The Armenian Nuclear Power Plant (ANPP) was reconnected to the grid on August 31 after being shut down a day earlier following a lightning strike, authorities said. The plant in Metsamor -- about 30 kilometers west of the capital, Yerevan -- was hit late on August 30 by the lightning strike, forcing its disconnection from the national grid. The Soviet-built plant, which features two reactors, generates 35-40 percent of Armenia’s electricity. To read the original story by RFE/RL’s Armenian Service, click here.

Estonia and Latvia commemorated the 30th anniversary of the withdrawal of Russian troops from the two Baltic states with various events on August 31. In the Estonian capital, Tallinn, President Alar Karis, and in the Latvian capital, Riga, his Latvian counterpart Edgars Rinkrvics highlighted the symbolic, political, and legal significance of the events three decades ago. Both heads of state emphasized that without the troop withdrawal, neither genuine independence nor the path to the 2004 accession to the European Union and NATO defense alliance would have been possible. With the troop withdrawal, half a century of Russian military presence in the Baltics came to an end, a year after Russian forces had already withdrawn from Lithuania.

Foreign Minister Mihai Popsoi has expressed confidence that Moldovan authorities and society can ensure smooth and democratic elections despite fears of Russian meddling when voters go to the polls in three months to pick a president and weigh in on EU aspirations.

Senior Moldovan officials have repeatedly accused Moscow of hybrid and other attempts to undermine the pro-Western government in Chisinau -- including through covert operations and influence campaigns -- since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of neighboring Ukraine in early 2022.

Reform-minded President Maia Sandu is running for reelection on October 20 in a vote that will coincide with a referendum asking Moldovans if they want the pursuit of EU membership enshrined in the constitution.

“We are confident…like in previous elections, when we've had challenges, but we've always had democratic elections,” Popsoi told RFE/RL at the Globsec security conference in Prague on August 31, after acknowledging the perceived risk from Russian and pro-Russian elements.

“And democratic standards for elections are sacrosanct in Moldova,” he added.

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The United States, in particular, has warned of alleged Russian plans to use disinformation to interfere in the October voting to derail Moldova’s significant progress on reforms.

Moldova lies between Ukraine and Romania and has been riven for decades by a pro-Russian breakaway leadership in its Transdniester region, where Russia maintains hundreds of troops at a former Soviet weapons depot.

“We are working with our electorate, campaigning, explaining, the risks and the threats that Moldova faces in a democratic environment, in a competitive democratic space, which unfortunately the pro-Russian candidates would not be able to enjoy in Russia,” Popsoi said.

Moldovan authorities initially banned a party founded by fugitive businessman Ihan Shor, a 37-year-old entrepreneur convicted in Moldova of masterminding the theft in 2014 of around $1 billion in banking assets who has since resettled in Russia.

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In Fugitive Oligarch's Long Shadow, Free Trips Recruit Hundreds Of Young Moldovans To Love Russia

But critics have also suggested that pro-Russian parties are trying to unseat Sandu and her allies but also use the threat of unrest to destabilize the vote.

“Of course there might be attempts, but as long as there is a democratic election, our citizens have learned through many iterations to accept the outcomes of elections,” Popsoi said. “You may not like it, but it's a democratic election.”

U.S. officials have said the election will be "historic and pivotal" for the country of around 3 million people.

“We are optimistic that our citizens, by and large the majority, know to make the difference between right and wrong,” Popsoi said. “And those that may be full victims to certain instrumentalizations by the Kremlin will not be large enough to cause any significant troubles.”

PRAGUE -- Kosovo’s President Vjosa Osmani has defended her country’s right to protect its sovereignty in line with its constitution but acknowledged that the success and sustainability of those efforts depend on better cooperation with allies.

Kosovar authorities have increasingly imposed central authority over aspects of daily life in the north of the Balkan country where many Serbs, who are a majority locally, are resisting recognition of Kosovo’s independence, which was declared by its ethnic Albanian majority in 2008.

The moves have drawn blunt criticism from partly recognized Kosovo’s Western partners as being uncoordinated and unilateral and potentially harmful to decadelong international efforts to help normalize Serbian-Kosovar relations.

Speaking to RFE/RL’s Kosovo Service at the Globsec security conference in Prague on August 31, Osmani cautioned against allowing "any dark force, any state that has malicious intentions toward Kosovo and the region, to create division between us and our allies.”

She was responding to criticism from the United States, the European Union, and Britain, Germany, and France over Kosovar security forces’ closure on August 30 of five so-called “parallel” facilities in majority-Serb municipalities.

“The situation in the north of Kosovo is very challenging, because according to the 2013 agreement, which requires all illegal structures to be dismantled, [those illegal structures] have been strengthened by [Serbian President Aleksandar] Vucic in this decade and have turned into mafia groups that challenge security and sovereignty but also the very lives of citizens living in the north of the country.”

Neighboring Serbia -- along with Russia, China, and a few EU member states -- does not recognize Kosovo’s sovereignty and continues to encourage Kosovar Serbs’ reliance on Belgrade for shadow institutions that Pristina calls illegal.

Kosovar Prime Minister Albin Kurti’s government has called the shuttered facilities a violation of the country’s constitution and laws, an accusation that echoes recent crackdowns on the use of Serbian dinars and Serbian postal and bank outlets by the tens of thousands of ethnic Serbs in the area.

U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs James O’Brien this week urged Kurti once again to stop “uncoordinated actions that negatively affect our partnership.”

SEE ALSO:

News Analysis: Kosovo Further Alienates Minority Serbs, Straining Status As 'Reliable Partner'

Washington has been among Pristina’s strongest allies since independence but has signaled increasing frustration with the Kurti government’s actions over the past 18 months, when violence has erupted that has pitted Serbs against Kosovar authorities and sometimes NATO KFOR peacekeepers.

"This separation, in the long term, costs Kosovo a lot,” Osmani told RFE/RL. “Kosovo has the opportunity to be successful in extending its sovereignty, together with its allies. More communication, more consultation, more coordination is required."

Serbian and others’ refusal to recognize Kosovo’s statehood costs Pristina deeply and blocks its integration into international institutions.

But a failure to resolve the impasse through the mediated dialogue between Belgrade and Pristina is also hindering Serbia’s EU accession efforts -- a point Vucic reiterated on August 31 was “a very difficult issue for us.”

