An F-14 fighter jet belonging to Iran's military crashed in the central Isfahan region on June 18 due to a technical failure, Iranian news agencies reported.
The pilot and co-pilot ejected safely and suffered only minor injuries, IRNA reported.
“An Air Force F-14 fighter plane suffered a technical failure during a mission this morning as it was landing in the Shahid Babaei base in Isfahan,” IRNA said.
Rasul Motamedi, head of the military's public relations department in Isfahan, told Fars news agency that the U.S.-made warplane was on a training mission in the area.
Iran’s air force has an assortment of U.S.-made military aircraft purchased before the 1979 Islamic Revolution as well as Russian-made MiG and Sukhoi warplanes.
Decades of Western sanctions have made it hard to obtain spare parts and maintain the aging fleet.
In May a fighter jet crashed in the central desert of Iran, killing both pilots. In February, a fighter jet plunged into a soccer field in the country’s northwestern city of Tabriz, killing both pilots and a civilian.
Kyiv said on September 23 that it has stripped the Iranian ambassador of his accreditation and decided to reduce Iran's diplomatic presence in Ukraine to protest drone deliveries to Russia.
"Supplying Russia with weapons to wage war against Ukraine is an unfriendly act that deals a serious blow to relations between Ukraine and Iran," the Foreign Ministry said in a statement. "In response to such an unfriendly act the Ukrainian side has decided to deprive the ambassador of Iran of his accreditation and also to significantly reduce the number of diplomatic staff" at the Iranian Embassy in Kyiv, it added. Earlier on September 23, Kyiv said that one civilian was killed during a Russian attack with drones on the southern port city of Odesa and that one Iranian-designed unmanned vehicle was shot down by Ukrainian forces. There was no immediate reaction from Tehran. Iran has in the past dismissed accusations by the United States and Ukraine that it is supplying drones to Russia to use in its unprovoked war against its neighbor.
A jury in a high-profile trial in Russia has found a former member of the parliament's upper chamber, the Federation Council, guilty of organizing two murders.
The jury at the Moscow City Court said on September 23 that Rauf Arashukov was guilty of organizing the 2010 murders of Fral Shebzukhov, an adviser to the leader of the North Caucasus region of Karachai-Cherkessia, and Aslan Zhukov, deputy chairman of a youth movement in the mostly Muslim region. The jury also found Arashukov's father, Raul Arashukov, guilty of ordering the two killings. Raul Arashukov was a lawmaker in Karachai-Cherkessia and an adviser to the chief executive of a Gazprom subsidiary. Rauf Arashukov, 36, was detained in late January 2019 at a dramatic session of the upper house, after fellow lawmakers voted to strip him of his immunity from prosecution. The younger Arashukov, who could be sentenced to life in prison following the guilty verdict, was also charged with participation in a "criminal community" and witness-tampering. He represented Karachai-Cherkessia in the Federation Council. His membership in the regional branch of the Kremlin-controlled United Russia party was suspended after his arrest. His 62-year-old father was also arrested at the time along with several other people, including Rauf Arashukov's cousin. Both Rauf and Raul Arashukov pleaded not guilty. The former lawmaker has insisted that the case against him and his father is politically motivated.
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres met with Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi in New York on September 22 and raised human rights issues, a UN spokesman said.
The UN is concerned "about reports of peaceful protests being met with excessive use of force leading to dozens of deaths and injuries," spokesman Stephane Dujarric told reporters on September 23. "We call on the security forces to refrain from using unnecessary or disproportionate force and appeal to all to exercise restraint to avoid further escalation," Dujarric said. The call came amid protests in dozens of cities over the death of Mahsa Amini, 22, following her arrest by the morality police in Tehran.
The head of the regional military administration in Ukraine's Kharkiv region, Oleh Synyehubov, says 436 bodies, including 30 with signs of torture, were exhumed from a mass burial site near the eastern city of Izyum recaptured from Russian forces in early September.
Synyehubov said on September 23 that most of the bodies have signs of a violent death.
"Some bodies have ropes on the necks, tied hands, broken limbs, and burn wounds. Several men had their genitals cut off. All that indicates torture the occupiers imposed on the residents of Izyum. The majority of the bodies are civilians, 21 are military personnel," Synyehubov wrote on Telegram. Synyehubov also said that at least three more mass graves had been found in Izyum, and more in the Kharkiv region where demining operations are under way. The discovery of a mass burial site and evidence of torture in Izyum days after the city was retaken from Russian forces during Ukraine’s successful offensive in early September shocked Ukrainians and the international community. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy called it proof of war crimes.
The U.S. announced on September 23 that it was easing export restrictions on Iran to expand access to Internet services which have been severely curbed by the government amid protests over the death of a woman following her arrest by the morality police.
The Treasury said in a statement that it was seeking to increase support for Internet freedom in Iran through updating a general license allowing access to certain services, software, and hardware after the government on September 21 restricted the Internet severely after days of unrest sparked by the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, who died in police custody after being detained for allegedly violating the strictly enforced dress code regarding the hijab. "While Iran’s government is cutting off its people’s access to the global internet, the United States is taking action to support the free flow of information and access to fact-based information to the Iranian people," the statement said. Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo added: “As courageous Iranians take to the streets to protest the death of Mahsa Amini, the United States is redoubling its support for the free flow of information to the Iranian people...With these changes, we are helping the Iranian people be better equipped to counter the government’s efforts to surveil and censor them." Adeyemo said that Washington would continue to issue guidance on the matter in the coming weeks.
