Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin says the mandatory wearing of masks in public places will be lifted in the city as of March 15, while a ban on public gatherings and demonstrations introduced two years ago as part of coronavirus precautions will remain.
Sobyanin wrote on his blog on March 14 that the decision to cancel mandatory masks in the Russian capital was made due to "the stable improvement of the epidemiological situation" in Moscow.
The mayor also wrote that all COVID-19 restrictions at workplaces in the city will be lifted.
"In the current circumstances, the move will support businesses that are now suffering the ongoing sanctions' pressure," Sobyanin said, adding that the ban on holding public gatherings and rallies in Moscow remained in effect.
Russia has been slapped with heavy sanctions by the West over its invasion of Ukraine, which started on February 24.
Several recent unsanctioned rallies in Moscow protesting the war in Ukraine have been violently dispersed by police.
Russia as of March 14 has registered 17,376,241 cases of COVID-19, including 361,344 deaths.
Josep Borrell, the European Union's top diplomat, said Serbia and Kosovo have reached a compromise deal over the distribution of exit and entrance documents, an issue that has helped raise tensions along the two countries’ border.
“We have a deal,” Borrell said in a Twitter posting on August 27.
“Under the EU-facilitated Dialogue, Serbia agreed to abolish entry/exit documents for Kosovo ID holders and Kosovo agreed to not introduce them for Serbian ID holders,” he said.
“Kosovo Serbs, as well as all other citizens, will be able to travel freely between Kosovo & Serbia using their ID cards. The EU just received guarantees from [Kosovo] PM [Albin] Kurti to this end.
“This is a European solution. We congratulate both leaders on this decision & their leadership,” Borrell added.
In a video message, Borrell thanked Kurti and Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic for the agreement to allow freedom of movement of the countries' citizens.
Word of the agreement came after the U.S. special envoy for the Western Balkans, Gabriel Escobar, who is on a visit to the region, and EU envoy Miroslav Lajcak both met with Vucic in Belgrade on August 25 after holding talks in Kosovo with Kurti and ethnic Serb leaders as part the efforts to ease tensions.
Kurti said in a Facebook posting that citizens of Kosovo “with identification documents issued by our country, will be able to cross the border with Serbia at all border crossings without obstacles, burdens, or delays.
“The same will apply to the opposite direction in the case of entering Kosovo with identification documents issued by the authorities of Serbia.”
Kosovar President Vjosa Osmani thanked the EU and Washington in a Facebook posting and said that “freedom of movement is the foundation of democratic societies and European values.”
“We will unstoppably continue our commitment to mutual recognition,” she said.
The move appears to be a major concession by Serbia's Vucic, who previously had refused to accept Pristina-issued documents, which could be seen as Belgrade's recognition of Kosovar national documents.
Kosovo and Serbia fought a bloody war in the late 1990s, with Kosovo eventually declaring independence from Serbia in 2008.
Belgrade -- as well as Russia, China, and five EU member states -- has not recognized its former province's independence and accuses Pristina of suppressing the rights of minority Serbs, who account for 5 percent of Kosovo's 1.8 million population, which is 90 percent Albanian.
For the past several years, the EU has mediated negotiations between Kosovo and Serbia to normalize relations, seeking to kickstart their efforts to join the European Union.
Tension between Kosovo and Serbia resurfaced late last month when Pristina declared that Serbian identity documents and vehicle license plates would no longer be valid on Kosovar territory.
Serbs, who live mostly in northern Kosovo, reacted with fury, putting up roadblocks and firing their guns into the air and in the direction of Kosovar police officers. No one was injured.
Kurti postponed the implementation of the measure for a month, to September 1, after apparent pressure from the West.
Borrell, in his video message, said the problem with the license plates must still be solved and he urged leaders of both countries to find a solution.
Vucic said earlier in the day that he hoped an agreement on entry documents could be reached and that the EU would provide guarantees for it. He said he had little hope for an accord on license plates.
Ethnic Serbs in the north of Kosovo have been using car plates issued by Serbian institutions since the war in 1999 with acronyms of Kosovar cities, such as KM (Kosovska Mitrovica), PR (Pristina), or UR (Urosevac).
The government in Kosovo regards the plates as illegal but until now has tolerated them in four northern municipalities with Serb majorities.
CHISINAU -- Moldovan President Maia Sandu marked the 31st anniversary of the small nation’s independence following the collapse of the Soviet Union with a speech that included a condemnation of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and a push for the country's eventual EU membership.
“Russia's unjust war against Ukraine clearly shows us the price of freedom," she told a crowd on August 27 at the Great National Assembly Square in the capital, Chisinau.
"The war will end, and we will be able to get out of these crises stronger, more resilient," she said, speaking alongside Prime Minister Natalia Gavrilita and Igor Grosu, the speaker of the parliament.
Moldova, one of Europe's poorest countries, has a long border with Ukraine and has been hosting hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian refugees since the start of Moscow's unprovoked invasion of Ukraine.
Russia has some 1,500 troops in Moldova's Moscow-backed separatist region of Transdniester, a sliver of land sandwiched between Moldova proper and Ukraine.
In recent months, Transdniester separatists claimed that Kyiv had orchestrated what they claimed were shootings, explosions, and drone incursions, raising fears that Moldova could be drawn into the conflict in Ukraine.
Moldova's parliament voted on July 28 to extend a state of emergency for 60 days after the government said it still needed special powers to deal with the fallout from Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
Gavrilita told lawmakers that there are continuing risks to energy and border security and the need to manage the flow of refugees from Ukraine.
