avoid a so-called "partial military mobilization," which Putin announced in September 2022.

The Kazakh government under President Qasym-Zhomart Toqaev has tried to maintain a careful balance between Russia on the one-hand and Ukraine and the West on the other since the start of the war.

While not openly condemning Russia's aggression against Ukraine, Toqaev has publicly stated that his country would not recognize parts of Ukraine's eastern Donetsk and Luhansk regions occupied by Moscow's forces as Russian territory.

About a dozen foreign diplomats are safe after a police vehicle escorting them to a business meeting in the Swat district in northwestern Pakistan hit a land mine on September 22, killing one officer and injuring three others. The convoy included diplomats from Russia, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Bosnia, Vietnam, Ethiopia, Rwanda, Zimbabwe, Indonesia, and Portugal. Police spokesman Moin Fayaz said it was unclear if the convoy was the intended target. The diplomats were on their way back from an event organized by local businessmen to promote tourism in the Swat district. Once a Taliban stronghold, Swat has experienced a rise in attacks tied to Islamic militarism.

At least 51 people are dead and 20 injured after a blast at a coal mine in eastern Iran, Iranian media report.

Iranian state TV said a methane leak caused the blast late on September 21 at the mine in Tabas, some 540 kilometers southeast of the capital, Tehran. Twenty-four miners were believed to be trapped inside.

Around 70 people had been working there at the time of the blast.

Iran's new reformist President Masud Pezeshkian, preparing to travel to New York for the United Nations General Assembly, said he ordered all efforts be made to rescue those trapped and aid their families. He also said an investigation into the incident had begun.

The accident was caused by a methane gas explosion in the B and C blocks of the mine., which is run by the Madanjoo company, state media later reported.

"Seventy-six percent of the country's coal is provided from this region and around eight to 10 big companies are working in the region, including the Madanjoo company," the governor of South Khorasan Province, Ali Akbar Rahimi, told state TV on September 22.

Earlier, state TV broadcast footage of ambulances and helicopters arriving at the scene of the incident to transport the injured to hospitals.

Iran's Red Crescent said search-and-rescue operations were under way in the mine.

"Gas accumulation in the mine" has made the search operations difficult, local prosecutor Ali Nesaei was quoted by IRNA as saying.

"Currently, the priority is to provide aid to the injured and pull people from under the rubble," Nesaei said.

He added that "the negligence and fault of the relevant agents will be dealt with" later.

This is not the first disaster to strike Iran's mining industry.

Last year, an explosion at a coal mine in the northern city of Damghan killed six people, also likely the result of methane, according to local media.

In May 2021, two miners died in a collapse at the same site, local media reported at the time.

A blast in 2017 killed 43 miners in Azad Shahr city in northern Iran, triggering a wave of anger directed at the authorities.

Lax safety standards and inadequate emergency services in mining areas are often blamed for the accidents.

Besides its oil, Iran is also rich in a variety of minerals. Iran annually uses some 3.5 million tons of coal but only extracts about 1.8 million tons from its mines per year. The rest is imported, often used to fuel the country’s steel mills.

With reporting by AFP and AP

A group of wives, mothers, and children of mobilized Russian soldiers deployed in their country’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine protested outside the Defense Ministry in Moscow, with an unspecified number of detentions reported. The protest in the Russian capital on September 21 coincided with the date two years ago when Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree on a partial mobilization. The group reportedly was demanding a meeting with Russian Defense Minister Andrei Belousov, as well as a demobilization. At one point, the protesters, numbering about two dozen, were confronted by a group hurling abuse and trying to disperse them. To read the full story by Current Time, click here.

KHARKIV -- Russian military strikes hit high-rise apartment buildings in the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv, leaving dozens wounded in a second consecutive nighttime attack this week.

The bombs fell late on September 21 on the district of Shevchenkivskiy, north of the city center, Kharkiv Governor Oleh Synyehubov said. Nine residential buildings sustained varying degrees of damage, he added.

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.

Twenty-one people were wounded, including an 8-year-old, according to Synyehubov and Kharkiv Mayor Ihor Terekhov.

Terekhov, writing on the Telegram messaging app, also said that 60 residents had been evacuated from one building that was heavily damaged. An 8-year-old and two 17-year-olds were among the wounded, he added.

The overnight strikes came after another attack on Kharkiv late on September 20 that wounded 15 people, including 10- and 12-year-olds.

According to Ukrainian officials, KAB-type aerial glide bombs were used in the attacks, a retrofitted Soviet weapon that the Russia military has used in eastern Ukraine.

Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city and 30 kilometers from the Russian border, has been targeted frequently by the Russian military since Russian President Vladmir Putin launched his country’s full-scale invasion of its smaller neighbor in February 2022.

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy condemned the latest attacks on Kharkiv and repeated his call for more weapons from Kyiv's Western partners to defend against Russian strikes.

"Ukraine needs full long-range capabilities, and we are working to convince our partners of this," he wrote on social media.

Further south, a Russian drone attack killed two people on September 21 in the city of Nikopol, the regional governor said.

