Poland has banned the import of grain and other food items from Ukraine after farmers said their incomes were cut by the duty-free movement of large quantities of Ukrainian produce. However, Polish leaders were quick to say the issue would not impact its political and military support for Ukraine. Poland has been one of Ukraine's staunchest allies since Russia invaded in February 2022, handing over tanks and pledging jet fighters. But the redirection of cheap Ukrainian produce westward due to the war has slashed the earnings of Polish farmers. Their anger forced Henryk Kowalczyk to resign as Poland's agriculture minister earlier this month. To read the original story by Reuters, please click here.

YEREVAN -- Officials in Baku say Azerbaijani athletes will boycott the European Weightlifting Championships in the Armenian capital of Yerevan and return home after an Azerbaijani flag was set afire by an apparent intruder at an opening ceremony late on April 14.

Armenian police briefly detained a person who ran onto the stage during the event and snatched the Azerbaijani flag from a lady performing in the opening ceremony before setting it ablaze.

No Azerbaijani athletes or delegation members were reportedly present in the hall at the time of the incident.

Over 300 athletes from 40 countries are competing in the European Weightlifting Championships in Yerevan.

No charges were brought immediately against the intruder, whom the Armenian police identified as Aram Nikolian, a professional designer. He was set free by police several hours after his detention, officials said.

SEE ALSO:

Fears Of Escalation After Deadly Skirmish On Armenian-Azerbaijani Border

Azerbaijan’s Ministry of Youth and Sports and National Olympic Committee described the incident as a "barbaric act," saying it was a manifestation of :ethnic hatred, racism, xenophobia, and animosity toward Azerbaijanis" in Armenia and was "contrary to the noble principles and goals of sports."

Declaring that under such conditions the safety of Azerbaijani athletes was not ensured and their normal participation in the championships was impossible, the Azerbaijani authorities announced their decision that their athletes will return home.

The Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry also condemned the incident, demanding those responsible be punished.

"It is worrying that no security measures were taken by organizers against such hate action. Perpetrators should be accordingly punished,” Aykhan Hajizade, a spokesman for the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry, wrote on Twitter.

Armenia’s Sports Ministry countered by saying that all security measures had been put in place by the Armenian side as required and there were no security risks for the Azerbaijani athletes.

It stressed that the flag burning incident at the opening ceremony was settled quickly and had nothing to do with the general security of Azerbaijani athletes and ensuring of their normal participation in the competitions.

"The Republic of Armenia remains committed to fulfilling its obligations to the International Weightlifting Federation and reaffirms its readiness to hold the 2023 European Championships at a high level," Armenia's Sports Ministry said in a statement.

Armenia and Azerbaijan have been locked in a conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh for years. Some 30,000 people were killed in a war in the early 1990s that left ethnic Armenians in control of the breakaway region and seven adjacent districts of Azerbaijan proper. Another 7,000 died 7,000 when the simmering conflict reignited in 2020.

Nagorno-Karabakh is internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan.

U.S Secretary of State Antony Blinken says U.S. consular officers have not been granted access to Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reporter Evan Gershkovich, who is currently detained in Russia.

Speaking on April 15 during a visit to Vietnam, Blinken added that Moscow should provide access "now."

Gershkovich, the first American journalist detained in Russia on espionage charges since the end of the Cold War, and the WSJ have denied he was involved in espionage.

Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) said on March 30 it had detained Gershkovich in the Urals city of Yekaterinburg and had opened an espionage case against him for collecting what it said were state secrets about the military industrial complex.

On April 10, the U.S. State Department designated Gershkovich as being "wrongfully detained" by Russia and called for his immediate release, following earlier appeals, including from U.S. President Joe Biden.

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The Week In Russia: Trial And Terror

International journalist organizations have also demanded Russia release Gershkovich.

Gershkovich, who hasn't been granted access to the lawyer hired by the WSJ, is being held at the FSB's Lefortovo prison, where Russia holds most suspects in espionage cases.

The FSB said on March 30 that it had opened an espionage case against Gershkovich for collecting what it said were state secrets about Russia's military industrial complex. It alleged that Gershkovich was operating on instructions from the United States.

A Moscow court agreed to a request from the FSB to hold Gershkovich under arrest for two months.