"The risks for Moldova due to the war in Ukraine remain high. The government needs additional powers," Gavrilita said at the time. The extension came into force on August 8 and will continue through October 8.
In June, the European Union formally agreed to take the “historic” step of making Moldova and Ukraine candidates for EU membership amid Moscow’s bitter denunciations of the two countries’ intensions to join the bloc.
In her Independence Day speech, Sandu, a pro-Western, U.S.-educated former World Bank official, said that "this year, Moldova became a candidate country for accession to the European Union. Moldova can become truly strong, able to defend its citizens only in the family of European countries.”
"If some ask what freedom and democracy are used for when prices rise, we will answer them: Our freedom makes us stronger, gives us voice, dignity, and power, makes us stand upright, not fearful, and judge by our own interest, not by the dictate of someone outside," she told the crowd.
The Czech Republic and Poland signed an agreement to protect the airspace of neighbor and fellow NATO member Slovakia as Bratislava ceases use of its old Soviet-made MiG-29 fighter jets at the end of this month.
The protection agreement signed on August 27 is scheduled to run until Slovakia receives an order of new F-16s from the United States, expected sometime in 2024.
Defense Ministers Mariusz Blaszczak of Poland, Jana Cernochova of the Czech Republic, and Jaroslav Nad of Slovakia signed the agreement at a Slovak air base.
“Polish fighters will preferably be taking off from a base located on Polish territory. Czech fighters will also provide airspace protection tasks from a base located on the territory of the Czech Republic and will return to their home bases once the task is completed,” the spokeswoman for the Slovak Defense Ministry said.
Nad last month said Slovakia may consider offering its current fleet of 11 MiG-29s to Ukraine in a possible swap of some kind as Kyiv battles against Russia’s invasion.
The 11 MiG-29s are worth an estimated $300 million.
Since Russia's February 24 invasion, Ukraine -- which is not a member of NATO -- has called on Western allies to provide it with warplanes in the face of Russian air superiority in the war.
Serbia’s president has tapped Prime Minister Ana Brnabic to head the country’s next cabinet.
At a press conference in Belgrade on August 27, President Aleksandar Vucic said the decision was “complex.” He added that Brnabic will not serve a full four-year term because there will be unspecified changes to the government in 2024. Brnabic “now has important tasks,” Vucic said. “It is important that she remains prime minister so that we can continue to solve problems,” Vucic said. Brnabic, who is the deputy head of the Serbian Progressive Party (SNS), became the first woman and the first openly gay person to hold the premiership when Vucic gave her her first mandate in 2017. Brnabic must now submit a proposed cabinet to the parliament for approval. The SNS and its traditional partner, the Socialist Party of Serbia, hold a majority in the legislature. Vucic also picked Novi Sad Mayor Milos Vucevic to be a deputy prime minister. He said SNS head Ivica Dacic will also serve as a deputy prime minister and will oversee the security services.
Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic has canceled the international EuroPride event that was scheduled to be held in Belgrade from September 12-18, while organizers of the event have vowed that it will proceed as planned.
At an August 27 press conference in Belgrade, Vucic acknowledged that the rights of sexual minorities are threatened in Serbia but said the government had come under intense pressure from right-wing groups and representatives of the Serbian Orthodox Church to cancel the event. “It is not a question of whether [those pressures] are stronger,” Vucic said. “It’s just that at some point you can’t achieve everything, and that’s it.” Vucic allowed for the possibility that the event could be held at a later date. EuroPride promotes lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex pride at the pan-European level and is hosted by a different European city each year. The event includes a Pride Parade. Kristine Garina, president of the European Pride Organizers Association that licenses EuroPride, issued a statement saying the event would not be canceled, despite Vucic’s remarks. “The right to hold Pride has been ruled by the European Court of Human Rights to be a fundamental human right,” Garina said, adding that any ban would violate the European Convention on Human Rights. “EuroPride in Belgrade will not be canceled and will bring together thousands of LGBTI+ people from across Europe.” Garina urged the Serbian authorities to “stand firm against these bullies and protect the event.” Marko Mihailovic, an activist with Belgrade Pride, posted on Twitter that Vucic’s decision to cancel the parade was “a clear violation of the constitution, as well as the verdict of the Constitutional Court declaring the bans of the Pride in 2011, 2012, and 2013 unconstitutional.” He vowed that the parade would proceed as scheduled on September 17. Serbia held its first gay-pride parade in 2001, and the event was met by violence and angry counterprotests by far-right and nationalist groups. At the next Belgrade pride parade, in 2010, more than 100 people were injured. However, a third gay-pride parade was organized in 2014, and the event passed without serious incident. Since then, annual pride parades have been held peacefully in Belgrade each year, except for 2020, when the event was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2019, Belgrade was selected to host EuroPride in a landslide vote. “I have seen for myself the violence and protests that Belgrade Pride has experienced in the past,” said Garina following the 2019 selection. “Our members’ votes for Belgrade show that we want EuroPride to have maximum impact.”
The UN coordinator for a Black Sea grain deal said that millions of tons of food needs to be moved out of Ukrainian silos to make room for the next harvest.
Amir Abdulla, UN coordinator for the Black Sea Grain Initiative, said on August 27 that the grain deal has “started creating some space, but much more grain needs to shift to make space for the new harvest."
A day earlier, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in a late-night address that Ukraine has exported more than 1 million tons of agricultural products by sea over the past month.