Ukraine's Kharkiv and Donetsk regions continued to be hit by deadly strikes from Russia, even as Kyiv’s defense chief traveled to the Pentagon to maintain pressure on Washington to loosen restrictions on the use of U.S.-made long-range weapons and allow strikes deeper into Russia to stop Moscow from “killing our citizens.”

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.

Oleh Synyehubov, the governor of Ukraine’s Kharkiv region, said on August 31 that a Russian guided bomb attack on a residential building killed two people and injured 10 others -- including children -- in the village of Cherkaska Lozova.

"Two women were killed. One was removed from the rubble, the other died in an ambulance," he said.

A day earlier, Synyehubov reported that at least seven people were killed and nearly 100 injured -- including at least 22 children -- when a Russian strike on Kharkiv hit a high-rise residential building and playground.

In the Donetsk region, five people were killed by Russian shelling on August 31 in Chasiv Yar, according to Vadym Filashkin, the head of the Donetsk regional government.

“Chasiv Yar -- is a city in which normal life has been impossible for more than two years. Don't turn yourself into a Russian target! Evacuate!” he wrote on Telegram.

Meanwhile, Russia’s Defense Ministry said on August 31 that its forces had captured the settlement of Verezamske, in eastern Ukraine's Donetsk region, part of incremental gains claimed by Moscow’s forces at a time when Ukrainian troops are operating in Russia's Kursk region following their surprise cross-border attack on August 6.

The reports could not immediately be confirmed.

Ukrainian Defense Minister Rustem Umerov, visiting the Pentagon, told CNN that the U.S. administration is still considering Kyiv’s request to lift restrictions on the use of long-range weapons to hit deeper inside Russia, saying he has presented a list of proposed targets to senior U.S. officials.

“We have explained what kind of capabilities we need to protect our citizens against the Russian terror that Russians are causing us, so I hope we were heard,” Umerov said in the August 30 interview.

Umerov, who met on August 30 with U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, told CNN that “we are showing that the airfields that they are using to hit our cities are within the range of deep strikes.”

“They’re killing our citizens. That’s why we want to deter them, we want to stop them, we don’t want [to] allow their aviation to come closer to our borders to bomb the cities,” he said.

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has pressed the United States and other allies to ease restrictions on Ukraine’s use of long-range Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS), saying the use of such weapons would allow Kyiv to strike sites inside Russia used by the Kremlin to launch attacks against civilian areas in Ukraine.

On August 26, he called on Ukraine's global allies to take "decisive action" after Russia launched a massive drone and missile attack on Kyiv and other cities across the country that damaged vital utilities.

The United States and other allies of Ukraine have placed restrictions on the use of the weapons over concerns that it could escalate the war.

Washington has signaled it has given its approval to Kyiv to strike over the border in response to Russian attacks into Ukraine but has resisted further loosening of restrictions.

“You’ve heard us say that the Ukrainians can use U.S. security assistance to defend themselves from cross-border attacks, in other words counterfire,” Pentagon press secretary Major General Pat Ryder said this week.

“But as it relates to long-range strike, deep strikes into Russia, our policy has not changed,” he added.

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Umerov also said the recent dismissal of Air Force chief Mykola Oleshchuk was “not related” to the crash of an F-16 fighter jet and was more related to a “rotation” of leadership.

“I would probably say that this is a rotation. These are two separate questions...at this stage, I would not link them," Umerov said.

"We are analyzing what happened [in regard to the crash]. We have also opened this case to our partners so that they can also analyze it and investigate it with us," he added.

Zelensky dismissed Oleshchuk from his post as commander of the Air Force on August 30, a move that came after Ukraine lost the first F-16 fighter jet provided by Western partners. The pilot was killed in the crash.

With reporting by Reuters

The United Nations said it will continue to engage with all parties in Afghanistan, including the Taliban, even after the hard-line rulers issued a “distressing” new morality law that severely bans women’s activities in public.

“We have been very vocal on the decision to further make women’s presence almost disappear in Afghanistan,” UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric told a news conference in New York on August 31.

“In terms of the contacts with the de facto authorities...we will continue to engage with all stakeholders in Afghanistan, including the Taliban.”

"We have always done so following our mandate. And I would say impartially and in good faith, always upholding the norms of the UN, pushing the messages of human rights and equality. And we will continue our work as mandated by the Security Council,” he added.

Roza Otunbayeva, the head of the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), said on August 25 that the laws presented a “distressing vision” for Afghanistan’s future.

The laws expand the "already intolerable restrictions” on the rights of women and girls -- with “even the sound of a female voice” in public deemed a violation of morality laws.

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Afghanistan Slides Into 'Ever More Hellish Conditions' After New Morality Law Enacted

The Taliban has attempted to police the public appearances and behavior of millions of Afghans, especially women, since seizing power in 2021.

Enforcement of the extremist group’s rules governing morality, including its strict Islamic dress code and gender segregation in society, was sporadic and uneven across the country.

But on August 21, the hard-line Islamist group formally codified into law its long set of draconian restrictions, triggering fear among Afghans of stricter enforcement.

The Law on the Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice imposes severe restrictions on the appearances, behavior, and movement of women. The law also enforces constraints on men.

Taliban leaders say the laws are based on their interpretation of Shari'a law.

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The Azadi Briefing: Afghan Clerics Are Opposing Taliban Bans On Female Education

Several leading Afghan clerics have come out publicly to oppose the latest restrictions.

Mawlawi Abdul Sami Ghaznavi, said it was the Taliban’s "responsibility to create favorable conditions for women's education."

On August 27, the UN Human Commission on Human Rights demanded that the "repressive law be immediately repealed."

"This is utterly intolerable," it said.

"We call on the de facto authorities to immediately repeal this legislation, which is in clear violation of Afghanistan’s obligations under international human rights law."

With reporting by AP

The White House rejected a Pentagon proposal to send U.S. specialist contractors to Ukraine to help maintain F-16 fighters and other Western military equipment over security concerns, unidentified U.S. officials told The Wall Street Journal. The WSJ said the U.S. intelligence community considered the plan too risky as Russian could "target American contractors in Ukraine." Instead, the report said, U.S. officials hope responsibilities for servicing the F-16s will be taken up by European nations. At the end of July, Ukraine received six of the 80 F-16 fighters it had been promised, but without civilian technicians. On August 26, a U.S.-made F-16 crashed, killing the pilot, Ukraine’s military said. To read the original story by RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service, click here.