Russia might be willing to discuss a potential prisoner swap with Gershkovich after his trial, a top Russian diplomat said on April 13.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told the state-run TASS news agency that talks about a possible exchange could take place through a dedicated channel that Russian and U.S. security agencies established for such purposes.

“We have a working channel that was used in the past to achieve concrete agreements, and these agreements were fulfilled,” Ryabkov said, adding that there was no need for the involvement of any third country.

With reporting by AP and Reuters

People who encourage women to remove the hijab will be prosecuted in criminal courts and will have no right of appeal against any conviction, Iran's deputy attorney general, Ali Jamadi, was quoted as saying on April 15. His comments come as an increasing number of women have been defying Iran's compulsory dress code, appearing unveiled in malls, restaurants, shops, streets, and other public areas. "The punishment for the crime of promoting and encouraging others to remove the hijab is much heavier than the crime of removing the hijab itself, because it is one of the clear examples of encouraging corruption," he said. To read the original story from Reuters, click here.

Intense fighting between Ukrainian and Russian forces raged in the devastated town of Bakhmut on April 15 as the death toll from a Russian strike in nearby Slovyansk climbed to 11.

Russian forces have been besieging Bakhmut in the Donetsk region of Ukraine for months, making only incremental progress at an enormous cost of human life.

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 counteroffensives, Western military aid, global reaction, and the plight of civilians. For all of RFE/RL's coverage of the war, click here.

In an interview with state TV, Serhiy Cherevatiy, the spokesman for the eastern military command, described the fighting in the city center as "unprecedented," adding there had been 17 clashes with Russian troops over the past 24 hours.

He said Russia had also launched 158 strikes on Bakhmut using rockets and artillery over the same time period.

In Sloviansk, located about 45 kilometers northwest of Bakhmut, Ukrainian emergency workers were still looking for people under the rubble of buildings struck by Russian rockets on April 14.

The rockets struck five buildings, five homes, a school and an administrative building, killing at least 11 and wounding 23.

“None of the people responsible for this aggression can be forgiven or forgotten," Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in his daily address to the nation.

Russia on April 15 claimed advances on the northern and southern outskirts of Bakhmut, which had a pre-war population of 70,000 people.

Russian forces have surrounded Bakhmut on three sides, with just one major road still available to Ukraine's beleaguered forces.

Nonetheless, Ukrainian forces have been able to hold parts of the city despite Russian and analyst predictions it was on the verge of falling to Russia.

WATCH: A Russian missile strike in the city of Slovyansk in eastern Ukraine on an apartment building on April 14 killed at least 11 people.

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Amid Search And Rescue Efforts, Slovyansk Residents Emotional After Deadly Russian Strike

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Bakhmut, which had a pre-war population of 70,000 sits at the junction of several major roads, making it a valuable city for logistic purposes. However, its symbolic importance to both sides far outweighs its strategic importance, experts say.

For the Russians, a victory in Bakhmut would provide bragging rights in the wake of a series of Ukrainian victories last year that underscored systemic problems in the Russian military.

Meanwhile, Zelenskiy has visited Bakhmut twice and made it a center point of his speech in the U.S. Capitol before both chambers of Congress.
Zelenskiy compared the battle for Bakhmut to the Battle of Saratoga that turned the tide of the U.S. war for independence.

“Ukraine holds its lines and will never surrender,” he said.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/21/us/politics/zelensky-speech-transcript.html

Russia and Ukraine have each lost thousands of soldiers in Bakhmut in what is likely the deadliest theater of the invasion to date.

Russia’s losses in Ukraine, including Bakhmut, could force the Kremlin to announce further mobilization this year.

In possible anticipation of that need, Russia’s parliament quickly passed legislation this week that makes it harder for Russians to avoid the draft.

Russian President Vladimir Putin signed the legislation into law on April 14.

With reporting by Reuters

Ukraine secured promises of $5 billion in additional funding to support its ongoing fight against Russia amid "fruitful meetings" in Washington this week, Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal told reporters on April 13. Shmyhal met with representatives of the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and the European Investment Bank as well as top U.S. officials, on the sidelines of the spring meetings of the IMF and the World Bank. He said Ukraine received new pledges of additional support from Switzerland, Denmark, and a number of other countries during the meetings. To read the original story by Reuters, click here.