The new license includes social media platforms and video conferencing. It also expands access to cloud-based services used to deliver virtual private networks (VPNs), which provide users with anonymity online, and other anti-surveillance tools, according to a Treasury official, who briefed reporters on the license on condition of anonymity. The license also continues to authorize antivirus, anti-malware and anti-tracking software, the Treasury said, and removes a previous condition that communications be "personal" to ease compliance for companies. Asked how the expanded license would help Iranians if their government again shuts down Internet access, a State Department official also briefing reporters said Iran's government would still have "repressive tools for communication." Netblocks, a London-based Internet observatory group, said on September 21 that Iran is now subject to the most severe Internet restrictions since violent protests in November 2019 over a sudden rise in the price of gasoline. The Iranian government claims Amini died after suffering a heart attack but her supporters and family dispute that, saying she was beaten while being apprehended.
Finland says it will "significantly restrict" Russian citizens from entering the country after President Vladimir Putin's decree announcing a partial mobilization of military reservists for the war in Ukraine triggered an exodus from Russia that has clogged its borders.
The Finnish government said in a statement on September 23 that its decision to limit the number of Russians entering the country was needed because the influx had done "serious damage to Finland's international position." The statement gave no details on potential measures that will be taken to restrict border crossings or when they would take effect. Reuters quoted a Finnish border guard as saying that the number of Russians trying to cross into the country appeared to have more than doubled on September 23 from the previous day, when an estimated 7,000 entered from Russia. Finland has remained one of the few entry points into Europe from Russia since Moscow's unprovoked invasion of Ukraine in late February prompted many European countries to close their physical borders and ban Russian planes from their airspace.
The Kyrgyz Embassy in Moscow has warned Kyrgyz men and women with dual Kyrgyz-Russian citizenship that they are considered Russian citizens while residing in the Russian Federation, and thus could face military service after President Vladimir Putin announced a partial military mobilization to boost troop levels during the war with Ukraine.
Hours after Putin announced the partial military mobilization on September 21, the Kyrgyz Embassy in Moscow issued a statement saying that any form of participation by Kyrgyz citizens in military activities on the territory of foreign countries is considered to be mercenary activity and will be punished by up to 10 years in prison.
However, embassy spokeswoman Nazgul Jusubakunova told RFE/RL on September 23 that, while reports Russian authorities were forcing Kyrgyz citizens to mobilize for the war in Ukraine were not true, she did note that "according to Russian federal law on migration, Kyrgyz citizens who obtained Russian citizenship, and therefore have dual citizenship, are considered Russian citizens only."
RFE/RL's Live Briefing gives you all of the latest developments on Russia's ongoing invasion, Kyiv's counteroffensive, Western military aid, global reaction, Russian protests, and the plight of civilians. For all of RFE/RL's coverage of the war, click here.
On September 20, Russian lawmakers approved a bill on amendments to the Criminal Code that envisages lengthy prison terms for Russian citizens who refuse to join the Russian armed forces. Concerns over being forced to fight in Ukraine are running high across the country, with thousands trying to flee to countries where they don't need visas. But those with non-Russian backgrounds are particularly concerned. The Washington-based Institute for the Study of War said in a report on September 22 that Russian authorities will "likely mobilize ethnically non-Russian and immigrant communities at a disproportionate rate" to the ongoing invasion of Ukraine, launched in late February. "A member of the Kremlin’s Russian Human Rights Council, Kirill Kabanov, proposed mandatory military service for Central Asian immigrants that have received Russian citizenship within the last 10 years, threatening to confiscate their Russian citizenship if they do not mobilize," the report said. According to official Kyrgyz statistics, more than 1 million Kyrgyz citizens reside in Russia as labor migrants. About half of them hold dual Kyrgyz-Russian citizenship and therefore are eligible for military mobilization in Russia.
MINSK -- Another Belarusian journalist has gone on trial on charges that many consider unfounded and politically motivated as a crackdown on independent media, political dissent, and democratic institutions continues in the country that has been run by the authoritarian ruler Alyaksandr Lukashenka since 1994.
The Minsk City Court started the trial of Syarhey Satsuk, the chief editor of the Yezhednevnik (Daily News) website, on September 23 behind closed doors. Satsuk, an investigative journalist, was arrested in early December after police searched his home. He was charged with bribe-taking at the time but he said in a letter, which he managed to circulate from behind bars, that he faced new charges as well. One of his former cellmates said later that Satsuk was additionally charged with inciting hatred and abuse of office. It is not known what actions the charges stem from exactly. Belarusian human rights organizations have recognized Satsuk as a political prisoner. Satsuk is one of 28 Belarusian journalists who are currently in custody, many of whom have been jailed since an August 2020 presidential election where Lukashenka was officially announced as the winner. Rights activists and opposition politicians, however, say the poll was rigged.
Thousands have been detained during countrywide protests over the results and there have been credible reports of torture and ill-treatment by security forces. Several people have died during the crackdown. Lukashenka has refused to negotiate with the opposition and many of its leaders have been arrested or forced to leave the country. The United States, the European Union, and several other countries have refused to acknowledge Lukashenka as the winner of the vote and imposed several rounds of sanctions on him and his regime, citing election fraud and the police crackdown.
U.S. singer and actress Barbra Streisand, whose grandparents emigrated from Ukraine to the United States, says she held a phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy where she pledged to donate to the United24 platform that Kyiv has set up to accept money from around the world as it fights to repel Russia’s invasion.