PRAGUE -- Montenegrin President Jakov Milatovic predicted on August 31 that his Balkan nation of under a million people will join the European Union within the next five years.

He also told the audience at the Globsec security conference in the Czech capital that he had spoken with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen the previous day and suggested she agrees.

Von der Leyen addressed the same forum in Prague on August 30.

“Now I truly believe, and I think that she also believes, that Montenegro can and will become [an EU] member state during her mandate,” Milatovic said.

Von der Leyen was recently approved for a second five-year stint as president of the EU’s executive arm, which should keep her in the post into the latter half of 2029.

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She has not publicly commented on any discussions this week with Milatovic.

Speaking on a separate panel on August 31, the EU special representative for the Serbia-Kosovo dialogue, Miroslav Lajcak, said Montenegro's goal of accession in 2028 was "realistic."

Montenegro has been an EU candidate country since 2010 and has long been regarded as a front-runner for the first wave of bloc expansion since Croatia joined in 2013.

Momentum waned for years over enlargement despite Balkan enthusiasm as the bloc grappled with its own internal problems, but it has publicly increased since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began early in 2022.

Milatovic, 37, a former finance minister elected president in early 2023, suggested at a panel discussion beside Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic that “size matters” in terms of the bloc’s ability to absorb new members and Montenegro is the smallest of the Western Balkan aspirants.

But, describing himself as an “optimist” and Vucic a “pessimist” on EU enlargement, he also said Montenegro had been using the euro and aligning its foreign and security policies with the European Union for decades and been a NATO member since 2017.

Montenegro is the region’s only EU aspirant to have opened all of its negotiating chapters with the European Union, Milatovic said, although he acknowledged it had closed just three.

But Milatovic added that his country had passed key barometers on rule of law and “there is a hope that by the end of the year we will be able to close a few new chapters.”

PRAGUE -- Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic denied having close links to Russian President Vladimir Putin and repeatedly batted back the notion that his EU candidate country was a “Trojan horse” for Moscow despite its refusal to join European sanctions since Russia invaded Ukraine and other differences with the bloc.

Speaking at the Globsec conference in Prague on August 31, Vucic said he hadn’t met or spoken to Putin in at least the two and a half years since Russian troops rolled across the Ukrainian border in February 2022.

“There are no ‘both sides,’” Vucic said. “We are on the EU path. Yes, we have traditionally very good ties -- and we are not hiding it and I’m not ashamed of that -- with Russia; it has always been the case between Serbs and Russians.”

He said that, while he’d recently had a “great” conversation with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who was also in Prague this week, “Nobody in Europe agrees with me on this issue, but everybody in Europe understands my position.”

He added that he thinks Serbia has implemented its growth and reform agenda “better than anyone else.”

Serbia and Turkey are the only EU candidate countries that have avoided imposing sanctions on Russia.

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Serbian officials, particularly current Vice Prime Minister Aleksandar Vulin, have maintained close ties with Moscow since the invasion of Ukraine.

Alongside his Montenegrin counterpart in Prague, President Jakov Milatovic, Vucic called on his EU partners to show more trust in Serbia's intention to join.

He said the process depends not on Serbia's relations with Russia but primarily on normalizing relations with Kosovo, which declared independence in 2008. Belgrade does not recognize its former province’s sovereignty.

“Yes, we are on [an] EU path, and the biggest problem for Serbia…is our relationship with Pristina,” Vucic said. “It’s not all this stuff on Ukraine, because all these big political decisionmakers, they know everything.”

“It’s all about this, and this is a very difficult issue for us; everybody knows it,” Vucic said.

Kosovo and Serbia have been negotiating normalization since 2011 through the Brussels dialogue, supervised by the EU.

“The goal is to establish mutual trust between Serbia and the EU, not to view Serbia as a Russian ‘Trojan horse,’” Vucic said.

Vucic disagreed with Milatovic regarding the EU perspective. Milatovic took an “optimistic position,” predicting that Montenegro could become an EU member by 2029, while Vucic said Serbian integration would not be possible before 2030.

ALMATY, Kazakhstan -- Members of a Facebook group that opposes expensive recycling fees imposed by the Kazakh government, especially those on cars and other vehicles, have had their accounts on the platform either removed or restricted, the group said, attributing the moves to government pressure.

Activists with the No To Recycling Fees (Nyetutilsboru) group authored a petition earlier this year calling for recycling fees on imported goods to be lowered to nominal rates, forcing a public hearing and a government review of the policy after the petition gained more than 50,000 signatures.

While the group has questioned all recycling fees, it is especially concerned about those imposed on cars and agricultural vehicles. The activists say that the charges have artificially inflated the cost of vehicles sold in Kazakhstan, benefiting only a small group of automakers whose factories they argue are not internationally competitive.

Kazakhstan's government cut recycling fees in half and effectively liquidated the private company set up to collect them in 2022, but they are still high by global standards, often amounting to thousands of dollars per vehicle.

After the July 15 hearing, Kazakhstan's Industry Ministry ruled to keep recycling fees on goods such as cars at their current levels, dismissing the group's arguments as baseless.

No To Recycling Fees activists have said that they would continue their campaign.

But they now complain that multiple administrators of their Facebook group have been forced to restore accounts or create new ones in recent weeks, while Facebook has sent the group repeated warnings over the content of their posts.

Administrator Vladimir Kim said on August 28 that he and four other administrators had lost access to their Facebook accounts over alleged copyright infringements.

"The Facebook office in [Kazakhstan] is simply following the authorities' orders," Kim wrote from a new account that he created this month.

Both Facebook and Instagram are owned by Meta, which did not respond to a request for comment.

A representative of the Culture and Information Ministry contacted by RFE/RL on August 29 denied any role in the removal and restriction of accounts related to the group.

Kazakhstan has a special agreement with Facebook that allows the government to remove content it deems "harmful."

Under the agreement, authorities in Kazakhstan can access Facebook's internal content-reporting system.

The joint agreement between Kazakhstan and Meta Platforms, reached in 2021, came after Astana threatened to block the social media giant's millions of local users. It is the first of its kind in Central Asia.

Iran’s police force has fired the police commander in the city of Lahijan shortly after the death in custody of Mohammad Mirmusavi.