Russian President Vladimir Putin on April 14 signed a law on electronic military enlistment aimed at making it more difficult for potential draftees to evade duty. According to the law, enlistment papers will be sent by both regular mail and electronically. The electronic variant will be considered as delivered to a person seven days after being placed online in an account opened for each person eligible for conscription. Many have avoided conscription during Russia's invasion of Ukraine by not picking up mail at their official address. To read the original story from RFE/RL’s Russian Service, click here.

Iran’s president on April 14 delivered an unprecedented speech to an annual pro-Palestinian rally in the Gaza Strip -- a rare display of Iran’s importance to the Hamas militant group that rules the territory. Speaking virtually to hundreds of supporters of Hamas and the smaller Islamic Jihad militant group gathered at a soccer stadium in Gaza City, Iran's conservative President Ebrahim Raisi urged Palestinians to press on with their struggle against Israel. To read the original story by AP, click here.

A Russian woman was detained in Sweden on espionage charges, police in the city of Gothenburg said on April 14. Swedish petroleum and biofuel company Preem said its employee, a Russian national whose identity was not disclosed, was detained a day earlier at one of its oil refineries. In January, an Iranian-born former intelligence officer was sentenced to life in prison in Stockholm for spying for Russia's GRU military intelligence service from 2011-21. The man's younger brother was sentenced to more than nine years at the time on a charge of assisting his brother’s spying activities. To read the original story by RFE/RL's Russian Service, click here.

BELGRADE -- Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik -- who has been sanctioned by the United States and Britain over alleged destabilization efforts and corruption -- has threatened that he could push for the independence of the Serbian entity of Bosnia-Herzegovina over a dispute involving a controversial property law.

“We are considering in the most serious terms to make a decision on independence and secede Republika Srpska [from Bosnia] unless the property issue is solved," Dodik said on April 14 while on a visit to Belgrade to meet Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic.

Republika Srpska has tried multiple times to implement a property law that aims to transfer Bosnian state property to Republika Srpska, despite it being deemed unconstitutional.

Republika Srpska authorities said they were implementing the law in late February. However, it represents a direct challenge to previous decisions by the high representative to Bosnia, Christian Schmidt, to repeal the decree creating the law and to suspend it pending a final decision by Bosnia’s Constitutional Court.

Republika Srpska says the law aims to ensure that properties used by the authorities of the entity, including local governments, public companies, public institutions, and other departments founded by Republika Srpska belong to them.

The country’s Constitutional Court has stated that the national parliament must adopt a property law that would be valid across Bosnia and not one of the country’s two entities.

The 1995 Dayton Agreement ended the Bosnian civil war and established an administrative system under which Bosnia remains partitioned between the Serbian entity -- Republika Srpska -- and the Bosniak-Croat federation, connected by a weak central government.

Dodik has long threatened to seek Republika Srpska's independence from the rest of Bosnia. He rejects the administrative arrangement and the authority of the Office of the High Representative, the international community's overseer of civil and other aspects of the Dayton Agreement.

With reporting by Reuters

Italy is investigating how a Russian businessman escaped from house arrest to avoid extradition to the United States on sanctions-breaking charges. Justice Minister Carlo Nordio ordered a probe into the decision by court officials to transfer Artyom Uss from jail to house arrest in a town near Milan while the extradition request was being considered. Uss was detained on a U.S. warrant in October. In November, he was moved to house arrest. He apparently removed an electronic monitoring bracelet and escaped on March 22, a day after a court recognized as legitimate the U.S. extradition request. He is now in Russia. To read the original story by AP, click here.

ALMATY, Kazakhstan -- Opposition activist Madina Koketaeva, who unsuccessfully took part in March 19 parliamentary elections, has been detained in Kazakhstan’s largest city, Almaty, amid an ongoing crackdown over dissent following the balloting.

A friend of Koketaeva, Zhibek Amenova, told RFE/RL that police detained the activist on April 14.

"She received a subpoena ordering her to come to police for questioning at 5 p.m. today, but police detained her early in the morning," Amenova said, adding that Koketaeva's detention was linked to her participation in an unsanctioned rally on April 9 challenging the official results of parliamentary elections.

Since the vote, several activists and participants in the balloting have been detained as the government clamps down on shows of opposition to an election easily won by the main ruling party.

On April 13, noted opposition activist Rysbek Sarsenbaiuly was arrested and hours later ordered to pay a 120,000 tenge ($265) fine for taking part in the same rallies. A day before that, courts in Almaty sentenced opposition politician Mukhtar Taizhan and activist Alnur Iliyashev to 15 days in jail each on similar charges.

