Ron Synovitz is a senior correspondent for RFE/RL.
The leader of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kyiv Patriarchate says steps toward independence from Moscow must be carried out carefully to avoid giving the Kremlin a pretext for further Russian incursions into Ukrainian territory.
U.S. national-security adviser John Bolton has vowed that President Donald Trump's administration will "squeeze Iran" with maximum economic pressure in response to Tehran's "malign" behavior in the Middle East and around the world.
When the spiritual leader of Orthodox Christians took steps toward recognizing the Ukrainian church's independence from Moscow, the move raised the attention of Orthodox Christian believers on both sides of a dispute between churches in Serbia and Macedonia.
The future of Olympic boxing is being tested by a political prizefight between two Central Asian boxing bosses.
The rights group Amnesty International is determined to expose fake Internet videos and confirm the authenticity of real footage documenting human rights abuses.
U.S. national security adviser John Bolton's harsh warning for the International Criminal Court and anyone who cooperates with it are just the latest public assault on a tribunal that has faced an uphill battle from its inception.
Russia says it is staging its largest-ever war games over the next week. But some experts on Russia say Moscow may be exaggerating troop numbers to send a message to the West about Russia's military power in the Asia-Pacific region.
One of the tens of thousands of people uprooted by the lightning war a decade ago between Russia and Georgia over two breakaway republics, doctor Nunu Chovelidze still can't get any closer to home than the hospital named after her old village.
A pending court case in Kazakhstan has provided new evidence that ethnic Kazakhs and other Muslim minorities in western China are being rounded up in "reeducation camps."
Activists in Tbilisi say health officials should pay attention to the tragic tale of a transgender woman who died in a Batumi clinic from an AIDS-related illness, arguing that transgender patients face unique difficulties that must be considered to ensure their "honor and dignity" under current antidiscrimination laws.
The man in charge trying to save Olympic boxing is fighting to clear his reputation amid allegations that he is an Uzbek crime boss with ties to the global heroin trade.
Museum director blocks film crew from North Ossetian village and medieval burial ground, saying the script casts Ossetians in an "unfavorable light."
With constitutional changes poised to introduce an all-powerful presidential system, Turkey's elections on June 24 are arguably the country's most important in recent history.
Facing militant death threats for helping the United States, Afghans and Iraqis have taken the U.S. government to court for swift decisions on special immigrant visas.
It was bad enough they had to grow a new crop. Now some Uzbek chili-pepper farmers complain they have to line up foreign buyers as well.
A Russian filmmaker who documented North Korea's propagandists says they'll use the Singapore summit to bolster Kim Jong Un's image in Pyongyang.
Ukraine's prime minister has told his country not to worry about a wildfire that has ravaged one of the most contaminated forests in the Chernobyl exclusion zone. But some scientists say they want more information -- and more transparency -- about what have become regular wildfires near the infamous former nuclear power plant.
Psychoanalyst and terrorism expert Nancy Hartevelt Kobrin says an often overlooked factor in the behavior of suicide attackers is how early child-rearing practices in so-called "shame-honor cultures" stunts the development of empathy.
Moscow has backed down from an attempt to block a German reporter who broke the Russian doping scandal from entering the country during the World Cup. But Hajo Seppelt tells RFE/RL it not yet clear what he will be able to actually report.
Investigators in France and Chechnya are trying to determine whether the Chechen-born man behind a Paris knife attack planned his rampage alone. RFE/RL has been talking to relatives and acquaintances of Khamzat Azimov about his background and possible ties to Islamic State militants.
Load more
![Patriarch Filaret: "We do not want to give [Russia] a reason for interference in our internal [affairs], and therefore there will be no forcible seizure of church buildings."](https://gdb.rferl.org/d00e1370-4750-4dc0-a1a2-171d0cd15eee_w100_r1.jpg)
![Patriarch Filaret: "We do not want to give [Russia] a reason for interference in our internal [affairs], and therefore there will be no forcible seizure of church buildings."](https://gdb.rferl.org/d00e1370-4750-4dc0-a1a2-171d0cd15eee_w66_r1.jpg)