In announcement issued late on August 30, the national police command said the Lahijan commander was dismissed for “lack of sufficient supervision over the performance and behavior of employees.”

Earlier, rights activists published a video of Mirmusavi’s lifeless body and alleged that he had died “due to a severe beating.”

The August 30 police statement said officials were awaiting a final report on the “cause of the death of this citizen.”

A police statement earlier on August 30 said local police in the city in the northern Gilan Province had exhibited a “lack of anger control” in handling Mirmusavi. A police station commander and several officers were reportedly suspended.

Mirmusavi was arrested on August 24 after being involved in a fight. The Norway-based Kurdish rights group Hengaw said on August 28 that Mirmusavi died the day of his arrest, but it was not known whether his body had been handed over to relatives.

The incident occurred shortly before the second anniversary of the death in custody of Mahsa Amini in September 2022. Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish woman, died after being detained by Iran’s so-called morality police for allegedly violating the country’s strict Islamic dress code.

Her death sparked national outrage and a wave of anti-government protests.

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Javad Ruhi, who was involved in the Amini protests, died in custody under unclear circumstances in September 2023. Ruhi’s supporters said he had been told he would “never leave prison alive.”

Following Ruhi’s death, Amnesty International called for those responsible to be “criminally investigated and held to account,” adding that his “death in custody again exposes the Iranian authorities’ assault on the right to life.”

PRAGUE -- Czech Foreign Minister Jan Lipavsky has insisted Ukraine has a right to defend itself, including through attacks on Russian territory amid a debate over Western-imposed limits on the use of weaponry, but he acknowledged that Prague’s allies supplying the most sophisticated weapons face “strategic dilemmas.”

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.

Speaking on the second day of the Globsec security conference in Prague on August 31, the Czech Republic’s top diplomat also acknowledged broadly that there are “a lot of difficulties and a lot of divergences” ensuring that allies are on the same page.

“The Czech Republic has a very simple stance: Ukraine is a victim of aggression, and according to the UN Charter, the aggressor has the right to defend itself,” Lipavsky told RFE/RL. “This defense can logically also take place on the territory of the aggressor. That means the Czech Republic does not set any limits on the systems it provides, or on the weapons or ammunition it supplies, to what military equipment is supplied to Ukraine.”

Czech President Petr Pavel and outgoing EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell each argued publicly on August 30 for abandoning restrictions on how Ukraine can use donated weapons.

With the United States and Germany most notably said to be imposing such curbs, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has repeatedly urged them and others to take "decisive action" and allow Ukraine to strike military targets deeper inside Russia with Western-provided weapons.

Earlier this month, Ukraine launched an incursion into Russian territory with Zelenskiy saying Russia "must feel what it has done."

“On the other hand,” Lipavsky said in Prague, “let's be realistic in that the most sophisticated weapons systems, which may have a long reach, or simply put the supplier into certain strategic dilemmas, do not flow from the Czech Republic. That means we do not [face] the questions that some of our allies have, for example.”

Russian aerial bombardments have devastated Ukraine’s power and other infrastructure and caused large numbers of civilian casualties throughout the country in the two-and-a-half-year full-scale invasion, although Moscow insists it does not target civilians.

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“It's better if the plane with the missile or bomb doesn't even take off, to give an example, than trying to shoot down the plane or the missile that is targeting [Ukraine]. I think that is logical and Russia has no claim it can impose on Ukraine,” Lipavsky said.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said a day earlier that Central Europe was “the beating heart of solidarity” since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022.

But the Czech Republic's neighbors -- and fellow EU and NATO members -- Slovakia and, especially, Hungary have resisted or, in Budapest’s case, refused to supply Kyiv with military aid despite widespread consensus among most members.

Lipavsky said the Czech stance “is absolutely clear and Czechia is committing to support Ukraine militarily, humanitarily, [and] politically as long as it is necessary for Ukraine to win.”

But he acknowledged that maintaining the kind of “solidarity” that von der Leyen referred to is a challenge even among Central Europeans, keeping allies like Hungary and Slovakia on side.

“We have to work on that. It is not easy,” Lipavsky said. “Here is a lot of difficulties and a lot of divergences. But this is the task, to keep them as close as possible.”

A helicopter with 22 people on board has crashed in Russia’s Far Eastern Kamchatka region, Russia’s civil aviation agency reported on August 31. Rescue efforts were reportedly under way, although they were hampered by high winds. The 112 Telegram channel reported that the Mi-8 helicopter was flown by the Vityaz Aero company and likely was carrying a group of 19 tourists, as well as three crew members. Other Russian media reported that Russian Soccer Union Director Arseny Zamyatin and his wife may have been aboard the helicopter. Officials said a criminal investigation on suspected violations of safety regulations had been opened. To read the original story by RFE/RL’s Russian Service, click here.

Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) said on August 30 that authorities in Venezuela had arrested two Colombian citizens believed to have served as mercenaries with the Ukrainian armed forces. The two men were reportedly heading back to Colombia with a stopover in Caracas. Since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Moscow has actively sought to detain foreign mercenaries around the world. Alleged mercenaries have been detained in Cuba, India, Syria, and other countries. To read the original story by RFE/RL’s Russian Service, click here.

PRAGUE -- Poland continues to pressure the Belarusian regime for the release of journalist Andrzej Poczobut and other political prisoners, the speaker of the Polish parliament (Sejm) said on August 30 at the Globsec security conference in Prague.

Poland is doing everything possible at the diplomatic level to send signals to authoritarian Belarusian leader Alyaksandr Lukashenka that he must release political prisoners, Szymon Holownia said.

"If he wants the border crossings to be opened, if he wants to have transit corridors, he needs to cooperate with us on this issue," said Holownia in response to a question from RFE/RL. "We are trying to show that if he does not cooperate, the consequences for him, his regime, and his country will be very challenging."

Poland in 2023 closed all but one of its crossings with Belarus in response to the expulsion of several Polish diplomats from Minsk, as well as the sentencing of Poczobut to eight years in prison on multiple charges that Warsaw says are unjust and politically motivated.

Poczobut, a correspondent for the respected Polish daily Gazeta Wyborcza, was sentenced on charges of encouraging actions aimed at harming the national security of Belarus, trying to rehabilitate Nazism, and inciting ethnic hostility. Human rights defenders have recognized him as a political prisoner.