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“I have been moved by the resilience and courage of the Ukrainian people and his inspirational leadership,” Streisand said in a tweet accompanied by a picture of Zelenskiy during their phone call on September 22. UNITED24 was launched by Zelenskiy as a venue for collecting charitable donations in support of Ukraine. The website said that funds donated “will be transferred to the official accounts of the National Bank of Ukraine and allocated by assigned ministries to cover the most pressing needs.” The 80-year-old Streisand, who said she had pledged $24,000 to the fund, has been critical of Russia since it launched its unprovoked invasion of Ukraine in late February. “My paternal grandparents emigrated from Ukraine and my heart breaks for the courageous people there fighting this Russian invasion. Putin’s propaganda about “denazification” as a rationale is one of the great lies of this century, she wrote on February 24, just hours after the invasion was launched. Putin has said repeatedly that part of the reason he launched his “special military operation” in Ukraine was to “de-Nazify” Ukraine even though Zelenskiy, who was democratically elected, is Jewish and lost relatives in the Holocaust.
Streisand, who has sold more than 150 million records worldwide, has won 10 Grammy awards for her music and two Oscar awards for her acting.
KHABAROVSK, Russia -- A court in Russia's Far East has handed prison terms to three defendants who had been charged over a tent fire that claimed the lives of four children in 2019.
A court in the city of Khabarovsk on September 23 sentenced the owner of the Kholdomi tent camp, Vitaly Burlakov, to nine years in prison and the director of the camp, Maksim Kuznetsov, to eight years in prison after finding them guilty of manslaughter and failing to meet safety requirements while providing services. The court also barred the two men from occupying positions linked to children's upbringing and education for three years. A third defendant, Eduard Novgorodtsev, an employee of the Emergency Ministry, was found guilty of negligence that led to more than one death and sentenced to three years in prison. The fire on July 23, 2019, destroyed 20 tents and partially damaged six more tents in the Kholdomi camp, killing four children. In total there were 189 children between the ages of 7 and 15 at the camp when the fire broke out.
BISHKEK -- Bishkek has rejected a statement by Tajikistan alleging that ethnic Tajiks are being persecuted in Kyrgyzstan on ethnically motivated grounds.
In a statement issued late on September 22, the Kyrgyz Foreign Ministry called the Tajik statement "provocative," adding that Dushanbe "has fully discredited itself on the international scene by its groundless statements recently." Earlier in the day, the Tajik Foreign Ministry had accused the Kyrgyz government of going after ethnic Tajiks, alleging, among other things, cases such as "an ethnically motivated attack in Kyrgyzstan's Osh region on September 18 against a Tajik woman, Nasibakhon Davronbekova, who is a correspondent of RFE/RL." RFE/RL does not have any correspondent in Kyrgyzstan or elsewhere with that name. The ministry removed the sentence in question from the statement shortly afterward. A regional correspondent for the Voice of America who is based in Osh, Davronbek Nasibkhonov, is the only correspondent in the region working for an international broadcaster with a name similar to the one mentioned in the Tajik statement, accused Tajik authorities of misusing his name and surname for their political campaign. He wrote on Facebook that he is neither Tajik nor a woman, and that he has nothing to do with RFE/RL. Nasibkhonov said he is an ethnic Uzbek and a citizen of Kyrgyzstan, confirming that he was involved in a brawl on September 18 in the central park in Osh, but emphasizing that it had nothing to do with any ethnic issues. The exchange of statements between the two Central Asian nations comes amid heightened tensions following deadly clashes along the border between September 14 and September 17. Since a cease-fire was reached on September 19, Tajikistan has accused Kyrgyzstan of violating the agreement. The Kyrgyz side has rejected the accusation, saying it has stuck to all the conditions of the agreement. Kyrgyz officials say 59 of its citizens died in the recent clashes, and 183 others were injured. Tajikistan has put its death toll at 41, but correspondents for RFE/RL's Tajik Service have reported after talking to relatives and friends of the people killed during the clashes that the number of dead appears to be nearly double that number. They concluded that 70 people, including dozens of civilians, lost their lives and have compiled a list of those killed. Many border areas in Central Asia have been disputed since the Soviet Union's collapse in 1991. The situation is particularly complicated near the numerous exclaves in the volatile Ferghana Valley, where the borders of Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan meet. Almost half of the 970-kilometer Kyrgyz-Tajik border has yet to be demarcated, leading to repeated tensions since the two countries gained independence more than three decades ago.
Imprisoned Russian opposition politician Aleksei Navalny has been placed in punitive solitary confinement for the fifth time since mid-August for what he says are politically motivated reasons.
Navalny's press secretary Kira Yarmysh wrote on Telegram on September 23 that the outspoken Kremlin critic was sent back to a punitive solitary confinement for 12 days, one day after he finished his previous 15-day term there.
Meanwhile, a video showing Navalny speaking at an unspecified court hearing via a video link appeared on his Twitter account. In the video, he says the decision to return him to the punitive cell was politically motivated because of his recent statements criticizing President Vladimir Putin's decision to launch a partial military mobilization for the war in Ukraine.
"To stand against the idea of sending hundreds of thousands of our people to kill other innocent people for nothing, I will go [to punitive confinement] for 12 days or more if it is necessary," Navalny said in the statement. On September 21, hours after Putin announced the partial military mobilization amid recent Russian military losses in Ukraine, Navalny issued a statement condemning the move and accusing Putin of sending more Russians to their death for a failing war where some reports say tens of thousands of Russians have become casualties. Navalny was arrested in January 2021 upon his return to Moscow from Germany, where he was treated for a poison attack in Siberia in 2020 with what European labs defined as a Soviet-style nerve agent. Navalny has blamed Putin for the poison attack, which the Kremlin has denied. He was then handed a 2 1/2-year prison sentence for violating the terms of an earlier parole during of his convalescence abroad. The original conviction is widely regarded as a trumped-up, politically motivated case. In March, Navalny was sentenced in a separate case to nine years in prison on embezzlement and contempt charges that he and his supporters have repeatedly rejected as politically motivated.