“The grain-exporting initiative has been working for almost a month and, during this time, our three seaports…have exported the first million tons,” Zelenskiy said.
Grain exports via the Black Sea were halted in the days after Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine on February 24. In July, Russia and Ukraine reached a UN-brokered agreement to resume the exports.
Zelenskiy said that since the agreement took effect, 44 ships had left Ukrainian ports bound for 15 foreign countries.
“The goal is to reach a volume of 3 million tons per month,” Zelenskiy said. “This is extremely important for Africa, Asia, and Europe.”
Earlier this month, the head of the UN’s World Food Program warned that even with the resumption of Ukraine’s exports, “we’re talking about a global food crisis at least for another 12 months.”
Separately, Britain's Ministry of Defense said it is sending six underwater drones to aid Kyiv’s efforts to clear its coastline of mines and allow food supplies to be safely transported out of Ukrainian ports. British defense officials said efforts to get food out of Ukraine are still being hampered by mines left in coastal waters by Russian forces. Officials said dozens of Ukrainian naval personnel will be trained in Britain on how to use the underwater drones. "Through the expert skills being taught here, our Ukrainian allies will be able to clear their own waters of mines,” said Admiral Ben Key, the chief of the naval staff.
The Russian Foreign Ministry has suspended the issuance of biometric foreign passports for “technical reasons,” the ministry said in an August 26 statement.
The ministry did not give a reason for the decision, but earlier Russia stopped issuing biometric internal documents because of a deficit of the required chips due to sanctions imposed against the country following its unprovoked invasion of neighboring Ukraine in February.
In June, the state-controlled Sberbank savings bank announced it was “recoding” old chips in order to use them for newly issued bank cards.
Ukrainian authorities have begun distributing iodine tablets to residents near the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant to provide protection against potential radiation poisoning in the event of a disaster at the facility.
RFE/RL's Live Briefing gives you all of the latest developments on Russia's ongoing invasion, how Kyiv is fighting back, Western military aid, global reaction, and the plight of civilians. For all of RFE/RL's coverage of the war, click here.
The move on August 27 comes as Ukraine and Russia traded accusations of shelling around the site and one day after Russia blocked the adoption of a key UN statement over its language about the plant.
Experts expressed concerns about the cooling systems for the plant's nuclear reactors after the facility was temporarily knocked offline on August 25, endangering the power needed to run the systems.
A failure of the cooling system could cause a meltdown at Europe’s largest nuclear plant.
On August 27, Ukraine said Russian forces fired on towns across the river from the facility, while Russia claimed Ukrainian troops shelled a building where nuclear fuel is being stored.
The claims could not independently be verified.
The UN's International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said it has assembled a team of inspectors and is prepared to visit the site but that it remains unclear when they will be granted permission by the Russian side.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy stressed that it was crucial for the IAEA to inspect the plant as soon as possible and to allow it to return it to "Ukrainian control.”
Ukraine’s state Energoatom nuclear power company wrote on Telegram that “the infrastructure of the station has been damaged” by Russian shelling, adding that there was a risk of “sputtering of radioactive substances” and fires. Late on August 26, Russia blocked the adoption of the final document of a monthlong review of the UN’s Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, complaining that parts of the draft were “blatantly political in nature."
The conference’s president, Gustavo Zlauvinen of Argentina, said the conference was “not in a position to achieve agreement after Russia took issue with the text.”
The draft criticized Russia’s occupation of the Zaporizhzhya plant early after Moscow’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine in February. The move has raised global concerns of a possible nuclear disaster.
While Russian forces have occupied the plant, Ukrainian workers have maintained its operation.
Elsewhere in Ukraine, fighting and killing continued in disparate areas of the country, including near Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city.
Kharkiv regional Governor Oleh Sinegubov said Russian forces fired on two towns in the Kharkiv region, with at least one person, a 52-year-old woman, being killed in Zolochiv.
Kharkiv Mayor Ihor Terekhov said Russian troops shelled the Shevchenkivskyi district of the city, although no injuries were immediately reported.
Authorities in the southern city of Mykolayiv said one person was killed and another injured in Russian firing in the region.
Hungary has issued a permit that would allow the construction of two new nuclear reactors by the Russian state-owned company Rosatom.
The permit paves the way to expand the four-reactor nuclear plant in the southern city of Paks to six reactors. The project is expected to cost about $12.4 billion and will more than double the plant's capacity.
"This is a big step, an important milestone," Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said on Facebook on August 26 after the national regulator published the permit. "We can now move from planning stage to construction. You'll see that at the Paks site in the coming weeks."
Prime Minister Viktor Orban has maintained close ties between EU-member Hungary and Moscow despite the European Union's punitive sanctions against Russia following its unprovoked invasion of Ukraine in February.
Russia will finance most of the project with a $10 billion loan, and Hungary will pay the remaining $2.4 billion.
The facility in Paks, Hungary's lone nuclear power plant, was built in the 1980s using Soviet technology. Szijjarto said the new reactors could go on line by 2030 and that they would protect Hungary from "wild swings in energy prices."
The European Union, which is experiencing record prices for electricity and natural gas, recently introduced a plan that encourages members of the bloc to wean themselves off Russian energy. Hungary, which relies heavily on Russian natural-gas imports, has been granted an exemption that allows it to maintain higher import levels.
Rosatom has not been targeted by Western punitive sanctions against Russia, despite calls by Ukrainian activists and NGOs to blacklist the nuclear power giant.