Poczobut was arrested in March 2021 amid rising tensions between Minsk and Warsaw following the brutal suppression of mass protests against Lukashenka after he claimed a landslide victory in a 2020 presidential election. The Belarusian opposition claimed the election was rigged in favor of Lukashenka, who has been in power since 1994.

Relations between Poland and Belarus worsened further after a migrant crisis on their shared border and after Lukashenka allowed Moscow to use its territory as a launching pad for its unprovoked invasion of Ukraine.

Holownia noted that the migration pressure on the Poland-Belarus border has significantly decreased compared to a few months ago. He attributed this to steps taken by the Polish government. Poland has built a fence equipped with electronic protection and beefed up the number of border guards along its 400-kilometer border with Belarus.

But Holownia admitted that Polish politicians sometimes do not know "which buttons to press to activate processes in Belarus."

"Lukashenka has turned Belarus -- a proud, independent country -- practically into a colony of Russia," he said. "But we sometimes do not know the nature of their relations and the level of mutual hatred, envy, and aggression that exists between [Lukashenka and Russian President Vladimir Putin]."

PRAGUE -- The European Union’s special envoy for efforts to normalize relations between Serbia and its former province Kosovo has warned of the danger of “outbursts of instability” for years to come if those Balkan neighbors can’t overcome their current impasse and unilateral actions continue.

In an extended interview with RFE/RL’s Kosovo Service at the Globsec security conference in Prague on August 30, Miroslav Lajcak said the clear task for both sides is to implement their commitments from last year’s so-called Ohrid Agreement within the decade-old “dialogue” to avoid “hostile or even violent” actions and responses.

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He lamented a lack of momentum on EU enlargement in the past but also repeated Brussels’ stance that a lack of progress on normalization directly hinders Serbia’s and Kosovo’s respective EU membership bids.

“[W]e either have normalization, which will bring stabilization, open the way for regional cooperation, which is struggling right now," Lajcak said, "or we will continue with the actions which are not coordinated, with prompt reaction which is again not coordinated, and could become hostile or even violent, and we might be kept busy for years with this repetition of, I would say, outburst[s] of instability. And this obviously prevents the region from progressing on the European path.”

He suggested Serbian and Kosovar societies “are not ready for normalization” but said the unresolved problem of Serbian-Kosovar relations goes well beyond those two countries and is “very much a regional and European issue.”

Serbia does not acknowledge the independence of its predominantly ethnic Albanian former province since Pristina declared sovereignty in 2008, a move officially recognized by more than 100 countries but not by Russia, China, or a handful of EU member states. A bitter ethnic war punctuated by NATO intervention in 1999 preceded UN interim administration ahead of Kosovo’s independence.

During two leadership stints since 2020, Kosovar Prime Minister Albin Kurti’s government has conducted a mounting campaign of “reciprocal” measures to pressure Belgrade to recognize Kosovo’s statehood and official institutions.

The Serbian and Kosovar sides reached agreement in the resort town of Ohrid on normalization steps in early 2023, but key elements of the deal remain unfulfilled, including Pristina’s pledge dating back to 2013 to establish a legal foundation for an association to represent majority-Serb municipalities in Kosovo.

But two subsequent flareups of violence in northern Kosovo – unrest that injured dozens of NATO KFOR peacekeepers in May 2023 and the killing of a Kosovar police officer by a group of commando-like Serbs at an Orthodox monastery in September 2023 -- alarmed the international community and lent urgency to the dialogue.

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More recently, Pristina has clamped down on the use of Serbian currency at banks and postal outlets, as well as other aspects of daily life for thousands of Serbs who resist Kosovar central authority, prompting the United States and the European Union to urge against “unilateral” and “uncoordinated” steps by either side.

Kurti says Kosovar authorities are establishing rule of law and public order.

Serbian President Aleksandr Vucic has accused Kosovo’s government of trying to terrorize and intimidate the local Serb population.

“If you ask me, the problem is that the two societies are not ready for normalization,” Lajcak told RFE/RL. He said his four-year term “has been probably more dedicated to crisis management than to promoting of normalization.”

In July, the EU Council extended Lajcak’s mandate by five months, to January 2025, at the request of outgoing EU foreign policy head Josep Borrell.

Lajcak downplayed suggestions that Borrell’s successor, former Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas, would do without such an envoy to the delicate Serbia-Kosovo dialogue.

“The job is not done and, therefore, the job must continue,” Lajcak said. “And I believe that there should be an [EU special representative] assisting the high representative until the Ohrid Agreement is implemented.

“But one important element that I will, of course, stress also to my successor and to the new high representative is that this process must be visibly and directly linked to the European integration.”

Serbia was awarded EU candidate status along with other hopefuls in 2012, while Kosovo remains a “potential candidate” with its participation in other multinational organizations, including the UN, blocked by its partial recognition.

Lajcak said the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine had sparked an “awakening” within the European Union of the risks of stalled enlargement since Croatia’s accession in 2013, and he insisted the “dynamic has changed already.”

“Paradoxically, this awakening came as a consequence of [Russian President Vladimir] Putin's aggression against Ukraine when the European Union also decided to invite Ukraine and Moldova to join,” Lajcak said. “So this is a huge new opportunity for the Balkans. The door that has been closed for 10 years is now open.”

The Kremlin on August 30 said it is not concerned about President Vladimir Putin's visit to Mongolia on September 3, despite an arrest warrant that the International Criminal Court (ICC) says Mongolia is obligated to act on.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters during his daily conference call on August 30 that the Kremlin has “no worries” about the upcoming trip, adding that Russia has “a wonderful dialogue with our friends from Mongolia.”

The trip will be Putin’s first to a country that is a member of the ICC since the arrest warrant was issued in March 2023 over suspected war crimes in Ukraine.

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ICC members are bound to detain suspects for whom the court has issued an arrest warrant if they set foot on their soil, but the court has no enforcement mechanism. Mongolia signed the Rome Statute, the court’s founding treaty, in 2000 and ratified it in 2002.

Ukraine's Foreign Ministry said earlier on August 30 that it hoped that the Mongolian government “will realize the fact that Vladimir Putin is a war criminal” and called on the Mongolian authorities to comply with the international arrest warrant and hand Putin over to the ICC.

