President Joe Biden has stressed "close security and defense cooperation" between the United States, Finland, and Sweden in a joint call with those countries' leaders in which he also encouraged their looming NATO bids amid Russia's attack on Ukraine.
A White House readout of the call said Biden also "reiterated their shared commitment to continued coordination in support of Ukraine and the Ukrainian people affected by the war" to Swedish Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson and Finnish President Sauli Niinisto.
The White House and Pentagon later said they were seeking clarification on potential objections by NATO ally Turkey to Finnish and Swedish membership. The Swedish and Finnish governments this week have laid out plans to commit their countries to applying for NATO membership as soon as this weekend, a result of the threat projected from Moscow. "President Biden underscored his support for NATO’s Open Door policy and for the right of Finland and Sweden to decide their own future, foreign policy, and security arrangements," the White House account said of the call. Many members of the alliance have already expressed support for applications from Sweden and Finland, both of which have traditionally remained neutral. But Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on May 13 said he did not have a "positive opinion" of their membership. Longtime NATO member Turkey has repeatedly criticized Sweden and other Western European states for their handling of groups deemed terrorists by Ankara, including the Kurdish militant groups PKK and YPG, and the followers of U.S.-based Islamic cleric Fethullah Gulen. "Scandinavian countries are like a guesthouse for terror organizations," Erdogan said after Friday Prayers in Istanbul. Erdogan says "Gulenists" carried out a coup attempt in 2016 and his administration has detained tens of thousands over their alleged support or sympathies for the group. Gulen and his supporters deny the accusation. Erdogan's opposition could pose a problem for a process otherwise seen as clear sailing, since new NATO members need unanimous agreement. Hours after Erdogan's comment, the White House and Pentagon said they were "working to clarify Turkey's position" regarding Sweden and Finland. "Nothing changes about their standing in the NATO alliance," Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said. "We're working to better clarify [their] position." Finland, which shares a 1,340-kilometer border and a turbulent past with Russia, said on May 12 that it must apply to join the NATO military alliance "without delay." Sweden's becoming a NATO member would have a stabilizing effect and would benefit all Baltic sea states, Foreign Minister Ann Linde said on May 13.
KYIV -- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has signed a new law banning pro-Russia political parties. "The president of Ukraine has signed a law banning pro-Russia political parties! The law will come into force on the day following the day of its publication," Olha Sovgirya, a deputy from Zelenskiy’s ruling Servant of the People bloc, wrote on telegram on May 14. The Verkhovna Rada, Ukraine’s parliament, passed the bill on May 3, banning pro-Russia political parties that engage in anti-Ukrainian activities. On March 20, Ukraine's National Security and Defense Council suspended 11 pro-Russia political parties while martial law was in place in the country. The largest of the parties with links to Russia is the Opposition Platform for Life, which has 44 out of 450 seats in Ukraine’s parliament. The party is led by Viktor Medvedchuk, who has friendly ties with Russian President Vladimir Putin, who is the godfather of Medvedchuk’s daughter. The list of the Moscow-friendly parties also included the Nashi (Ours) party led by Yevhen Murayev. British authorities had warned that Russia wanted to install Murayev as the leader of Ukraine. Moscow “is looking to install a pro-Russian leader in Kyiv as it considers whether to invade and occupy Ukraine,” and Murayev “is being considered as a potential candidate,” the British Foreign Office said in January.
Portugal has blocked the sale of a $10.4 million mansion because of a "strong conviction" it belongs to Kremlin-linked billionaire Roman Abramovich, who has been hit by Western sanctions related to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Foreign Minister Joao Cravinho said on the sidelines of a NATO meeting in Berlin on May 14 that the property registry of the luxury home in the Quinta do Lago resort in the Algarve had been frozen. He said the move was made at the request of the Foreign Ministry on March 25, about a month after Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The action means the property cannot be sold or rented and that a mortgage cannot be taken out on it. "We have a strong conviction, which hasn't been fully confirmed, the house belongs to Roman Abramovich," Cravinho said. "The challenge here is that many of those sanctioned do not have their properties and assets in their names." A representative for Abramovich told Reuters he did not own "any property in Portugal." The billionaire was granted Portuguese citizenship in April 2021 based on a 2013 Portuguese law offering naturalization to descendants of Sephardic Jews who were persecuted and expelled from the Iberian Peninsula at the end of the 15th century. Abramovich has been sanctioned by the British government and the European Union over his links to Russian President Vladimir Putin. He has denied having such ties. On May 7, the British soccer club Chelsea announced it would be sold to a group of investors led by an American billionaire, formally ending nearly two decades of ownership by Abramovich.