In May, EU member Finland canceled a planned nuclear power plant project that would have used Russian technology due to the invasion of Ukraine.
In March, the Czech energy company CEZ launched a tender for a new nuclear plant in the Czech Republic in which Rosatom and China General Nuclear were not allowed to participate.
In June, CEZ switched from using Russian nuclear fuel supplies for its Temelin nuclear plant in favor of French and U.S. companies.
BISHKEK -- Kyrgyzstan's State Committee for National Security (UKMK) says its officers have detained three alleged jihadists in the Central Asian country's southern region of Batken.
One of the suspects detained on August 26, identified as Abu Nur, was said by the UKMK to be the leader of the extremist group. The group was allegedly involved in robberies for many years to raise money to support terrorist organizations in Syria.
Another detained man was allegedly a member of a criminal group led by Kadyr Dosonov, also known as Jengo.
The third suspect, the UKMK said, was a member of the Caucasus Emirate (Imarat Kavkaz) terrorist group and was involved in the distribution of extremist materials.
Security officers confiscated three military grenades, ammunition, three military knives, as well "a large number" of extremist religious texts and books.
The European Union will hold emergency talks to address the energy crisis brought on by Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala, whose country currently holds the EU Presidency, announced in a tweet on August 26 that the bloc's energy ministers would soon convene "to discuss specific emergency measures to address the energy situation."
No date has been announced for the meeting.
The 27-country bloc has taken steps to lessen its dependence on Russian energy imports and recently introduced a plan calling on member states to cut natural gas use by 15 percent.
The plan was introduced to prepare for a possible halt of Russian natural gas supplies, a concern that has risen with the recent announcement that a key pipeline will be temporarily shut down for maintenance.
Russia's dominant role as an energy supplier to the European Union has led to concerns that Moscow could limit supplies during winter as payback for EU sanctions introduced to punish Russia for its unprovoked war against Ukraine.
Record natural gas and electricity prices have been reported in the European Union in recent weeks.
Czech Industry and Trade Minister Jozef Sikela wrote on Twitter on August 26 that the EU Energy Council should meet "at the earliest possible date".
"We are in an energy war with Russia and it is damaging the whole EU," he wrote.
PODGORICA -- Montenegro suspects Russian involvement in a massive cyberattack targeting government websites and infrastructure, the second such attack on the Balkan country in less than a week.
A high-ranking source with the National Security Agency (ANB) told RFE/RL's Balkan Service that "critical state infrastructure" was targeted in the early morning cyberattack on August 26 and that Russian security services are suspected of involvement.
The ANB source, who requested anonymity due to the sensitivity of the issue, described the cyberattack as "unprecedented" in scale and said it was prepared over a long period of time.
The government has not announced the extent of the damage, but Public Administration Minister Maras Dukaj tweeted on August 26 that the attack was directed at the government's IT infrastructure and that "state authorities" were the primary target.
Dakaj said that some services had been temporarily disabled for security reasons but that the data of both citizens and businesses was secure. Dakaj also wrote that allies of Montenegro, a NATO member, had been notified of the attack.
Russian state security bodies have been accused of involvement in numerous hacking attacks and cyberattacks targeting Western governments and businesses in recent years. Experts have warned about the increased dangers of such attacks following Russia's unprovoked invasion of Ukraine in February, which led Western countries to impose punitive sanctions against Moscow.
Russia has denied any involvement in the cyberattacks.
Montenegro was also hit by a cyberattack on August 23. The government's IT structures, Interior Ministry, and Prosecutor-General's Office were all involved in the investigation into that attack.
In the wake of the August 26 attack, the National Council for Information Security announced that it plans to hold a special session to discuss the issue.
Prime Minister Dritan Abazovic said on August 26 that the two attacks were politically motivated, suggesting that there was a link between the cyberattacks and the lawmakers' planned August 20 no-confidence vote on his government.
ALMATY, Kazakhstan -- The mayor of Kazakhstan's largest city, Almaty, says that all Soviet-era bomb shelters for civilians will be restored as security concerns grow across countries of the former Soviet Union after Moscow launched its ongoing invasion of Ukraine.
Erbolat Dosaev said at a meeting with residents of Almaty's Almaly district on August 26 that the bomb shelters will be restored and renovated over the next three years at the personal request of President Qasym-Zhomart Toqaev.
Answering a resident's question about the reasons for the move, Dosaev said the program -- which he called part of the "restoration of Soviet-time historic sites" -- was launched because the commercial capital of the oil-rich Central Asian nation is located in a seismically unsafe area.
Media reports in Kazakhstan have said that of some 300 bomb shelters in Almaty that were built during Soviet times, only about 100 are still able to be used by civilians.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, many bomb shelters were turned into private businesses such as shops, beauty salons, casinos, bars, and restaurants.
The Kazakh leadership has been trying to strike a balance between Russia, China and NATO member-state Turkey amid fears that Moscow's geopolitical ambitions could spread well beyond Ukraine.
Last month, Toqaev signed a decree according to which an additional 441 billion tenges ($939.5 million) will be spent to support the nation's defense sector, a nearly 1.5-fold increase over last year’s budget of $1.7 billion.
Since Russia launched its full-scale aggression against Ukraine in late February, Kazakhstan has declined to officially offer its full support to either Moscow or Kyiv.
Germany's Foreign Ministry has confirmed the arrest of a German national in Iran for allegedly taking pictures in "prohibited areas."
The ministry declined to provide further details, but sources told RFE/RL's Radio Farda that the 66-year-old male has been in prison in Iran for more than a month.