UN investigators have concluded that war crimes have been committed during Russia's unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, including the bombing of civilians areas, numerous executions, torture, and horrific sexual violence.
"Based on the evidence gathered by the commission, it has concluded that war crimes have been committed in Ukraine," Erik Mose, the head of a Commission of Inquiry On Ukraine, told the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva on September 23. The commission, set up in May to investigate crimes in Russia's invasion of Ukraine, presented extensive findings outlining offenses committed during the war, launched by Moscow on February 24. Mose said his experts on the commission had received and documented “credible allegations regarding many more cases of executions.” The panel's finding cited testimonies by former detainees held in Russian detention facilities outlining beatings, electric shocks and forced nudity. The panel also expressed grave concerns about executions in the regions of Kyiv, Chernihiv, Kharkiv and Sumy -- all of which were previously occupied by Russian forces. Mose noted that a number of Russian soldiers were found to have committed gender-based and sexual crimes against people ranging in age from 4 years old to 82 years old. “We were struck by the large number of executions in the areas that we visited. The commission is currently investigating such deaths in 16 towns and settlements,” Mose added. Despite mounting evidence to the contrary, Russia has repeatedly denied targeting civilian infrastructure and residential areas, while accusing Ukraine of mistreating Russian prisoners of war.
Internationally issued payment cards by Russia's Mir reportedly have stopped functioning in Uzbekistan in the face of repeated warnings over failing to adhere to international sanctions against Moscow for its unprovoked invasion of Ukraine.
The RBK news agency, citing the Central Asian nation's UZCARD processing center, said on September 23 that Mir payment cards issued in Russia were not working, while those issued locally in Uzbekistan were still functioning. Earlier this week, several banks in Kazakhstan, Turkey, and Vietnam suspended the use of Mir payment cards amid warnings by the U.S. Treasury Department about possible sanctions to be imposed on institutions supporting Russia's payment system outside of Russia.
Russia has vowed to expand its Mir payments system in so-called friendly countries as Western sanctions attempt to shut it out of international finance over its war against Ukraine. On September 20, Reuters quoted a senior U.S. administration official who spoke on condition of anonymity as saying that steps by Turkey's Isbank and Denizbank to suspend the use of Russian payment system Mir "make a lot of sense." "Cutting off Mir is one of the best ways to protect a bank from the sanctions risk that comes from doing business with Russia. We expect more banks to cut off Mir because they don’t want to risk being on the wrong side of the coalition’s sanctions," the official said.
ALMATY, Kazakhstan -- Police in Kazakhstan's largest city, Almaty, briefly detained two activists who protested against a wave of Russian citizens entering the country after Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a partial military mobilization to boost troop levels in the war in Ukraine.
Qarakoz Qasym and Aisultan Qudaibergen were detained on September 23 at the Almaty international airport while holding posters saying: "Did you realize that you are cannon fodder?" and "Either respect or go away," as passengers from a Moscow-Almaty flight passed by after disembarking. Qasym told RFE/RL that she was expressing her support for the Ukrainian people, who are standing up to Russia's unprovoked invasion launched in late February. "I am against the flow of Russian citizens to Kazakhstan. This opinion of mine is shared by many. Through my rally, I wanted to show what people in my country think about all of this. There is no guarantee that those who're arriving here in droves now will not stab us in the back later," Qasym said. Qasym added that the police told her and Qudaibergen that they will be charged with "minor hooliganism," but after journalists interfered, the warnings disappeared. Police spokesman Ernar Tasqyn told RFE/RL that the two activists were released shortly after law enforcement officers "held preventive talks" and warned them about possible repercussions for repeat infractions. Since Putin announced a partial military mobilization on September 21, thousands of Russians have left for countries where Russians can enter without visas, such as Armenia, Belarus, Georgia, Serbia, Kazakhstan, and Mongolia. Videos showing long lines of vehicles leaving Russia and stuck along the Russian-Kazakh border have circulated on the Internet. On September 22, Kazakh parliamentary speaker Maulen Ashimbaev told reporters in Astana that his country will not issue residence permits to "individuals who fail to provide documents proving that the countries of their citizenship have no objections to their move to Kazakhstan." According to Kazakhstan’s official statistics, since the beginning of 2022, 1.6 million Russian citizens have come to Kazakhstan. It is not known how many of them have remained in the Central Asian nation.
Meta Platforms has denied accusations by Iranian activists that its WhatsApp messaging platform has been working with the government to disrupt communications outside the country amid growing civil unrest over the death of a 22-year-old after she was arrested by morality police for failing to adhere to the country's strict rules on wearing a hijab.