That came after a court in the northwestern city of Oral sentenced journalist Luqpan Akhmedyarov to 15 days in prison over his participation in April 9 rallies protesting the results of the parliamentary elections.

Koketaeva, Akhmedyarov, and Taizhan unsuccessfully participated in the March 19 balloting as independent candidates. The ruling Amanat party won a majority of seats in the elections, which many independent candidates and opposition activists called rigged, citing the improper counting of ballots and government pressure on public employees to vote for certain parties.

The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), which had an observer mission present at the elections, noted after the vote that "limits on the exercise of constitutionally guaranteed fundamental freedoms remain and some political groups continue to be prevented from participating as political parties in elections."

While the voting "was organized in a smooth manner overall," the OSCE said "significant procedural irregularities were observed."

Fifteen Russian diplomats expelled by Norway this week had sought to recruit sources, intercept communications, and buy advanced technology, the Norwegian PST security police said on April 14. The diplomats' real employers were the Russian GRU, FSB, and SVR intelligence services, PST counterintelligence chief Inger Haugland told a news conference. The move is Norway's largest expulsion of Russian diplomats and is the latest in a series of expulsions by Western nations since the start of Moscow's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. To read the original story by Reuters, click here.

Ukraine has barred its national sports teams from competing in Olympic, non-Olympic, and Paralympic events that include competitors from Russia and Belarus, the Sports Ministry said in a decree published on April 14. The decision, criticized by some Ukrainian athletes, comes after the International Olympic Committee (IOC) angered Kyiv by paving the way for Russian and Belarusian athletes to compete as neutrals, despite Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Ukraine had previously warned its sports federations that it would strip them of their status as governing bodies if their athletes competed with Russians and Belarusians. To read the original story by Reuters, click here.

Prominent Iranian female religious scholar Sedigheh Vasmaghi has challenged Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei over the Islamic republic’s mandatory hijab law, holding him responsible for the "financial, physical, social, moral, psychological, and political" consequences of confronting opponents to the legislation.

In a letter to Khamenei, Vasmaghi criticized the Islamic republic's interpretation of the hijab as an obligatory religious law, saying the government's approach to the issue is politically motivated rather than religious.

Vasmaghi’s letter came amid warnings from several senior Iranian officials that the removal of the hijab in public was religiously banned.

In a recent interview with RFERL’s Radio Farda, Vasmaghi said that while she wears a hijab, it is her choice and that others should be able to make their choice without "the influence of force and threats."

In the wake of the September 16 death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini while she was in custody for an alleged hijab violation, tens of thousands of Iranians have taken to the streets -- with many women removing their head scarves and burning them -- to voice their anger with a 1983 law that makes it mandatory for all women to wear a head scarf while in public.

The Islamic scholar also highlighted the government's recent actions, including sealing shops that serve women not wearing the hijab and issuing disciplinary threats, saying such moves will ultimately do more damage to the government than anything else.

"You have made the religious law a customary one; [a law] that is not accepted by the people and has harmful consequences can no longer be respected in terms of customs," Vasmaghi said.

"Their predictions are not correct. Their analysis of society is wrong. They do not know the young generation, even our generation who created the revolution. They do not know and do not realize that we have changed, too, and we cannot tolerate such behavior, policies, and models."

Written by Ardeshir Tayebi based on an original story in Persian by RFE/RL's Radio Farda

A Russian woman arrested last August in Albania on spying charges will not be extradited to Russia, a court in Albania ruled on April 14. Svetlana Timofeyeva, 34, was arrested along with another Russian and a Ukrainian on charges of entering a former military factory in Gramsh, 80 kilometers south of the capital, Tirana. Timofeyeva said she was there to film abandoned buildings from the Cold War era. In March, she applied for asylum in Albania, claiming she could face persecution in Russia, where she faces similar charges of spying. Known publicly by a pseudonym, Lana Sator, Timofeyeva is known as an urban explorer, photographing from inside sometimes tightly guarded military sites. To read the original story from RFE/RL's Balkans Service, click here.

Golrokh Ebrahimi Iraee, a prominent Iranian civil rights activist, has been sentenced to seven years in prison and handed "additional punishments" by the Tehran Islamic Revolutionary Court for actions going "against the regime."