The sources added that the man was arrested more than 40 days ago and has spent half of his time in custody in solitary confinement. He is now imprisoned in the general ward of Aran and Bidgol prison near the Iranian central city of Kashan, they said. The man reportedly visited several cities as he toured Iran on a motorcycle, including Tehran and Tabriz. German authorities only found out about his arrest after he lost contact with his family, which prompted them to seek help from the German Embassy in Iran. The German Foreign Ministry said its mission in Tehran has had access to the man, but further details could not be disclosed. Iranian judicial and security authorities have yet to announce the arrest of the German citizen. Two Iranian-German dual citizens, Jamshid Sharmahd and Nahid Taghvi, were already being held in Iran, which has arrested dozens of foreigners and dual nationals in recent years, often on widely criticized espionage and security-related charges. Western countries have repeatedly charged that Iran is trying to take advantage of foreign countries by taking dual and foreign nationals hostage. The arrest of the German national also comes as Iran and world powers are reportedly about to reach agreement on reviving the 2015 deal over Tehran's nuclear program.
BAKU -- Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev says his country’s armed forces have taken control over the key town of Lachin, which links the breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh with Armenia, that had been under the control of Russian peacekeepers since November 2020.
Aliyev wrote on Twitter on August 26 that Azerbaijani armed forces also now control the villages of Zabux and Sus in the Lachin district.
Armenia lost control over parts of the breakaway region and seven adjacent districts, including Lachin, as part of the Russian-brokered cease-fire after a six-week war over Nagorno-Karabakh broke out in 2020, leaving more than 6,500 dead. An estimated 2,000 Russian troops have been deployed to monitor the situation.
The peace agreement signed by Yerevan, Baku, and Moscow to end the 2020 war said that the 5-kilometer-wide Lachin corridor, including the town of Lachin, would remain under Russian peacekeeping control until the construction of a new route connecting Armenia with Nagorno-Karabakh is outlined in three years.
Earlier this month, Baku forcibly took control of several strategic heights near the disputed region, and Aliyev said in a public statement that people who "illegally settled" in Lachin, Zabux, and Sus should leave the area "on their own will."
He added that families of Azerbaijanis who had been forced to leave the territory 30 years ago would be returning.
Many ethnic Armenians in Lachin, Zabux, and Sus -- known as Berdzor, Aghavno, and Nerkin Sus by Armenians -- have left their homes in recent weeks after de facto officials of the disputed region said that Russian peacekeepers will leave the area by August 25 as the new route connecting Nagorno-Karabakh with Armenia will start functioning in early September.
Nagorno-Karabakh, which along with seven adjacent districts had been under ethnic Armenian control for nearly three decades prior to the war in 2020, is internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan.
The United States is establishing a new ambassadorial position for the Arctic as NATO has stressed the strategic challenges Russia's increased activity in the increasingly competitive region poses for the military alliance.
"The ambassador-at-large for the Arctic region will advance U.S. policy in the Arctic, engage with counterparts in Arctic and non-Arctic nations, as well as indigenous groups," the U.S. State Department said in an August 26 statement.
The United States is one of the eight littoral states of the Arctic and is a member of the Arctic Council, an intergovernmental forum that promotes cooperation in region.
Competition over the Arctic's natural resources has increased in recent years, with Russia investing heavily in military security, mining efforts, and expanded trade routes.
Moscow has also attempted to expand its zone in the Arctic region, based on its claims that a ridge beneath the Arctic Ocean is an extension of its territory.
During a visit to the Canadian Arctic on August 26, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg lauded Canada's recently announced investments in new defense systems in the region.
"The importance of the High North is increasing for NATO and for Canada because we see a significant Russian military buildup," Stoltenberg said.
Stoltenberg noted that Moscow had reopened hundreds of Soviet-era military facilities in the Arctic and warned that Russia and China were partnering to challenge NATO's values and interests in the region.
Following Russia's unprovoked invasion of Ukraine in February, Canada announced in June that it plans to invest $3.8 billion to upgrade NORAD, a joint U.S.-Canadian defense organization for North America, over the next six years.
Climate change is also a great source of concern in the Arctic region, which is home to numerous indigenous peoples whose livelihoods have been greatly affected by environmental changes.
Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoev has approved a new leader for the Central Asian nation's Autonomous Republic of Karakalpakstan, where 21 people were killed last month during unrest sparked by a move to curtail the region's autonomy.
Mirziyoev attended a session of Karakalpakstan's Supreme Council (Jokargy Kenes) in the regional capital, Nukus, on August 26, where, after his approval, Amanbai Orynbaev was elected as council chairman.
Orynbaev's predecessor, Murat Kamalov, was removed from the post earlier in the day.
On July 1, mass protests broke out in Nukus and other cities in the republic after changes initiated by Mirziyoev were proposed to the Uzbek Constitution, including the removal of language that guaranteed the right of Karakalpakstan to seek independence should its citizens choose to do so in a referendum.
Amid a darkening protest mood in the region, Mirziyoev visited Nukus on July 2, where he publicly backed away from the plans.
The European Union has called for an independent investigation into the violent events in Karakalpakstan at the time.
Karakalpaks are a Turkic-speaking people of Central Asia. Their region used to be an autonomous area within Kazakhstan before becoming an autonomy within the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic in 1930 and then part of Uzbekistan in 1936.
Thousands of Iranians attended a funeral procession in Tehran for prominent poet Houshang Ebtehaj, whose life and work spans many of Iran's political, cultural, and literary upheavals.