Tehran has restricted the popular messaging service inside Iran as the protests over the death of Mahsa Amini last week spread countrywide. State TV says as many as 26 people may have died so far in the unrest. Late on September 22, some users reported that their access to WhatsApp accounts abroad had also been disrupted, accusing tech giant Meta of collaborating with the Iranian government. Iranian right activist Hossein Ronaghi was one of those who raised the question of whether Meta, the owner of WhatsApp, was intentionally causing such a disruption. The company quickly denied any tie between the disruption and its actions. "We exist to connect the world privately. We stand with the rights of people to access private messaging. We are not blocking Iranian numbers. We are working to keep our Iranian friends connected and will do anything within our technical capacity to keep our service up and running," WhatsApp said in a post on Twitter after the accusations surfaced. The demonstrations were sparked by an emotional outpouring over the death of Amini, who authorities say died of a heart attack while in custody for allegedly violating the strictly enforced dress code regarding the hijab. Activists say she was beaten by security forces. They also come on top of months of unrest over rising prices and poor living conditions that many Iranians blame on the country's leadership. Despite the strong denial by Meta, some still questioned the company's role in the disruption and demanded a technical explanation about the reason for the disruption in WhatsApp -- and other Meta platforms such as Instagram -- of Iranians abroad. Anonymous, the international activist hacker group, accused Meta of censoring the protests in Iran on its Twitter account, “just like they did to Myanmar, Syria, Palestine.” Manoto TV, a London-based Persian-language television station, accused Meta of deleting a large number of videos from its Instagram page that were related to the protests in Iran and which were shared by the station with its 10 million followers. Many Iranian journalists and social media activists have reported previous incidents where they say Meta had also removed many of their posts related to anti-government protests and accused Instagram's content-review subcontractor of blocking content related to the rise in anger against the authorities. Bammad Esmaili, a German-based Iranian journalist, quoted several sources from the German branch of Telus International, a Canadian contractor that provides content moderation on Instagram, as saying that the Iranian government has offered financial rewards for the deletion of accounts opposing the Iranian government. Esmaili did not provide any evidence. Meta has not commented on the accusations.
Armenia and Azerbaijan have traded fresh accusations over a violation of a fragile cease-fire agreement that ended the worst fighting between the two ex-Soviet Caucasus countries since a 2020 war over the breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh.
In statements issued by both countries' defense ministries, the two sides accused each other of firing first in renewed clashes along their shared border. Following a flare-up that killed more than 200 soldiers during two days of fighting early last week, the two sides agreed to a cease-fire, brokered by Russia, to end hostilities, though the situation has remained tense. "On September 23, at 0740 (0340 GMT), units of the Azerbaijani armed forces again violated the cease-fire regime by firing from different positions against Armenian combat positions located in the eastern area of the Armenian-Azerbaijani border," Armenia's Defense Ministry said in a post on Facebook on September 23. “The enemy fire was silenced by retaliatory actions,” said Aram Torosian, the ministry spokesman. The ministry said one Armenian soldier was wounded.
The Azerbaijani Defense Ministry issued a statement on September 23 blaming Armenia for opening fire first. Baku said Armenia's armed forces had opened fire on three different areas of the shared border, "intermittently shelling positions of the Azerbaijani armed forces with mixed-caliber small arms" for nine hours starting around midnight. The ministry added it had taken "adequate retaliatory measures." Baku and Yerevan have been locked in a conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh for years. Armenian-backed separatists seized the mainly Armenian-populated region from Azerbaijan during a war in the early 1990s that killed some 30,000 people. The two sides fought another war in 2020 that lasted six weeks before a Russia-brokered cease-fire, resulting in Armenia losing control over parts of the region, which is part of Azerbaijan, and seven adjacent districts. Under the cease-fire, Moscow deployed about 2,000 troops to the region to serve as peacekeepers. Russia moved quickly to negotiate an end to the latest hostilities, but a renewal of the cease-fire has failed to hold.
Britain's Defense Ministry says Ukrainian forces have secured bridgeheads on the eastern bank of the Oskil River in the eastern part of the Kharkiv region, where Russian forces had attempted to establish a consolidated defense line following their hasty withdrawals in the face of the Ukrainian offensive.
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The Oskil flows south to the Siverskiy Donets River, which bisects the Luhansk region that along with Donetsk composes what's known as the Donbas.
The ministry said in its daily intelligence bulletin on September 23 that the battlefield situation remained complex in eastern Ukraine but that Ukrainian forces were now putting pressure on areas that Russia "considers essential to its war aims." Meanwhile, the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine reported in its morning briefing on September 23 that a Russian major general was wounded near Svatove in the Luhansk region. "The enemy continues to suffer losses, in particular among its leadership," the General Staff said in a statement. "According to currently available information, the commander of the 144th Motorized Rifle Division of the 20th Combined Arms Army, Major General Oleg Tsokov, was wounded as a result of fire in the area of the settlement of Svatove," the statement said. The Ukrainian military said the Russian occupiers are forcibly mobilizing men from the territories under its control "to replenish losses in manpower." Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a partial military mobilization on September 21 amid apparent heavy personnel losses in the unprovoked invasion of Ukraine that Moscow started in February.
Ukraine's General Staff said that, as of September 22, Russian forces have lost about 55,510 soldiers in the war. Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu on September 21 said that Russia had lost 5,937 soldiers since the start of the war. Neither figure could be independently confirmed.
Russia-backed officials in four partially-occupied Ukrainian regions have launched so-called referendums on joining the Russian Federation -- which some have called sham votes because they are illegal under international law -- amid claims by some local officials that voters were being threatened and intimidated.
RFE/RL's Live Briefing gives you all of the latest developments on Russia's ongoing invasion, Kyiv's counteroffensive, Western military aid, global reaction, Russian protests, and the plight of civilians. For all of RFE/RL's coverage of the war, click here.
Moscow-controlled administrations in the Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhya regions are holding the snap votes starting September 23 that run counter to the UN charter in the midst of the largest conflict in Europe since the end of World War II.