U.S. Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell and a delegation of Republican senators arrived in Kyiv for an unannounced visit and met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in a show of support for the besieged country.
RFE/RL's Live Briefing gives you all of the major developments on Russia's invasion, how Kyiv is fighting back, the plight of civilians, and Western reaction. For all of RFE/RL's coverage of the war, click here.
McConnell (Kentucky) traveled with Susan Collins (Maine), John Barrasso (Wyoming), and John Cornyn (Texas) to the Ukrainian capital, with Zelenskiy calling the visit “a strong signal of bipartisan support for Ukraine from the United States Congress and the American people.”
The trip came as a new round of funding for Ukraine’s battle against the unprovoked Russian invasion is facing a delay in the U.S. Senate because of a Republican member’s objection. The Senate is working to approve a nearly $40 billion package for Ukraine, but its passage has been held up by Senator Rand Paul, also of Kentucky, who demanded the inclusion of a proposal to have an inspector general scrutinize the new spending. Nevertheless, final approval is not in doubt and could come in the upcoming week as Ukraine has widespread bipartisan support in Congress. The McConnell-led visit is the second by a high-profile congressional delegation over the past two weeks. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Democrat-California) visited on May 1 with a group of House Democrats, bringing a promise of continued U.S. aid to Ukraine.
Russia's Interior Ministry has added a food blogger and magazine founder to its wanted list for allegedly "spreading fake news" about the Russian military.
Veronika Belotserkovskaya, who founded the St. Petersburg glossy magazine and website Sobaka and currently lives in France, commented on May 14 upon learning that she was added to the list by writing: "The first? I have officially been recognized as a decent person!"
Russia's Investigative Committee opened a criminal case in March against the Ukrainian-born Belotserkovskaya, who blogs under the name Belonika, for allegedly spreading fake news about the Russian army.
She was accused of publishing several Instagram posts containing "deliberately false information about the armed forces of the Russian Federation's destruction of cities and civilians in Ukraine, including children, during a special military operation."
Russia's media regulator, Roskomnadzor, has strictly limited access to information about the war in Ukraine launched by Russia on February 24 and directed media to describe events there as a “special military operation” and not a war or an invasion.
She is one of the first to be added to the wanted list under the Criminal Code's article covering "fake news."
Following the opening of the criminal case against her in March, Belotserkovskaya transferred ownership of Sobaka to employees.
The Crimean branch of Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) has charged health-care activist Iryna Danylovych with the illegal possession of explosives.
The Ukrainian news site Grati reported on May 13 that the 43-year-old Danylovych, whose mysterious disappearance in Crimea on April 29 led to an expansive search by her family and lawyer, was held for a week in the basement of the FSB headquarters in the territorial capital of Simferopol.
The FSB has claimed that Danylovych's glasses case contained 200 grams of explosives, according to Grati, which said the activist was forced to sign a confession under torture.
After being unable to determine his client's whereabouts through Russian authorities for more than a week, lawyer Ayder Azamatov learned on May 11 that Danylovych was being held in the central city of Simferopol.
Danylovych's defense team alleges that FSB agents planted explosives on her, and that the criminal case was falsified.
Born in Belarus when it was part of the U.S.S.R., Danylovych moved to Crimea as a child and studied and gained her nursing degree there. After moving for a short time to Russia, she returned to Crimea shortly before Russia's invasion and subsequent illegal annexation of the Ukrainian peninsula in 2014.
Through her work as a nurse and the head of a doctors' union, Danylovych gained a reputation as an outspoken advocate for medical workers' rights who was not afraid to criticize local medical authorities.
After losing her job as a nurse following her role in demanding promised bonuses for medical staff during the coronavirus pandemic, she continued her advocacy for health workers as a blogger and on social media and contributed as a source to stories about the health-care system in Crimea by media outlets including RFE/RL's Russian Service's regional desk Crimea.Realities.
During a search of her home on April 29, the same day as her disappearance, her family was told that she had been detained for allegedly passing information to a nongovernmental organization.
The Group of Seven (G7) advanced economies has called on China to support Ukrainian sovereignty and not help Russia, warning that Moscow's unprovoked war against Ukraine has threatened the globe by generating a severe food and energy crisis.