Born in 1928, Ebtehaj, considered by many as the last living old-school Iranian poet, died on August 10 in Germany. According to his daughter Yalda Ebtahaj, the cause of death was kidney failure. Local media reported that after the funeral ceremony in front of Vahdat Hall in Tehran, Ebtahaj's body will be transferred to his hometown, Rasht, to be buried.
In addition to romantic themes in Ebtehaj's poems, socialist politics was considered the center of his identity. Ebtehaj sympathized with the Tudeh Communist Party of Iran and spent some time in prison after the overthrow of the monarchy in Iran in 1979. Ebtehaj was finally released in 1984 after the famous Iranian poet Mohammad Hossein Shahryar requested Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the president of Iran at the time, release him. Ebtehaj had lived in Germany since the late 1980s.
French President Emmanuel Macron says it is now up to Iran to decide whether a 2015 nuclear pact can be revived amid signs of momentum toward an agreement is building.
Speaking to reporters during a trip to Algeria on August 26, Macron declined to speculate on the chances of an agreement being reached but said a deal based on the terms presented by the EU would be "better than no agreement."
"Now the ball is in Iran's court," Macron said.
After the EU sent the proposed text to both Tehran and Washington in late July, Iran responded with several comments last week.
Washington formally responded to Tehran's comments on the draft text two days ago, with Iranian officials saying they are now reviewing the U.S. response.
Washington has said it was encouraged by Iran appearing to drop some of its demands such as the lifting of the terrorism designation for Iran's Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) but added there were still outstanding issues that must be resolved.
Iran reached the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in 2015 with the United States, France, Germany, Britain, Russia, and China. The deal saw Iran agree to limit its enrichment of uranium under the watch of UN inspectors in exchange for the lifting of most economic sanctions.
In 2018, Washington unilaterally withdrew from the nuclear pact under then-President Donald Trump, reintroducing crippling sanctions. Iran reacted by gradually backtracking on its obligations under the deal, such as uranium enrichment.
Negotiators from Iran, Russia, and the EU -- as well as the United States, indirectly -- resumed talks over Tehran’s nuclear deal on August 4 in Vienna after a months-long standstill in negotiations.
Iran has sought to obtain guarantees that no future U.S. president would renege on the JCPOA if it were revived.
However, President Joe Biden cannot provide such ironclad assurances because the deal is a political understanding rather than a legally binding treaty.
MINSK -- Belarus's authoritarian ruler, Alyaksandr Lukashenka, says his country's Su-24 military planes have been re-fitted to enable them to carry nuclear weapons.
Lukashenka, who has allied himself with the Kremlin in Russia's war against Ukraine, said on August 26 that he had agreed to the move with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
"[The West] must understand that neither helicopters nor planes will save them if they go for escalation. We, along with Putin, said once in St. Petersburg that we will adapt the Belarusian Su [-24] planes as well to make them capable to carry nuclear arms. Do you think we were just yakking? Everything is ready!" Lukashenka told reporters in Minsk.
He did not present any evidence to back up his claim. Belarus does not have its own nuclear weapons, and it supposedly decommissioned its fleet of Su-24 jets a decade ago, though it is possible the aircraft could be overhauled and put back into service.
Putin and Lukashenka met in St. Peterburg on June 25, and the Russian leader said at the meeting that Moscow would supply Belarus with Iskander-M missile systems, adding that delivery would take place within a few months.
The Iskander-M is a mobile guided-missile system with a range of up to 500 kilometers.
Lukashenka's statement comes as Moscow-launched invasion of Ukraine entered the seventh month.
Belarus is not a direct participant in the war in Ukraine, but it has provided logistical support to Moscow's invasion that began on February 24 by allowing Russian forces to enter Ukraine via the Belarus border.
Western nations have slapped Belarus, like Russia, with an ever-increasing list of harsh financial sanctions in response to the Kremlin's war on Ukraine and for Belarus's efforts to aid the Russian invasion.
Russian businessman Yevgeny Prigozhin, known as a close associate of President Vladimir Putin, has asked the Investigative Committee to check a report by the newspaper Fontanka about the recruitment of inmates in penitentiaries to fight in the war launched against Ukraine.
Prigozhin's company Konkord said on August 26 that the businessman, who is believed to run Russia's private Vagner paramilitary group, asked investigators to look into the report's author, Ksenia Klochkova, and Fontanka's chief editor, Aleksandr Gorshkov, calling the report about recruitment by Vagner of inmates in Russian prisons "fake" and aimed at "creating a negative image" of Russia and its leadership.
Neither journalist nor the newspaper has commented on the request for a probe to be launched.
The report tells the story of a mother -- whose identity is not revealed for safety reasons -- who is trying to find her son, who disappeared from a prison where he was serving a two-year sentence for auto theft. The son eventually was located in the eastern Ukrainian region of Luhansk, which is controlled by Russia.
Facing heavy casualties in a war whose end may be months or years away, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s government and the military have taken numerous steps to bolster recruitment without, at least for now, ordering a general mobilization that could be politically risky. On August 25, Putin signed a decree to increase the size of the armed forces from 1,902,000 to 2,039,758.
Vagner has never admitted to recruiting fighters who are in prison, but human rights groups say they have heard hundreds of cases where inmates are being lured into fighting in Ukraine.
Last month, the Gulagu.net human rights group that monitors the treatment of inmates at Russian penitentiaries said hundreds of men at a prison in the North Caucasus region of Adygea had agreed to be sent to fight in Russia's war against Ukraine after a round of aggressive recruiting that included promises of cutting sentences and financial remuneration.