In the eastern town of Kurakhove, one of the focal points of Russia's slow advance through the industrial Donetsk region, one person was killed in a Russian artillery strike, regional prosecutors said, according to Reuters.

And local authorities in the Sumy region said Russian aircraft struck energy infrastructure in the town of Shostka.

Embed share

Kharkiv Residents Wounded, Homes Shattered After Nighttime Russian Bombing

Embed share

The code has been copied to your clipboard.

---

width px height px

---

The URL has been copied to your clipboard

No media source currently available

0:00 0:00:57 0:00

Sumy has been another frequent target of Russian attacks and lies opposite Russia's southern Kursk region, where Ukrainian forces launched an incursion last month.

Elsewhere, the Ukrainian Air Force reported on September 22 that air-defense systems had shot down 71 of 80 Russian attack drones launched overnight.

It said six more drones were neutralized by electronic warfare. The air force also said Russia had launched two guided missiles from occupied parts of Ukraine’s Luhansk region. It did not say what happened to the missiles.

Meanwhile, Russia’s Defense Ministry said air-defense units had destroyed 15 drones that Ukraine launched overnight.

With reporting by Reuters and AP

At least five people, including three children, were killed in a crash involving a military and civilian vehicle in Serbia on September 21, the director of the Kraljevo hospital told Radio Television of Serbia. The Defense Ministry said a PASARS combat vehicle of the Serbian military collided with a civilian vehicle near the town of Usce on the Kraljevo-Raska road. The collision occurred around 1 p.m. as the combat vehicle -- an anti-aircraft, self-propelled artillery and rocket system -- was being escorted by police, the ministry said. To read the original story by RFE/RL’s Balkan Service, click here.

Thousands of supporters of the opposition Pakistan Tehrik-e Insaf (PTI) party rallied in Lahore to demand the release of imprisoned leader and former Prime Minister Imran Khan, but the gathering was cut short after authorities shut off power to the lights and sound system at the site, local media reported.

PTI leaders traveled from Peshawar to Lahore to meet up with other supporters from throughout the country.

Embed share

Supporters Of Pakistan's Ex-Prime Minister Rally For His Release

Embed share

The code has been copied to your clipboard.

---

width px height px

---

The URL has been copied to your clipboard

No media source currently available

0:00 0:00:47 0:00

PTI was given permission to hold the rally from 3 p.m. until 6 p.m., at which time the power was cut at the meeting place.

Government leaders insisted they had given the PTI “free hand and ensured their security” but that only about 3,000 people had shown up, the Dawn newspaper reported.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy is set to kick off his U.S. visit on September 22 with a stop at a Pennsylvania factory producing key munitions for his country's fight against Russia’s invading forces.

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.

Two U.S. officials told AP that Zelenskiy will tour the Scranton Army Ammunition Plant as he begins a crucial journey that will also see him address the UN General Assembly in New York on September 24 and meet separately at the White House with President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris on September 26.

The Ukrainian presidency announced separately that Zelenskiy also will meet former U.S. President Donald Trump, the Republican party's presidential nominee in the November election against Harris.

Zelenskiy is looking to shore up global support for Kyiv's battle against Russia and to gain permission -- particularly from the United States and Britain -- to use Western-suppled weapons deeper inside Russia to help prevent the Kremlin’s forces from launching attacks on Ukrainian civilian and military sites.

He plans to present Biden his “victory plan,” which includes requests for long-range strike capabilities and other weapons and would stand as the basis for any future talks with the Kremlin.

“This will be the start and foundation for talking in any format with Russia -- in any format, with any of its representatives -- because there will be a plan and something to show," Zelenskiy told a briefing on September 20.

Zelenskiy’s first stop will be the city of Scranton -- Biden’s birthplace -- to tour an ammunition plant manufacturing 155 mm artillery shells used in howitzer systems that can strike from up to 32 kilometers away, allowing troops to take out enemy targets from a protected distance.

The United States has so far provided Kyiv with more than 3 million of the shells and has fired up to 8,000 of them a day.

Top Pentagon officials and Democratic Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro are expected to meet Zelenskiy at the plant.

With reporting by AP

Hungarian intelligence services have conducted several interviews with the CEO of BAC Consulting, a Budapest-based company linked to the deadly explosions of pagers used by Hezbollah members this week, the Hungarian government said on September 21. Taiwanese pager firm Gold Apollo said on September 18 that the model of pagers used in the detonations in Lebanon were made by BAC Consulting, adding it had only licensed out its brand to the company and was not involved in the production of the devices. Cristiana Barsony-Arcidiacono, 49, the Italian-Hungarian CEO and owner of BAC Consulting, told NBC News earlier this week that she did not make the pagers and said she was "just the intermediate."