Ukrainian officials said people were banned from leaving some occupied areas until the four-day vote was complete, armed groups were going to homes to force people to cast ballots, and employees were threatened if they did not participate in balloting that the Kremlin is expected to use to annex the territories and escalate the war amid increasing signs that its invasion of Ukraine is faltering. Serhiy Hayday, Ukraine's regional governor in Luhansk, said in a post on Telegram that Russian authorities banned people from leaving for several days to ensure votes, while armed groups had been sent to search homes and coerce people to get out and take part in the referendum. "We have reports from people that the so-called 'voting commissions' coming to residences to record votes are accompanied by people with weapons.... If the doors to the apartments are not opened, they threaten to break them down," he said, adding that anyone voting "no" was written down in a ledger by the commissioners. The referendums have been condemned by Kyiv, Western leaders, and the United Nations as an illegitimate, choreographed precursor to illegal annexation. There are no independent observers, and much of the prewar population has fled. In his nightly address, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy called the vote a "sham" and undemocratic. The move comes as Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a partial military mobilization on September 21 amid apparent heavy personnel losses in the unprovoked invasion of Ukraine that Moscow started in February. The announcement triggered an exodus of able-bodied Russian men scrambling to leave the country to avoid being drafted, with traffic at frontier crossings with Finland and Georgia surging and prices for air tickets from Moscow skyrocketing.
Zelenskiy, switching from speaking in Ukrainian to Russian, spoke directly to Russian citizens in his address, telling them they are being “thrown to their deaths.” “You are already accomplices in all these crimes, murders, and torture of Ukrainians,” Zelenskiy said, adding, “because you were silent; because you are silent." He told Russians, that "now it’s time for you to choose." "For men in Russia, this is a choice to die or live, to become a cripple or to preserve health. For women in Russia, the choice is to lose their husbands, sons, grandchildren forever, or still try to protect them from death, from war, from one person,” Zelenskiy said. The hastily announced referendums were set up by the Kremlin-installed leaders of the four regions. They gave no prior warning that they planned to hold the vote on annexation between September 23- 27.
In Kherson, Serhiy Khlan, a Ukrainian deputy in the region's council, told RFE/RL on September 23 that the polling stations opened by Russian-controlled officials in the region have remained mostly empty, prompting them to start going house-to-house to collect votes "at gunpoint." "The occupiers have opened the polling stations. But there is no one at the polling stations, as people from the Kherson region point out. They are empty. The occupiers understand that they are empty, but they envisage door-to-door canvassing in their fake referendum. That is, it is no longer a secret vote. It is a forced collection of the answer 'yes' at gunpoint," Khlan said. The rushed decision to hold the vote comes as Ukraine’s military is on the offensive in those regions, liberating large swaths of territory and raising the specter of a potential Russian defeat. Western officials and experts say Putin plans to use the sham referendums to claim Ukraine is invading territory that is part of Russia. This week, he threatened the use of all of Russia's might -- a thinly veiled reference to his nuclear weapons -- in an attempt to frighten Kyiv and its Western backers from further military action.
The Kremlin showed little desire to mask its true goal over the balloting, with spokesman Dmitry Peskov telling reporters in Moscow on September 23 that he is "convinced" Russia will proceed "quite quickly" with taking over the regions if the vote is successful. Ukraine says it will never accept Russian territorial takeovers. The incorporation of the four areas would then allow Moscow to portray and moves to retake them as an attack on Russia itself -- potentially using that to justify even a nuclear response. Russia's moves have come during the UN General Assembly, where U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on September 22 called on members of the body's Security Council to “send a clear message that these reckless nuclear threats must stop immediately.” He called Russia's effort to annex more Ukrainian territory “another dangerous escalation, as well as a repudiation of diplomacy.”
Separately, the Group of Seven industrialized nations condemned annexation referendums being held in Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine as a "sham" with "no legal effect or legitimacy." "We will never recognisz these referenda which appear to be a step toward Russian annexation and we will never recognize a purported annexation if it occurs," the G7 leaders said in a statement on September 23. The Kremlin has carried out a series of acts in the Ukrainian territories under its control that further highlight the lack of any legitimacy the votes could have. Moscow has deported about 1.6 million Ukrainians from those regions to Russia, according to Western estimates, while also busing Russian citizens into Ukrainian territory.
WATCH: Long lines of vehicles have formed at a border crossing between Russia's North Ossetia region and Georgia after Moscow announced a partial military mobilization.
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It has also captured personal and biometric data of hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian citizens at so-called "filtration camps," opening the door, experts say, to ballot manipulation. Nikolai Bulaev, the deputy chairman of Russia’s Central Election Commission, said he expects “hundreds of thousands” of Ukrainians currently in Russia to take part in the referendum. Russia has little history of holding free and fair elections, with ballot-stuffing, voter intimidation, outright fraud, and media manipulation common practices. It held a similar illegal vote in 2014 after annexing Ukraine's Crimea. Very few countries have accepted the results of the vote. There is no single database containing information about the number of polling stations that will open in Russia for Ukrainian citizens, nor uniform rules for how the voting will be conducted in the country, the daily Kommersant reported. Blinken called on every member of the United Nations to “reject the sham referenda and unequivocally declare that all Ukrainian territory is and will remain part of Ukraine.” He said the United States will continue to support Ukraine regardless of the vote.
A member of Russia’s upper house of parliament has called for ending military service exemptions for people with scoliosis and flat feet as the nation pushes forward with an unpopular draft to stem losses in Ukraine.
Olga Kovitidi, who represents Crimea, the Ukrainian peninsula annexed by Russia in 2014, said on September 22, a day after the Kremlin announced a “partial” mobilization of reservists, that some afflictions don’t interfere with the ability to serve.