Earlier this month, the founder of the Russia Behind Bars right group, Olga Romanova, said that the program wasn't limited to convicts. She said suspects at pretrial detention centers are being recruited as well to the armed forces.
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On August 26, the Meduza online newspaper reported that a 44-year-old inmate Yevgeny Yeryomenko was buried in the northwestern region of Karelia. Yeryomenko's mother and girlfriend told Meduza he had eight years left in his a 10-year prison sentence for extortion and was recruited to the Russian Army in June and killed in Ukraine's Donetsk region in July.
Ukrainian authorities have claimed that Russia has lost more than 46,200 soldiers and officers since it launched the large-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, while Western intelligence agencies have said the number probably exceeds 20,000. The Russian Defense Ministry last released casualty figures in late March, saying that 1,351 of its personnel had died.
Ukraine's Commander-in-Chief Valeriy Zaluzhniy said earlier this week that nearly 9,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed since Russia launched its ongoing unprovoked invasion six months ago.
A court in Moscow has issued an arrest warrant for Svetlana Valeryevna Timofeyeva, whose personal data fully coincides with those of a woman detained in Albania on espionage charges.
The Meshchansky district court said on August 26 that it also added Timofeyeva, who Russia has accused of illegally obtaining classified information, to its international wanted list.
The full name and date of birth mentioned by the court with regard to Timofeyeva is the same as that of Russian photographer Svetlana Timofeyeva, also known as Lana Sator, who was arrested along with two men several days ago in Albania.
Timofeyeva is known as a photographer who takes pictures of functioning and abandoned plants and factories and places them on her Instagram account, which has more than 250 subscribers.
Timofeyeva and two men identified as a Russian citizen, Mikhail Zorin, and Ukrainian national Fedir Mykhaylov, were detained on August 20 on the territory of a former weapons manufacturing plant in Albania, a member of NATO and a supporter of Ukraine in its defense against Russia’s invasion, now in its seventh month.
The Gramsh military plant opened in 1962 to produce AK-47 rifles and other weapons. It stopped production after the fall of communism in 1990 and began to dismantle the weapons.
The plant is still used to repair other military weapons, but there is no longer any production there.
Authorities said that Timofeyeva and Mykhaylov were detained near the facility while Zorin was detained inside the plant and used pepper spray on two military guards trying to capture him.
On August 24, the trio was sent to pretrial detention.
U.S. special envoy for the Western Balkans Gabriel Escobar, who is on a visit to the region, vowed Washington's support for the European Union's efforts to resolve an ongoing dispute between Kosovo and Serbia and urged both sides to refrain from violence as longstanding differences between Belgrade and Pristina flared again.
Tensions between Kosovo and Serbia resurfaced late last month over an announced change in border policy that would have meant Serbian identity documents and vehicle license plates would no longer be valid in Kosovo territory.
Ethnic Serbs, who live mostly in northern Kosovo, reacted with fury, putting up roadblocks and firing their guns into the air and in the direction of Kosovo police officers. No one was injured.
Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti postponed the implementation of the measure until September 1, after apparent pressure from the West.
The two sides fought a bloody war in the late 1990s, with Kosovo eventually declaring independence from Serbia in 2008. Belgrade -- as well as Russia, China, and five EU member states -- has not recognized its former province's independence and accuses Pristina of trampling on the rights of minority Serbs, who account for 5 percent of Kosovo's 1.8 million population, which is 90 percent Albanian.
For the past several years, the EU has mediated negotiations between Kosovo and Serbia to normalize relations, seeking to kickstart their efforts to join the European Union.
Escobar and the EU envoy Miroslav Lajcak both met with Serbia’s President Aleksandar Vucic in Belgrade on August 25 after holding talks in Kosovo with Kurti and ethnic Serb leaders as part of the efforts to resolve the disputed issue.
"We want both sides to commit that there will be no violence," Escobar said at a press conference on August 26 at the U.S. Embassy in Belgrade.
Escobar said the talks were difficult, "but I saw the will to find a solution, the will to build trust in the process."
Lajcak described the talks as "difficult but responsible."
Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic admitted at a press conference in Belgrade on August 26 that little headway had been made on some key issues such as the license plate registration but said he was still hopeful "some compromise" could be found in further talks, though none has been officially scheduled.
Serbia is a candidate to join the EU, but Brussels has warned it must improve relations with Kosovo before its application is considered.
NATO peacekeepers have stepped up their presence in northern Kosovo in response to the increased tensions.
Ukraine's state nuclear company, Enerhoatom, has said that both functioning reactors at the Russia-occupied Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant have been reconnected to the electrical grid after Kyiv earlier claimed that the plant was cut from the national power grid by Russian shelling.
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Enerhoatom announced at midday on August 26 that the first nuclear reactor had been reconnected to the power grid. In announcing that the second had been reconnected in the evening, Enerhoatom said in a statement that "the Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant, despite numerous provocations by the occupiers, continues to function."
The nuclear plant was disconnected for the first time in its four-decade history on August 25 because of a fire that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said was caused by Russian shelling that struck the last working power line linking the plant to the grid.
Enerhoatom on August 26 also accused Russia of damaging three other power lines linked to the Zaporizhzhya facility.
Earlier, Enerhoatom said there were no issues with the plant's machinery or its safety systems, as electricity for the plant's own needs was currently being supplied through a power line from Ukraine's electricity system.