SEE ALSO:

What We've Learned About The Hungarian, Bulgarian, And Norwegian Links To Hezbollah's Pagers

Iran has strongly condemned the targeted killing of a military commander of the Lebanese Hezbollah militia in an Israeli air strike in Beirut. However, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said that Iran, an ally of Hezbollah, is not planning a direct act of revenge. "The incident is a matter for Hezbollah, and it will certainly show an appropriate reaction in due course," the Iranian chief diplomat said, according to a report published by Iran's ISNA news agency on September 21. Iran would push for international condemnation of Israeli "war crimes" to prevent an even more dangerous escalation of the situation in the Middle East, the minister said.

KYIV -- Kyiv’s allies have increased military support for Ukraine this month, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said, after the European Union pledged a new $39 billion loan for the country’s recovery.

"[Aid] accelerated in September...and we can feel the difference," Zelenskiy said late on September 20.

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.

The EU loan -- backed by revenues of frozen Russian assets -- was announced by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who visited Kyiv on September 20.

Ahead of the trip, she said the EU will provide an additional $178 million to help Ukraine repair damaged energy infrastructure, expand renewable energy, and finance shelters.

However, Zelenskiy also pointed to U.S. resistance to allowing Kyiv to use Western-supplied weapons to strike deep inside Russia, saying it is a result of fears by the White House of potential escalations by the Kremlin.

“I think [U.S. President Joe] Biden is really getting information from his entourage today that there may be an escalation. But -- and this is important -- not everyone around him thinks so. And this is already an achievement in that not all of his entourage thinks so,” said Zelenskiy, who is traveling to the United States in the upcoming week to address the UN and meet with Biden and other U.S. leaders.

Experts have warned that the coming winter could be the hardest yet for Ukraine, as the country's energy infrastructure is under significant pressure amid Russian strikes on its power plants, heating plants, and transmission networks.

Russia's Defense Ministry said on September 21 that it again struck Ukrainian energy facilities overnight using high-precision weapons and drones. The claim cannot be independently verified.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiha said Kyiv believes that Moscow is preparing to strike Ukrainian nuclear facilities before the onset of winter and he urged international watchdogs to establish “permanent enhanced missions” at the sites.

“Damage to those facilities creates a high risk of a nuclear incident with global consequences,” he wrote on X.

Late on September 21, Mayor Ihor Terekhov said explosions rang out in Kharkiv -- Ukraine’s second-largest city -- with a guided bomb hitting a high-rise residential building, injuring at least 12 people.

Ukrainian authorities said an earlier Russian attack killed three civilians in central Ukraine, as Ukrainian drone strikes forced Russia to evacuate residents of a border village.

Embed share

Ukrainian Woman Uses Pictures Of Injured Face To Raise War Funds

Embed share

The code has been copied to your clipboard.

---

width px height px

---

The URL has been copied to your clipboard

No media source currently available

0:00 0:01:32 0:00

A 12-year-old boy and two elderly women were killed in the city of Kryvyi Rih in the Dnipropetrovsk region in “a terrifying attack in the middle of the night, when the city slept,” regional Governor Serhiy Lysak wrote on Telegram.

He said three other people were wounded in the attack, which also destroyed two buildings and partially damaged 20 more.

Kryvyi Rih, a major steel-producing city, regularly comes under Russian air strikes.

Earlier, Ukrainian authorities reported that two people were killed and 15 others, including children, were wounded in Russian attacks in the northeastern Kharkiv region late on September 20.

Ukrainian air defenses shot down five Russian missiles and 11 drones on the night of September 21, according to a statement by the Ukrainian Air Force.

Meanwhile, Russia’s Defense Ministry claimed on September 21 that 101 Ukrainian drones were intercepted overnight over various Russian regions.

The drone attacks forced Russian authorities to evacuate at least 1,200 people from the Tikhorets district in southwestern Krasnodar region, the regional governor said on September 21.

Veniamin Kondratyev said on Telegram that falling debris from a downed drone "caused a fire that spread to explosive objects.” Residents were evacuated but no casualties were reported, the governor added.

Kondratyev did not provide further details about the incident, but the Telegram channel Astra reported that falling debris caused a fire and explosion at a weapons depot.

In a statement on September 21, Ukraine’s military said it had struck a depot near the city of Tikhoretsk, labeling it one of Russia’s "three largest ammunition storage bases [and] one of the key ones in the logistics system of Russian troops.”

It also said Kyiv’s forces struck a key weapons arsenal near the settlement of Oktyabrskiy in Russia’s Tver region.

A highway was closed for two hours in the Tver region town of Toropets on the morning of September 21 to ensure the safety of traffic, Russian news agencies reported, citing a branch of the federal roads agency.

Ukraine, which has been defending itself against the full-scale Russian invasion since February 2022, has repeatedly attacked targets on Russian soil, including ammunition and fuel depots, to disrupt supplies for Moscow's troops fighting in Ukraine.

Off the battlefield, Russia Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova on September 21 said the Kremlin will not take part in any follow-up to the June peace summit hosted by Switzerland, calling the process a “fraud” carried out by Ukraine and its Western backers.

More than 90 nations attended the summit in June, although Russia -- which launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 -- was not invited and China declined to attend. Some countries have suggested that Moscow be included in the next gathering.

With reporting by dpa, AFP, and Reuters