Iraee was convicted of the charges of "assembly and collusion against the regime," for which she received a six-year prison sentence, and "propaganda against the regime," for which she was sentenced to one year.

The sentence also includes a two-year ban on leaving the country, a two-year ban on attending political parties and groups, and the confiscation of her mobile phone.

According to an informed source close to Iraee's family, the judge cited a "recurrence of the crime in Golrokh's previous cases" as the reason for the sentence, even though she had no definitive conviction for the charge of assembly and collusion in any of her previous cases. Iraee was once sentenced to three years in prison for an unpublished story she wrote about the practice of stoning.

The same source reported that security and judicial authorities have told Iraei and her family that the only way for her to be released is to write a formal request for amnesty, a move she has steadfastly refused.

In February, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei ordered the pardoning of some prisoners as the government faces one of the biggest threats to the Islamic leadership since the revolution in 1979 over anti-government protests triggered by the September 2022 death of Mahsa Amini while in police custody for an alleged head-scarf violation.

State media quoted Sadegh Rahimi, the deputy of the judiciary, as saying that in order to be pardoned, the accused must "express regret for their activities and give a written commitment not to repeat those activities."

However, Iraee has refused to express regret or request amnesty, and the judge has withheld granting her temporary release on bail until the end of the legal proceedings.

Iraee was arrested by security forces at her home in Tehran on October 4 and is now being held in the women's ward of Evin Prison.

Her husband, political activist Arash Sadeghi, was sentenced in January to more than five years for his advocacy work during the ongoing protests sparked by Amini's death. He was already in prison serving a 19-year sentence despite being diagnosed with cancer.

Written by Ardeshir Tayebi based on an original story in Persian by RFE/RL's Radio Farda

ZHANAOZEN, Kazakhstan -- About 100 oil workers have resumed protests in Kazakhstan's volatile town of Zhanaozen to demand jobs after a similar protest they held in Astana was forcibly dispersed earlier this week and the demonstrators were sent home.

The workers gathered on April 14 in front of the offices of OzenMunaiGaz, a subsidiary of the oil-rich nation's energy giant KazMunaiGaz, demanding jobs after they lost their positions because their former employer, BerAli Manghystau Company, recently lost a tender.

The protesters said they will stay at the site until all their demands are met.

Officials at OzenMunaiGaz have said there are no vacancies at the company.

On April 11, at least 80 former workers of BerAli Manghystau Company were detained in Astana after they spent a night in front of the Energy Ministry building demanding jobs at OzenMunaiGaz.

They were released late in the night and the majority of them were forced to leave Astana for Zhanaozen by train early in the morning on April 12. Less than a dozen of the workers remains in the capital.

On April 12, a court in Astana sentenced opposition politician Nurzhan Altaev to 15 days in jail over his support for the workers. The court found the politician guilty of violating regulations on holding public gatherings.

Zhanaozen, located in Kazakhstan's southwest, was the scene of mass anti-government rallies in 2011 staged by oil workers that resulted in the deaths of at least 16 people when police opened fire on unarmed protesters.

In early January last year, other protests in the restive town over abrupt energy price hikes quickly spread across the tightly controlled former Soviet republic and led to violent clashes in the country's largest city, Almaty, and elsewhere that left at least 238 people, including 19 law enforcement officers, dead.

President Qasym-Zhomart Toqaev then moved to deprive influential former President Nursultan Nazarbaev of his lifetime post atop the Kazakh Security Council, taking the post himself.

The crisis prompted Toqaev to seek help from troops from the Russia-led Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) to quell the unrest.

Toqaev's moves since then appear aimed at weakening Nazarbaev, his relatives and close allies.

A man has been sentenced to life in prison in Chechnya for taking part in an attack in 2000 on Russian riot police in the North Caucasus region that left at least 40 law enforcement officers dead. The man, who was sentenced by Chechnya's top court, was not identified. The attack was led by Shamil Basayev, a former Chechen field commander who was blamed for many terrorist attacks in the North Caucasus between 1994 and 2006, when he died in an explosion in neighboring Ingushetia. To read the original story by RFE/RL's Caucasus.Realities, click here.

China won't sell weapons to either side in the war in Ukraine, the country's foreign minister said, responding to Western concerns that Beijing could provide military assistance to Russia. China has maintained that it is neutral in the conflict, while backing Russia politically, rhetorically, and economically at a time when Western nations have imposed punishing sanctions and sought to isolate Moscow for the invasion. Qin Gang is the highest-level Chinese official to make such an explicit statement about arms sales to Russia. He added that China would also regulate the export of items with dual civilian and military use. To read the original story by AP, click here.