On August 25, Zelenskiy said a nuclear radiation disaster was narrowly avoided after Russian shelling in the area caused the electricity to Zaporizhzhya, Europe's largest nuclear plant, to be cut for hours.
Russian bombardment triggered fires in the ash pits of a nearby coal power station that disconnected the Russian-controlled plant from the power grid on August 25, Zelenskiy said, but back-up diesel generators provided the electricity supply vital for cooling and safety systems at the plant.
Russia has denied responsibility, with the Moscow-installed officials in Zaporizhzhya region blaming the fire and subsequent outage on Ukraine's armed forces.
Zelenskiy praised the Ukrainian technicians who operate the plant, which has been under the Russian military's control since early in the war. The plant has six Soviet-designed reactors, but just two have remained in operation amid the fighting.
"Russia has put Ukraine and all Europeans in a situation one step away from a radiation disaster," he added.
Disconnecting the plant from the grid posed a potential danger as a failure in backup power systems could have led to a loss of coolant and brought about a melting of the fuel in the reactor core.
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Foreign officials have warned of a potential catastrophe and continue to push Russian and Ukrainian forces to do more to safeguard Europe's largest nuclear station.
Russia has controlled the facility since about two weeks after invading Ukraine on February 24, keeping workers prisoner and holding them at gunpoint to operate the plant, whose first reactor went into operation in 1985.
Western leaders have demanded that Russia hand the plant back to Ukraine, while UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has called for it to be "demilitarized."
On August 26, French President Emmanuel Macron warned against the use of civilian nuclear facilities as an instrument of war.
"War in any case must not undermine the nuclear safety of the country, the region, and all of us. Civil nuclear power must be fully protected," Macron said during a visit to Algeria.
Western leaders have previously demanded that Russia hand the plant back to Ukraine, while the UN chief has called for it to be "demilitarized." The UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), has declared its intention to send a mission to inspect the power station.
In Washington, White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters on August 25, "Russia should agree to the demilitarized zone around the plant and agree to allow an International Atomic Energy Agency visit as soon as possible to check on the safety and security of the system."
On the battlefield, the General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces said on August 26 that its forces had repulsed Russian assaults on the towns of Bakhmut and Soledar in the eastern Donetsk region and struck ammunition depots and enemy personnel in the southern Kherson region.
The Ukrainian General Staff earlier said that Russian forces conducted unsuccessful offensive operations in the direction of Slovyansk in the Donetsk region and kept pounding Kharkiv, Ukraine's second-largest city, as well as Kramatorsk, Novopavlivka, Zaporizhzhya, and the area of the Pivdenniy Buh river with artillery, tank, and rocket fire.
Russia's offensive in eastern and southern Ukraine has slowed down in recent weeks, apparently hampered by high losses in personnel and military equipment, despite Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu's recent claim that Moscow was reducing the pace intentionally in order to avoid collateral damage among civilians.
Britain's Defense Ministry said in its daily intelligence bulletin on August 26 that Shoigu's statement was "almost certainly deliberate misinformation."
British intelligence said Russia's offensive had stalled because of poor Russian military performance and fierce Ukrainian resistance.
It said that Shoigu and President Vladimir Putin have "very likely" fired at least six generals for not advancing quickly enough.
The intelligence report said a Russian missile strike on a railway station in central Ukraine on August 24 that Moscow said was targeting a Ukrainian military train highlighted "Russia’s willingness to cause collateral damage when it perceives there is military advantage in launching missile or artillery strikes."
The strike left at least 25 people dead, including children, Kyiv has said, while Russia's Defense Ministry claimed, without producing any evidence, that the strike targeted and killed more than 200 Ukrainian soldiers who were on their way to fight in Donbas.
Neither the Russian nor the Ukrainian claims could be independently verified.
U.S. air strikes this week targeted Iran-linked targets in Syria and were carried out to protect and defend American personnel, U.S. President Joe Biden said. The attacks came amid a significant uptick this week in fighting involving U.S. forces.
Biden made the comments in an August 25 letter to the leader of the U.S. House of Representatives, and it comes amid three days of skirmishes involving U.S. military forces and their allies.
In the letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Biden said he ordered the strikes "consistent with my responsibility to protect United States citizens both at home and abroad and in furtherance of United States national security and foreign policy interests."
Local military officials said the U.S. military hit several targets on August 25 in the Syrian city of Mayadin in parts of Deir al-Zor Province under Syrian government control.
At least three members of an Iran-aligned militia were killed when they were targeted by a U.S. helicopter, news reports said.
The attack occurred in a town along the western bank of the Euphrates River.
Iranian militias have a strong presence in the town and have long targeted the nearby al-Omar oil field on the eastern bank of the Euphrates, where the U.S. coalition has a major base.
In the past 24 hours, the U.S. military said, four militants have been killed and seven rocket launchers destroyed.
The Pentagon said three U.S. personnel suffered minor injuries as a result of the back-and-forth on August 24.
Deir al-Zor is an oil-rich strategic province bordering Iraq that is controlled by Iran-backed militia groups and Syrian forces. The groups have been targeted in the past by Israeli warplanes.
The Iranian Foreign Ministry on August 24 denied Tehran had any link to the sites targeted.
"The U.S. attack on Syrian infrastructure and people is a violation of Syria's sovereignty and territorial integrity," spokesman Nasser Kanaani was quoted as saying on the ministry's Telegram channel. "The sites targeted had no links to the Islamic Republic."
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