The G7 delivered the message on May 14 in a wide-ranging statement released at the end of three days of meetings in Germany.
In addition to asking China not to support Moscow amid the war, the group called on Beijing "to desist from engaging in information manipulation, disinformation and other means to legitimize Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine.”
The G7 also urged Russian ally Belarus to stop "enabling" Russia's war effort and to "abide by its international obligations."
RFE/RL's Live Briefing gives you all of the major developments on Russia's invasion, how Kyiv is fighting back, the plight of civilians, and Western reaction. For all of RFE/RL's coverage of the war, click here.
Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February, the G7 said, has "generated one of the most severe food and energy crises in recent history which now threatens those most vulnerable across the globe.”
The group, which comprises the United States, Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, and Japan, said urgent measures were needed to unblock stores of grain that Russia is preventing Ukraine from exporting, contributing to the food crisis.
An estimated 25 million tons of grain has been prevented from leaving ports in Ukraine, one of the worlds biggest grain exporters. The blockage is seen as particularly affecting countries in the Middle East and Africa.
The G7 foreign ministers in attendance at the meeting in Weissenhaus also vowed to reinforce Russia's economic and political isolation through sanctions, and said their countries would continue to provide defense and military aid to Kyiv for "as long as necessary."
The foreign ministers also addressed Russia's efforts to gain territory in Ukraine, including its annexation of Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula in 2014.
"We will never recognize borders Russia has attempted to change by military aggression, and will uphold our engagement in the support of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine, including Crimea, and all states," they said.
The G7 ministers also signaled their readiness to provide Kyiv with weapons for many years into the future if necessary in its fight against Russian forces. "We will pursue our ongoing military and defense assistance to Ukraine as long as necessary," the final statement read.
The group said that phasing out purchases of Russian oil and coal is key to the efforts to put pressure on Moscow to end the war.
"We will expedite our efforts to reduce and end reliance on Russian energy supplies and as quickly as possible," the statement said.
EU member states are expected to reach an agreement next week on ending the bloc's importation of Russian oil next week, despite opposition from EU member Hungary.
Ukraine's military has launched a counteroffensive near the Russian-held eastern town of Izyum as Kyiv said Kremlin forces were withdrawing from areas near Kharkiv, Ukraine's second-largest city, in what appears to be the latest setback for Moscow's military offensive. Ukraine’s General Staff said on May 14 that Russian forces appeared to be focusing on guarding supply routes and were launching mortar, artillery, and airstrikes in Ukraine's eastern Donetsk region in an effort to “deplete Ukrainian forces and destroy fortifications.” Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov said Ukraine was “entering a new -- long-term -- phase of the war.”
RFE/RL's Live Briefing gives you all of the major developments on Russia's invasion, how Kyiv is fighting back, the plight of civilians, and Western reaction. For all of RFE/RL's coverage of the war, click here.
Meanwhile, U.S. Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell led a delegation of Republican senators on a surprise visit to Kyiv in a show of support for Ukraine in its fight against the unprovoked Russian invasion. The McConnell-led trip, which followed one by Democratic House of Representative leaders on May 1, comes as the Senate attempts to finalize a $40 billion military aid package for Ukraine. Outside of Ukraine, the Group of Seven (G7) leading industrial nations reaffirmed their support for Ukraine, saying they were prepared to provide Kyiv with aid for as long as it was needed in the fight against Russian forces. “We underscore Ukraine’s sovereignty, territorial integrity, independence, and right for self-defense under the UN Charter. This war of aggression has reaffirmed our determination to reject outright attempts to redraw borders by force in violation of sovereignty and territorial integrity,” said the G7, which consists of the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Canada, and Japan.
Kharkiv had been under heavy bombardment by Russian forces since Russia invaded Ukraine in late February, but it never fell. The U.S.-based Institute for the Study of War said in its latest assessment of the conflict on May 13 that Ukraine appears to have won the “battle of Kharkiv," noting that Ukrainian forces had prevented Russian troops from encircling, "let alone seizing," the city.
Speaking during his nightly nationwide address on May 13, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said that his country's forces are making progress in their efforts to counter the Russian offensive and had retaken six towns and villages over the previous day.
However, neither side appears to be making major breakthroughs, and while Zelenskiy said that his military is doing everything it can to drive Russian forces from Ukrainian territory, "no one today can predict how long this war will last."
Zelenskiy said the outcome will depend not only on the Ukrainian people, but on "our partners, on European countries, on the entire free world."