Finland's embassy in Moscow has received a letter containing an unknown powder and has reported the matter to the Russian authorities, Russian news agencies reported on April 14. Relations between Moscow and Helsinki have deteriorated sharply since Finland formally joined NATO on April 4, becoming the 31st member of the U.S.-led military alliance. Finland shares a long land border with Russia. To read the original story from Reuters, click here.

Allies of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, including current and former officials, could soon face fresh U.S. sanctions for alleged corruption, sources told RFE/RL's Hungarian Service, a possible further sign of worsening ties between Washington and Budapest.

U.S. officials familiar with the draft bill but who did not want to speak on the record because of the sensitivity of the matter, told RFE/RL that the draft legislation, if passed by Congress, would allow the Secretary of State to blacklist targeted individuals.

The sources did not specify which individuals could be sanctioned if the measures are approved. The United States has sanctioned individuals close to Orban before. In 2014, Washington banned several Hungarians from entering the United States.

"The move is long overdue. Though it is not the first time it is happening, the U.S. should have played a much rougher game when it comes to corruption [in Hungary] and this is a good move. It is probably the only language that the Orban government understands," Dalibor Rohac, a senior research fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, told RFE/RL.

The report by RFE/RL comes days after Washington imposed sanctions on three officials -- two Russians and a Hungarian -- from the Russian-controlled International Investment Bank (IIB), which is headquartered in Budapest.

In announcing the move on April 12, Washington said Budapest had ignored U.S. concerns raised over the “opaque Kremlin platform.”

Relations between Washington and Budapest, a member of both NATO and the European Union, are already strained due to Orban’s strengthening of ties with Russia and China and what Brussels sees as backsliding on democracy and freedoms.

On April 13, Orban’s government announced it would quit the IIB, which claims to fund development projects in Eastern Europe.

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Hungary To Exit Russian-Controlled International Investment Bank After U.S. Sanctions

Russia is the IIB’s largest shareholder, while Hungary was its second largest. Senior Hungarian officials had held major roles in the institution, including holding board seats. The bank moved its headquarters to Budapest in 2019.

Other Eastern European countries cut ties with the IIB after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

On April 14, Orban said Hungary had abandoned the institution because U.S. sanctions had “ruined” it, adding that Hungary would comply with sanctions on Russia but continue to speak out against them.

The United States had "not given up on its plan to squeeze everyone into a war alliance," a step Hungary -- which is not supplying weapons to Ukraine -- would resist, Orban said.

On April 13, U.S. Ambassador to Hungary David Pressman said the United States had raised concerns about the presence of the bank but that, unlike other NATO allies, the Hungarian government dismissed the concerns.

"We have concerns about the continued eagerness of Hungarian leaders to expand and deepen ties with the Russian Federation despite Russia’s ongoing brutal aggression against Ukraine and threat to transatlantic security," Pressman said.

Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto visited Moscow earlier this week for talks on gas and oil supplies. He also discussed an ongoing project by the Russian atomic power agency, Rosatom, to expand a nuclear plant in Hungary.

With reporting by Reuters

The entire Russian Pacific Fleet was put on high alert on April 14 for snap drills that will involve practice missile launches in a massive show of force amid the tensions with the West over the fighting in Ukraine. Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said the goal of the war games was to test the capability of Russia's armed forces to mount a response to aggression. Along with the missile launches, the drills will also involve nuclear-capable strategic bombers and other warplanes besides ones from the Pacific Fleet's air arm, Shoigu said. To read the original story by AP, click here.

Raman Pratasevich, a Belarusian journalist who was detained in Belarus in 2021 after the commercial flight he was on was forced to land in Minsk, has been handed a new felony charge and now faces up to 25 years in prison if convicted.

Prosecutors at the Minsk regional court on April 14 added a charge against Pratasevich and one of his co-defendants, Yan Rudzik, who is being tried in absentia.

They have now also been charged with "repetitively forming and leading an extremist group" over their running of the Lithuania-based Telegram channel called Belarus Golovnogo Mozga (Belarus of the Brain), which was also critical of the authoritarian ruler of Belarus, Alyaksandr Lukashenka, and his regime.