ICC spokesperson Fadi El Abdallah underscored in a statement quoted by the AP on August 30 that Mongolia “is a State Party to the ICC Rome Statute” and thus has the obligation to cooperate with the court.

The ICC relies on its state parties and other partners to execute its decisions, including arrest warrants, El Abdallah said in the statement.

The ICC accused Putin in March 2023 of personal responsibility for the abductions of children from Ukraine. Maria Lvova-Belova, Moscow’s commissioner for children's rights, is also named in the warrant, which alleges they committed war crimes in connection with the deportation of thousands of Ukrainian children.

Russia is not a member of the ICC and refuses to hand over suspects. Russian officials have dismissed the warrants as “null and void.”

Putin will travel to Mongolia at the invitation of President Ukhnaa Khurelsukh to participate in ceremonies marking the 85th anniversary of the joint victory of the Soviet and Mongolian armies over Japan on the Khalkhin Gol River, a Kremlin statement said.

Putin will also hold talks with Khurelsukh and other top Mongolian officials, the statement said.

With reporting by AP

Ukraine needs "strong decisions" from its partners to stop the terror that Russia is perpetrating in Ukraine, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on August 30 after a Russian air strike on Kharkiv hit a high-rise residential building and playground, killing at least seven people, including a 14-year-old girl.

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Scores of people were injured, Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko said, accusing Russia of targeting "civilian objects, peaceful people, children."

Local authorities said five strikes hit the city in eastern Ukraine. The worst was on the 12-story apartment building, where Regional Governor Oleh Synyehubov said there were many victims whose limbs had to be amputated.

He raised the number of dead from six to seven late on August 30 after a woman's body was retrieved from the charred building.

"As of now, we have information on 59 victims -- among them 9 children aged 5 to 16 years. People continue to go to hospitals," he said on Telegram.

In his evening address, Zelenskiy identified the 14-year-old girl as Sofia and said she would have turned 15 in the fall.

He said the strike was carried out by a Russian guided aerial bomb and said it would not have happened if Ukraine's defense forces had the ability to target military sites on Russian territory.

"This strike was a Russian guided aerial bomb. A blow that would not have happened if our defense forces had the ability to destroy Russian military aircraft where they are based. We need strong solutions from our partners to stop this terror. This is an absolutely fair need. And there is no rational reason to limit Ukraine in defense. We need long-range capabilities," Zelenskiy said on Telegram.

The bombs that struck Kharkiv were fired from the Belgorod region, which lies to the north of Ukraine's Kharkiv region. Vyacheslav Gladkov, governor of the Belgorod region, said late on August 30 that five people were killed and 37 were injured by Ukrainian rockets fired on the city of Belgorod.

"One woman and four men died on the spot from their wounds before the ambulance arrived," Gladkov said on Telegram. There are children among the wounded, and 10 people are in serious condition, he said.

In the village of Dubovoye, 13 cars were damaged, and two houses, another car, and a garage caught fire, he said, adding that firefighters quickly extinguished the flames.

U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, who met with his Ukrainian counterpart, Rustem Umerov, at the Pentagon on August 30, condemned recent Russian attacks on civilian targets.

"Let me be clear: It is never acceptable to target civilians, and Ukraine's resilience will help it prevail over [Russian President Vladimir] Putin's aggression and atrocities," Austin said as he hosted Umerov and Andriy Yermak, Zelenskiy's chief of staff, at the Pentagon.

Austin said the United States plans to advocate for a further expansion of the country's air defense at the Ukraine Contact Group meeting next week at Ramstein Air Base in Germany.

Umerov and Yermak briefed Austin about the situation on the battlefield, according to a statement from the president's office.

"Russia hit Ukraine with more than 400 missiles of various types and drones this week," the statement said. "The Ukrainian side noted that Ukraine needs to strengthen air defense to protect people and critical infrastructure."

Umerov thanked the U.S. and its allies for their support and said he wanted to inform Austin about the situation on the battlefield and the current needs of the Ukrainian military.

Elsewhere on the battlefield, Russian forces are conducting "two key tactical operations" as part of their offensive to capture the strategic city of Pokrovsk in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) said on August 29.

The first is along the Novogrodivka-Hrodivka line east of Pokrovsk with the aim of advancing to the outskirts of the city. The second is along the Selydove-Ukrayinsk-Hirnyk line to the southeast with the aim of "eliminating vulnerabilities to Ukrainian counterattacks."

The operations are seen by the Russian military as key to an "intensified offensive effort against Pokrovsk itself," ISW wrote.

The General Staff of the Ukrainian military said there had been 109 combat clashes during the day, and most of the fighting took place in the Pokrovsk area in the Donetsk region.

There was also fighting in the areas near Kupyansk and Lyman, the General Staff said in its late afternoon assessment on August 30. In total, Russian troops advanced in 11 directions, it said.

Zelenskiy in his evening address on August 30 named Pokrovsk as one of the most challenging areas.

"It is crucial that everyone, at all state levels, who is involved in this, really make their maximum efforts to ensure our resilience and that of our warriors," he said.

With reporting by Reuters

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on August 30 dismissed the commander of the country's air force shortly after the crash of a U.S.-made F-16 fighter jet that had been recently deployed in the country's fight against Russia's full-scale invasion.

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The crash occurred on August 26 and killed pilot Oleksiy Mes, according to the Ukrainian Air Force.

"I have decided to replace the commander of the air forces of the armed forces of Ukraine," Zelenskiy said in a video message, expressing gratitude to all military pilots, engineers, "warriors," and air-defense units.

Zelenskiy published a decree to remove Mykola Oleshchuk from his post earlier on August 30, saying the decision was in line with the goal of strengthening Ukraine's military leadership.

He reiterated the message in his video, saying, "We must strengthen ourselves. And take care of people. Take care of personnel -- take care of all our warriors."

Oleshchuk was appointed commander of the air force on August 9, 2021, replacing Serhiy Drozdov.

The Ukrainian Air Force said Mes died while repelling a massive Russian strike. During the air battle, three cruise missiles and one drone were destroyed, the air force said.

The Wall Street Journal first reported that an F-16 was destroyed in a crash on August 26. An unidentified U.S. official quoted by the newspaper on August 29 said that initial reports indicated that the jet wasn’t shot down by enemy fire and that it likely crashed as a result of pilot error.