"Now, Russia needs not only a volunteer professional army, but also an increase in the reserve of young people fit for service,” Russian media quoted her as saying.
Russia will call up 300,000 reservists in phases to fight in Ukraine, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said on September 21, a number that some experts said will be very difficult to achieve.
WATCH: Long lines of vehicles have formed at a border crossing between Russia's North Ossetia region and Georgia after Moscow announced a partial military mobilization.
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The Kremlin’s decision to mobilize forces for a war that has killed or injured as many as 80,000 of its servicemen has sparked fear and anger among parts of the Russian population.
Thousands of people took to the streets on September 21 to protest mobilization, while others fled to Finland and other countries to avoid being drafted.
Russia’s parliament on September 21 passed amendments in three readings stiffening penalties for dodging service, surrendering, or refusing to fight.
WATCH: More than 1,300 people have been detained in Russia after rare anti-war protests were held around the country in the wake of President Vladimir Putin's announcement of a partial military mobilization.
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Ukrainian forces have routed Russian troops in the Kharkiv region and parts of the Donbas over the past month, capitalizing on the latter’s insufficient manpower.
Russia had avoided calling for a mobilization for months, despite signs it was struggling for fear, it could trigger backlash at home. Rather, the Kremlin sought to incentivize short-term volunteers to serve with the offer of high salaries.
That recruitment campaign failed, indicating weak support among Russian men to serve in the war and forcing the Kremlin to take the politically risky step of declaring mobilization, analysts said.
Five British prisoners of war released by Russia as part of an exchange with Ukraine arrived back in the U.K. on September 22.
The five are Aiden Aslin, Shaun Pinner, John Harding, Dylan Healy, and Andrew Hill.
Presidium Network, a nonprofit organization that does relief work in Ukraine, including evacuations, confirmed their arrival.
Ukraine earlier in the day announced the release of 215 of its soldiers, including fighters who led the defense of Mariupol's Azovstal steelworks, in exchange for dozens of Russian prisoners and a pro-Moscow politician.
The swap is the biggest exchange between the two sides since the start of Russia's invasion in February.
Aslin and Pinner were captured by Russian-backed forces in Ukraine's coastal city of Mariupol in April and were sentenced to death by a court in one of the Russia's proxies in eastern Ukraine.
Aslin and Pinner, along with Moroccan Brahim Saadoun, were found guilty of "mercenary activities and committing actions aimed at seizing power" -- a sentence condemned by Ukraine and Britain.
Healy, a Briton providing humanitarian assistance in Ukraine, was detained in April alongside Paul Urey, who later died in detention.
Harding and Hill had been fighting alongside Ukrainian forces and all three had denied being mercenaries in the Russian proxy court.
An official statement by Tajikistan's Foreign Ministry alleging that an RFE/RL correspondent was beaten in Kyrgyzstan has turned out to be false.
In its September 22 statement, the ministry accused the Kyrgyz government of persecuting its ethnic Tajik community, mentioning among alleged cases of such persecutions "an ethnically motivated attack in Kyrgyzstan's Osh region on September 18 against a Tajik woman, Nasibakhon Davronbekova, who is a correspondent for RFE/RL."
However, RFE/RL does not have any correspondent in Kyrgyzstan or elsewhere by that name.
The ministry removed the sentence in question from the statement shortly afterward.
The Kyrgyz Foreign Ministry condemned the Tajik statement, calling it "provocative."
"The statement of the Tajik side about the existence in Kyrgyzstan of some kind of 'policy of persecution of citizens of Tajikistan and ethnic Tajiks' is completely inappropriate and indicates that representatives of the Foreign Ministry of Tajikistan are out of touch with reality and have no idea about the state of affairs in the Kyrgyz Republic," it said.
Tajikistan's accusations about alleged persecutions of ethnic Tajiks in Kyrgyzstan comes amid high tension between the two neighboring nations following deadly clashes along the border last week.
The Ukrainian military has said it is "smoothly but confidently" gaining ground against Russian forces in "one of the most important logistical arteries" of Ukraine's partially occupied Luhansk region.
The Strategic Communications Department of the Armed Forces of Ukraine said in a Telegram post on September 22 that Russian occupying forces are "having a bad time" near Lysychansk, a city in the eastern Luhansk region.
RFE/RL's Live Briefing gives you all of the latest developments on Russia's ongoing invasion, Kyiv's counteroffensive, Western military aid, global reaction, Russian protests, and the plight of civilians. For all of RFE/RL's coverage of the war, click here.
Luhansk, part of Ukraine's eastern Donbas region and one of four Russian-controlled territories that are set to hold disputed votes for annexation into the Russian Federation beginning on September 23, is nearly under the complete control of Russian forces. Ukraine and its allies have said that such votes would be illegal.
Kyiv's forces have in recent weeks regained territory in the east that was captured by Russia shortly after its unprovoked invasion of Ukraine in February.
Serhiy Hayday, the Ukrainian military governor of the Luhansk region, said on September 19 that Ukrainian forces had liberated some villages in the region. On September 21, Hayday said that a command office used by occupying forces had been destroyed by the Ukrainian military in Svatovo, which is about 160 kilometers northwest of the regional capital, Luhansk.
Elsewhere, Russian and Ukrainian forces exchanged missile and artillery barrages that killed at least six people on September 22.
Russian strikes in the southern city of Zaporizhzhya left one person dead and five wounded, according to Ukrainian officials. Officials in Russia-controlled territory in the Donetsk region said that Ukrainian shelling targeting the regional capital, Donetsk, killed five people.