The high-profile case against the Poland-based Nexta Live Telegram channel, which extensively covered unprecedented protests against the official results of an August 2020 presidential election that the opposition and many Western countries say was rigged, started in mid-February.

Pratasevich, Rudzik, and a third co-defendant, Stsyapan Putsila, who like Rudzik is being tried in absentia, were previously charged with forming and leading an extremist group, insulting Lukashenka, plotting to seize power through unconstitutional means, discrediting Belarus, financing extremist activities, inciting social hatred, organizing mass disorder, conducting acts of terrorism, and other actions aimed at undermining national security.

Those charges carried a potential maximum sentence of 15 years.

Putsila was additionally charged with orchestrating the activities of a terrorist organization.

The court on April 14 adjourned the trial until April 19.

State-run media had reported that Pratasevich pleaded guilty to all previous charges. It is not known how he pleaded to the new charge.

Pratasevich, who used to work as an editor and a key administrator of the Nexta Live channel on Telegram, fled Belarus in 2019.

In May 2021, he and his then-girlfriend, Russian citizen Sofia Sapega, were arrested after their commercial flight from Greece to Lithuania was forced to land in Minsk.

Belarus said it had ordered the plane to land after an anonymous bomb threat. Evidence later revealed that Belarusian officials conspired to fake the bomb threat as a pretense for diverting the plane so they could detain the pair.

Sapega was accused of administering a channel on Telegram that published the personal data of Belarusian security forces and sentenced to six years in prison in May last year. Earlier this week, officials at the Russian Embassy in Minsk said Sapega will be extradited to Russia soon.

Pratasevich made several appearances on Belarusian state television in 2021 that prompted the opposition and Western officials to accuse Lukashenka and his regime of extracting video confessions through torture. The officials also called for Pratasevich and Sapega's immediate release.

In 2017-2018, Pratasevich was a Vaclav Havel Journalism fellow in the Czech capital, Prague. The Vaclav Havel Journalism Fellowship -- a joint initiative of RFE/RL and the Czech Foreign Ministry -- is awarded to aspiring independent journalists in the European Union's Eastern Partnership countries and Russia. Pratasevich did not work for RFE/RL either before or after obtaining the fellowship.

Lukashenka has denied stealing the election and has since cracked down hard on the opposition, whose leading members have been jailed or forced to flee the country in fear for their safety.

Human Rights Watch has urged Russian authorities to “immediately and unconditionally release” Vladimir Kara-Murza, the Kremlin critic who faces 25 years in jail on charges he denies.

Kara-Murza, 41, is facing charges of treason and spreading false information about the Russian military in Ukraine.

A journalist and a prominent government opponent who twice survived poisonings he blamed on the Kremlin, Kara-Murza has been behind bars since his arrest a year ago.

The Moscow City Court is scheduled to deliver a verdict in the trial on April 17.

“Vladimir Kara-Murza has been detained, prosecuted, and is facing a monstrous prison term for no more than raising his voice and elevating the voices of others in Russia who disagree with the Kremlin, its war in Ukraine, and its escalating repression within Russia,” said Hugh Williamson, Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “The Kremlin’s persecution of Kara-Murza, which is part of its efforts to demoralize and quash civic activism, should be condemned in the strongest possible terms.”

Kara-Murza was arrested on April 11, 2022, on the charge of spreading “false information” about the Russian Armed Forces. In August, Russian authorities added the charge of involvement in an “undesirable” foreign organization, and in October they added the treason charge for his public criticism of the Russian authorities in the international arena.

On March 3, Washington designated six people, including three judges, for sanctions due to their role in Kara-Murza’s detention.

In his final statement to court on April 10, Kara-Murza said the level of opaqueness about the charges against him surpassed the trials of Soviet dissidents in the 1960s and 1970s, and the language used against him was reminiscent of the 1930s, when Soviet citizens were arrested on fabricated charges and put on show trials.

Kara-Murza said he was jailed for his political views, “for speaking out against the war in Ukraine, for many years of struggle against (Russian President Vladimir) Putin’s dictatorship.”

“Not only do I not repent any of this, I am proud of it,” he said, adding that he looks forward to a day “when those who kindled and unleashed this war, and not those who tried to stop it, are recognized as criminals.”

Russia adopted a law criminalizing spreading “false information” about its military shortly after it sent troops into Ukraine on February 24, 2022.

With reporting from AP