Pete Baumgartner is the editor for Central Asia and China for RFE/RL's Central Newsroom in Prague.
The Russian squad for hockey's under-18 world championship has been subbed out after players reportedly failed tests for meldonium, the latest doping scandal to hit Russian sports.
An uptick in fighting between Ukrainian troops and Russia-backed separatists reported by OSCE monitors in recent weeks has weakened a shaky truce between the combatants.
Tensions have heightened between Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan over control of a mountain along their disputed border, with the Russian-led security alliance CSTO getting involved in the row.
Iconic former Polish President and Solidarity founder Lech Walesa has rejected fresh reports that revive allegations he was a paid informant for the communist-era secret services in a scandal that some say is politically motivated.
The so-called decommunization of Ukraine edged forward on February 4 as parliament approved the scrapping of 175 names of towns, villages, and districts across the country and replaced them with non-Soviet alternatives.
An international monitoring group says people around the world demonstrated to governments in 2015 that they must become more transparent and tackle the large-scale corruption that continues to plague so many countries and hinder their development.
The worst year in global freedom in a decade saw Russia and China cracking down more due to "fear of social unrest" and particularly bad rankings for Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Iran, Tajikistan, Azerbaijan, and Belarus, the rights monitor Freedom House reports.
Phone conversations between Bill Clinton and Tony Blair when they were in office show the U.S. president was worried about “new” Russian President Vladimir Putin’s commitment to democracy.
Kyrgyz were variously enraged and bemused after a British expat working at a foreign-owned gold mine jokingly compared a beloved local equine delicacy to a "horses penis." Michael McFeat is already paying a price for the perceived slur.
New apps and other tech ideas are emerging to help match some of the 1 million migrants arriving in Europe with people who are trying to help them.
A massive tumble in Azerbaijan's currency has shuttered shops and sent people scrambling to convert their manats into foreign currency or durable goods.
Authorities in the Uzbek city of Andijon are set to demolish an ancient minaret and replace it with a fountain, a move that activists and preservationists call a crime against the country's heritage.
Word that a trove of heisted Dutch masterpieces was being peddled in Ukraine has put Kyiv in an awkward position ahead of a key test of Dutch-Ukrainian relations.
A sudden push by France and Russia for cooperation in the fight against Islamist extremists in Syria has raised concerns across Eastern Europe that Moscow is trying to use the recent terrorist attacks in Paris to get concessions from the West on Ukraine.
From a further souring in sentiment toward migrants, to possible geopolitical shifts, the devastating November 13 terrorist attacks in Paris could have broad consequences.
The sight of desperate people streaming into the country has struck a nerve in Serbia, where many are reminded of the ethnic Serbs who arrived in their droves after the Croatian War of Independence.
The medical organization that said its field hospital in northwestern Syria was hit by Russian air strikes has released a video from the aftermath of the attack, which killed two members of its medical staff.
Moscow's military campaign in Syria is taking some heat amid reports that medical facilities have been targeted by air strikes, hundreds of civilians have been killed, and Russian fighters are dying in battle.
In the dusty Kyrgyz village of Kara-Suu, local kids were excited when a political party built them a field to play soccer on. They were less excited when that party came to take it back.
U.S. Ambassador to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) Daniel Baer says former Soviet republics should enhance their relations with the European Union and the United States and avoid dependence on Russia.
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