Hungary's right-wing populist Prime Minister Viktor Orban has told a meeting of his ruling Fidesz party that sanctions against Russia imposed by the European Union should be lifted, the pro-government daily Magyar Nemzet reports.
Orban made the remarks at a closed-door meeting of his party on September 21 just days after the European Commission called for the elimination of 7.5 billion euros ($7.5 billion) in EU funding earmarked for Hungary due to corruption, rights, and rule-of-law disputes.
Fidesz quickly followed up on Orban's statement, calling on September 22 for a nonbinding, popular vote inside Hungary on whether to end the EU sanctions.
Orban, the only EU leader who maintains warm relations with Russian President Vladimir Putin, is a harsh critic of EU sanctions on Moscow over its invasion of Ukraine.
According to Magyar Nemzet, Orban said -- without giving a source -- that the EU sanctions had driven up gas prices and inflation.
EU natural prices began rising about a year before Brussels imposed sanctions on Russia.
Kremlin-controlled Gazprom began cutting natural-gas exports to the bloc last year, causing prices to jump, as it massed more than 100,000 combat-ready troops on Ukraine’s border in what European officials and energy experts said was an attempt by Moscow to pressure Brussels over its support for Kyiv.
Russia then further slashed natural0-gas exports this year to punish the EU for imposing sanctions on its economy following its unprovoked invasion of Ukraine in February. The EU sanctions do not directly target Russian gas exports.
Orban claimed that if sanctions were rescinded, gas prices would drop by 50 percent immediately while inflation would also fall.
The paper quoted Orban as saying that without sanctions, Europe would be able to avoid a looming recession, reiterating his earlier false stance that the sanctions were hurting Europe more than Russia.
Western sanctions have already pushed Russia’s economy into a deep recession that could last for years, experts say. Russia’s economy is expected to contract more than 4 percent in 2022. Experts expect a mild recession for the EU.
On his Facebook page, Orban posted from the party meeting, "The Brussels sanctions have pushed Europe into an energy crisis."
In July, Orban said the EU had "shot itself in the lungs" with ill-considered economic sanctions on Russia, which, unless rolled back, risked destroying the European economy.
Critics say Orban is putting short-term economic issues over long-term security, democracy, and human rights. Ending sanctions on Russia would enable Putin to better equip his soldiers and finance his war, they say.
The European Union is moving ahead with plans to diversify away from its dependence on Russian oil and gas. Experts now expect natural-gas prices to fall next year from record highs as those efforts make progress.
Hungary is one of the EU countries most dependent on Russian natural gas, but Orban has taken some steps during his 12 years in office to diversify the nation's energy supplies.
Orban, who was reelected to a fourth consecutive term in April, was forced to lift caps on some energy prices earlier this year. His government is now preparing for “national consultations” on the question of EU sanctions on Russian energy.
National consultations are nonbinding questionnaires sent to voters on issues that divide citizens. They usually including a series of multiple-choice questions and often include misleading statements or provide one-sided or extreme answer options. Orban introduced the concept of national consultations earlier in his premiership as a way to fight EU polices he disagrees with. Previous consultations have been held about migration, terrorism, and the constitution.
Orban has clashed often with the EU over issues such as judicial independence, public procurement, LGBT rights, and media, academic, and religious freedoms.
ASTANA -- Prosecutors at the high-profile trial of a nephew of Kazakhstan's former strongman president, Nursultan Nazarbaev, have asked a court in Astana to sentence the defendant to six years in prison on fraud and embezzlement charges.
Prosecutors also asked the Baiqonyr district court on September 22 to deprive Qairat Satybaldy of the rank of major general in the Committee of National Security and of his state awards and medals, as well as to bar the defendant from occupying state posts for 10 years.
Satybaldy, whose trial started earlier this week, pleaded guilty to all charges and said he regrets his misdeeds, adding that he agrees with the prosecutor's proposal.
Satybaldy was arrested in early March while trying to board a plane heading to Turkey. The probe launched against him is one of a series of investigations targeting relatives and allies of Nazarbaev.
Kazakhstan’s Anti-Corruption Agency said late last month that Satybaldy and four other unnamed individuals are suspected of embezzling an unspecified amount of money from Kazakhtelecom and Transport Service Center state companies.
The agency also said at the time that $500 million had been returned to the state treasury and that 29 percent of Kazakhtelecom's shares that had been controlled by Satybaldy were put back under state control.
Satybaldy's former wife, Gulmira, was also arrested in March on charges of embezzlement and the illegal takeover of a private business.
After unprecedented anti-government protests in early January, the Kazakh regime began to quietly target Nazarbaev, his family, and other allies -- many of whom held powerful or influential posts in government, security agencies, and profitable energy companies.
President Qasym-Zhomart Toqaev, whom Nazarbaev hand-picked as successor after stepping down in 2019, started distancing himself from the former leader after the January unrest, which was fueled by Kazakhs’ exasperation with cronyism and corruption.
Toqaev stripped Nazarbaev of the sweeping powers he had retained as the head of the Security Council after resigning.
Just days after the protests, two of Nazarbaev’s sons-in-law were pushed out of top jobs at two major oil and gas companies.
Another son-in-law, Timur Kulibaev, resigned as chairman of the country’s main business lobby group, while in late February, Nazarbaev's eldest daughter, Darigha, was apparently forced to give up her parliamentary seat.
Authorities also launched probes against leaders of a company linked to Nazarbaev's youngest daughter, Aliya.
In June, Toqaev said he had created a commission to "return cash illegally taken out of Kazakhstan" by "a narrow circle of people who had illegally taken over" a large portion of the country’s wealth.
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