The Ukrainian military said an investigation into the crash had already been launched and that international experts would be invited to participate.

Oleshchuk said earlier on August 30 that a “detailed analysis" was being conducted into why the F-16 went down.

“We must carefully understand what happened, what the circumstances are, and whose responsibility it is,” Oleshchuk said on Telegram.

Ukraine received the warplanes at the end of last month and at a ceremony on August 4 marking Air Force of Armed Forces Day, Zelenskiy said the air force had begun to use them.

Russia's Justice Ministry on August 30 added the founder of the Latvia-based Meduza news website, Galina Timchenko, to its list of "foreign agents." The website itself was added to the list in April 2021. In January 2023, the Prosecutor-General's Office added the media outlet to its list of "undesirable organizations." The Justice Ministry on August 30 also labeled as "foreign agents" a co-founder of the Moscow-based Free University, Yelena Lukyanova, and two NGOs: Coalition Novosibirsk 2020, which monitors elections, and the Civic Initiative Against Ecological Crimes, which is involved in environmental protection projects. To read the original story by RFE/RL's Russian Service, click here.

A petition has been launched urging Azerbaijani authorities to immediately release political analyst Bahruz Samadov and other scholars arrested by the South Caucasus nation's authorities in recent months.

As of August 30, the online petition had been signed by almost 150 scholars from Azerbaijan and other nations. Samadov, a doctoral student at Charles University in Prague, was detained last week on a treason charge that he rejects.

"Samadov's doctoral research at Charles University focuses on authoritarianism and political discourses in Azerbaijan. He has been known for his critical and timely analyses of Azerbaijani current affairs, including developments surrounding the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict, which have appeared on various international media outlets," the petition says, adding that Samadov has advocated for peace between Azerbaijan and Armenia.

The petition also says that the tightly controlled former Soviet republic’s government has intensified a crackdown on media, activists, and scholars whose thoughts do not coincide with those of the authorities after Baku won the 44-day war with Armenia over Nagorno-Karabakh in November 2020, and managed to regain control over the region last September.

Since last November, more than a dozen journalists working for independent media outlets -- including Abzas Media, Kanal 13, and Toplum TV -- have been arrested on charges that they, their employers, and rights groups have called politically motivated.

Among the arrested Azerbaijani scholars, the petition mentioned economists Qubad Ibadoglu, Fazil Qasimov, and Farid Mehralizade, and ethnographer Iqbal Abilov.

"The arbitrary arrest and detention of members of the academic community is incompatible with Azerbaijan’s international commitments and it is a durable stain on the country’s reputation," the petitions says.

"We believe in the value of producing independent research on Azerbaijan and do not want to see the country become a blank spot on the global knowledge map. We stand in solidarity with Bahruz Samadov and other Azerbaijani scholars who were unjustly detained simply in light of their academic activities."

The petition also calls on European Union officials, entities, and the academic community to raise awareness of the situation faced by Samadov and other Azerbaijani scholars and demand their release.

Critics of Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev's government say authorities in the oil-rich Caspian Sea state frequently seek to silence dissent by jailing opposition activists, journalists, and civil society advocates on trumped-up charges.

Aliyev has ruled Azerbaijan with an iron fist since 2003, taking over from his father, Heydar Aliyev, who served as president for a decade.

Judge Rizvan Yusupov of Tatarstan's Supreme Court, who upheld the extension of the pretrial arrest of RFE/RL journalist Alsu Kurmasheva in June, may lose his position after he confirmed reports that his children have U.S. citizenship.

Yusupov confirmed to the Regnum news agency on August 30 that his children are dual Russian-American citizens, hours after the Mash Telegram channel, which is close to Russia's law enforcement structures, said the judge hid the information about his daughter and son, who were born in the United States after his wife traveled there to give birth.

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The couple reportedly claimed that the births were home deliveries in Kazan and then arranged for their citizenships through the U.S. Consulate, without informing Russian authorities.

Yusupov confirmed that a probe has been launched into his children's U.S. passports but insisted that he had provided Russian authorities with information about the dual citizenships.

"A criminal case was launched against [Yusupov's] wife, Elvira, and her 19-year-old son Gayaz on a charge of hiding the information about another country's passport. It is known that the judge's elder daughter Nailya resides in the Netherlands," Mash reported.

Kurmasheva, a dual Russian-U.S. citizen who was released in early August in a major prisoner swap between Russia and the West, was detained in June last year while waiting for her return flight to Prague from Kazan. Authorities confiscated both of her passports and her phone. She was released but barred from leaving the country.

After five months of waiting for a decision in her case, Kurmasheva was fined 10,000 rubles ($109) for failing to register her U.S. passport with Russian authorities.

Unable to leave Russia without her travel documents, Kurmasheva in October was arrested, jailed, and charged with being an undeclared "foreign agent." Two months later, she was charged with spreading falsehoods about the Russian military.

In July, a court in Tatarstan’s capital, Kazan, sentenced Kurmasheva to 6 1/2 years in prison.

On August 1, she was released along with two other U.S. citizens -- Evan Gershkovich and Paul Whelan.

PRAGUE -- European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen called on August 30 for a greater European commitment to security and overcoming past unwillingness to provide for its own defense, repeatedly citing Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as evidence the bloc must shed “illusions” and “think about our union as intrinsically a security project.”

Speaking in the Czech capital to attendees of the annual Globsec security conference, the returning head of the European Union’s executive arm laid out a staunch case for European solidarity against Russian and other threats and a “systemic overhaul of European defense,” warning that the next half of the decade would be “high risk.”

“If we want true peace, we must fundamentally rethink the foundations of Europe’s security architecture,” von der Leyen said. “Russia’s invasion has been an eye-opener for Europe.”

The 65-year-old German von der Leyen, who was endorsed for a fresh five-year term in July, vowed to appoint the bloc’s first “full-fledged defense commissioner” to the incoming European Commission, whose respective nominations from each of the 27 member states are ongoing.

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Von der Leyen criticized outsiders arguing against arming Ukraine and warned against premature talks that neither Moscow nor Kyiv seem prepared to conduct two and a half years into the full-scale Russian invasion. The answer to when it’s time for talks, she said, is “first and foremost up to our Ukrainian friends.”

Russian forces currently control about one-fifth of Ukrainian territory, but Ukrainian troops now claim to control more than 1,200 square kilometers of Russian territory since a surprise Ukrainian incursion in Kursk began last month.

While she specifically cited “many outside Europe” for urging immediate talks, it also appeared to be a swipe at EU member Hungary, whose President Viktor Orban’s self-styled and uncoordinated “peace mission” to Kyiv, Moscow, and Beijing immediately after Budapest took up the rotating European Council Presidency in July infuriated Brussels.

“We want the war to stop as soon as possible,” von der Leyen said. But, she added, “My position is that peace is not simply the absence of war. Peace is a settlement that makes war impossible and unnecessary. Therefore, we must put Ukraine in the condition of negotiating such peace.”

Invoking bitter Cold War memories, von der Leyen warned against blaming Kyiv for Russia’s unprovoked invasion. She asked whether Hungary or then-Czechoslovakia could be blamed for invasions of those countries by Soviet and Warsaw Pact troops in 1956 and 1968.

“And the answer to this question is very clear,” she said. “The Kremlin’s behavior was illegal and atrocious back then, and the Kremlin’s behavior is illegal and atrocious today.”

Von der Leyen said that Europeans have many different histories and speak in many languages, “But in no language is peace synonymous with surrender; in no language is sovereignty synonymous with occupation.”

“So those who argue to stop support for Ukraine do not argue for peace,” she said, “they argue for appeasement and subjugation of Ukraine.”

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Von der Leyen said one of the lessons of Russia’s attack on Ukraine and its international response was that “Europe has overcome its long-standing unwillingness to spend enough on its own defense.”

She emphasized the strength and importance of U.S. support and transatlantic cooperation but said “protecting Europe is first and foremost Europe’s duty.”

Von der Leyen said EU member states’ collective defense spending had shot up “from just over 200 billion euros before the war to almost 300 billion [euros] this year.”

She said aim must be “to build a continent-sized defense output” and “a systemic overhaul of Europe’s defense.”

“We Europeans must be on guard,” von der Leyen said. “We must refocus our attention on the security dimension of everything we do. We must think about our union as intrinsically a security project."

At the same conference, Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis told RFE/RL’s Ukrainian Service that “we have a duty to remind people what is at stake…[and] what can happen if a just peace is not achieved, if the war ends with Russia’s victory not Ukraine’s.”

He noted Russia’s actions in its lightning war in Georgia in 2008, leaving it effectively occupying about one-fifth of Georgian territory, and the invasion of Crimea in 2014 that ushered in a slow-boiling war that exploded into full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Asked whether the European Union has learned from such past mistakes, Landsbergis said: “It can happen, yes. That chapter is not yet written.”

Von der Leyen welcomed the chance to speak in the Czech capital, praising Central Europe’s competitiveness and “impressive strength” and noting the region’s past concerns about Russian actions.

“Since Russian tanks rolled into Ukraine, you have become the beating heart of solidarity,” von der Leyen said of the region.

The three-day Globsec security conference, which has been held in the Slovak capital, Bratislava, for the past 18 years, brings together European and global leaders and other senior officials and continues in Prague through September 1.

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) on August 29 condemned the decision by the Kyrgyz Supreme Court to reject an appeal by the independent investigative website Kloop of a lower court ruling to liquidate the media outlet.

The initial decision by a court in Bishkek ordering the closure of the Kloop Media Public Foundation was made in early February. The court said then that the group's website was distributing "false information aimed at damaging the reputation of Kyrgyz officials."

"The forced shuttering of international award-winning investigative outlet Kloop is a shameful episode in the history of modern Kyrgyzstan -- a country long viewed as a haven for press freedom in Central Asia -- and is a clear indication that under President [Sadyr] Japarov this reputation no longer holds," Gulnoza Said, CPJ’s Europe and Central Asia program coordinator, said.

"Kyrgyz authorities should immediately reverse their repressive course against the media and allow Kloop and all other independent outlets to work freely."

The CPJ's statement came hours after Kloop reported that its staff learned last week that the Supreme Court on July 16 had upheld a lower court's ruling to shut down the outlet. Kloop has now exhausted its chance of appeal.

Kloop's co-founder, Rinat Tukhvatshin, said the investigative group will continue to publish "the deepest investigations, the most balanced news, and the sharpest analyses."

Since the initial court ruling in February, the case has wound its way through Kyrgyzstan's judicial circuit.

In March, the Bishkek Administrative Court canceled the ministry's move to block Kloop's Russian-language site, after which the ministry appealed the ruling to the Bishkek City Court.

In early June, the Bishkek City Court ruled that a move by Kyrgyzstan's Culture Ministry to shut down Kloop was legitimate.

Separately, Kloop's Kyrgyz-language website was blocked in November amid a government campaign to pressure the Kloop Media Public Foundation.

The ministry said it disrupted the sites after the State Committee for National Security (UKMK) claimed that Kloop had distributed false information.

The claim referred to a report that appeared on Kloop's website in September about jailed opposition politician Ravshan Jeenbekov and a statement he made about being tortured while in custody.

The ministry demanded Kloop remove an article about the alleged torture of Jeenbekov from its Russian-language website or face being blocked.

Kloop refused to remove the material, saying the story in question attributed all information about the situation faced by Jeenbekov while in custody to actual individuals and sources.

Kloop said at the time that it was officially informed of the lawsuit against it and that the move was taken after an audit by the UKMK determined its "published materials are aimed at sharply criticizing the policies of the current government" and that "most of the published materials are purely negative, aimed at discrediting representatives of state and municipal bodies."

Established in June 2007, Kloop is a Kyrgyz news website whose main contributors are students and graduates of the Kloop Media Public Foundation School of Journalism.

As an independent media entity, it is known for publishing reports on corruption within various governmental bodies and for providing training to Central Asian journalists in fact-checking and investigative techniques.

A court in Siberia on August 30 sentenced Sergei Mikhailov, a journalist and founder of the LIStok newspaper in the city of Gorno-Altaisk, to eight years in prison on a charge of distributing false information about the Russian military. The charge stems from coverage by LIStok in 2022 of alleged atrocities by Russian troops against Ukrainian civilians in the town of Bucha. Mikhailov insists the decision to publish the materials in question was made by his chief editor, Viktor Rau, and not him. Rau, who is currently outside of Russia, has confirmed it was his idea to publish the materials. To read the original story by RFE/RL's Siberia.Realities, click here.