Ukraine's top military intelligence official, Major General Kyrlyo Budanov, gave a more optimistic assessment. Budanov told Sky News on May 14 that the "breaking point will be in the second part of August" and that "most of the active combat actions will have finished by the end of this year."
"As a result, we will renew Ukrainian power in all our territories that we have lost, including Donbas and Crimea," he said.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov also said it was impossible to determine how long the conflict would last, claiming that the West was planning to conduct a "total hybrid war" against Russia. He added that attempts by Western nations to isolate Russia through a slew wide-ranging sanctions were destined to fail.
Russian forces have suffered high casualties since their invasion of Ukraine in late February, and their ongoing offensive in the east of the country has made minimal territorial gains and is widely seen to be behind schedule.
But while Russia failed both in its attempts to quickly take all of Ukraine and then to encircle Ukrainian troops in besieged areas, Kyiv now sees the war entering a "third phase" in which Russian forces will seek to defend the territory they have captured.
"This shows that they plan to make it a long war," Ukrainian Interior Ministry adviser Viktor Andrusiv said in televised remarks on May 13. "Moscow appears to think that by dragging out the war in this way they can force the West to the negotiating table and get Ukraine to give in."
Zelenskiy said that "very difficult negotiations" with Moscow continue in an effort to evacuate Ukrainian forces from the southeastern port city of Mariupol, which has been devastated by Russia's military as it tries open a land corridor to the seized territory of Crimea.
Dozens of seriously wounded Ukrainian personnel remain trapped inside the city's Azovstal metals plant, the last Ukrainian holdout in the city that has been the target of a seven-week siege by Russian forces.
On May 14, the British Defense Ministry said that the civilian administration placed in charge of Ukraine's southern Kherson region by the Russian military will ask Moscow to include it into the Russian Federation.
In the event the occupied region does carry out a referendum, the British Defense Ministry said on Twitter, the vote would almost certainly be manipulated to show a clear majority of the region's population wants to leave Ukraine.
On May 11, the Zaporizhzhya Regional Military Administration in southeastern Ukraine said that Russia was not changing its war plans, which it said entail occupying Ukrainian territories and creating pseudo-republics in the southern regions.
Finnish President Sauli Niinisto has informed Russian leader Vladimir Putin in a phone call that his Nordic nation plans to apply for NATO membership, a move Putin warned his counterpart would be a mistake that could endanger the two nations’ neighborly relations. "President Niinisto told President Putin how fundamentally the Russian demands in late 2021 aiming at preventing countries from joining NATO and Russia’s massive invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 have altered the security environment of Finland," a statement by the Finnish government said on May 14. "The conversation was open and direct, but was conducted without escalation. It was considered important to avoid tensions," Niinisto said, according to the Finnish presidential office. The Kremlin said Putin stressed in the call that abandoning Helsinki's traditional policy of military neutrality "would be a mistake, since there are no threats to Finland's security. Such a change in the country's foreign policy may have a negative impact on Russian-Finnish relations."
With Finland and neighboring Sweden appearing ready to apply for NATO membership, Russia said earlier on May 14 that its response to the Nordic countries joining the Western military alliance would depend on the type of NATO military infrastructure that would be located on their territory.
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Aleksandr Grushko told reporters in Moscow that the accession of Finland and Sweden into NATO would require a strategic change, and that the Kremlin would take "adequate response measures" if NATO nuclear forces were moved closer to Russia's borders.
Grushko added that Russia has no hostile intentions toward Finland and Sweden, where support for joining NATO in the traditionally neutral countries has risen following Russia's unprovoked invasion of Ukraine in February. Russia has cited Ukraine's ambitions to join NATO as a key reason for launching the war.
Niinisto this week endorsed joining NATO "without delay," saying it would strengthen security in the country, which shares a 1,300-kilometer border with Russia.
The country's ruling Social Democratic Party later on May 14 announced its support for joining NATO, a step that would pave the way for applying for membership in the coming days.
The government’s decision to apply for NATO membership requires parliamentary approval, which appears highly likely.
The Swedish government has also laid out plans to commit Sweden to applying for NATO membership, and is expected to announce a decision soon.
U.S. President Joe Biden held a joint call with Niinisto and Swedish Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson on May 13 in which he stressed "close security and defense cooperation" and supported the two Nordic states' expected NATO bids.
"President Biden underscored his support for NATO’s Open Door policy and for the right of Finland and Sweden to decide their own future, foreign policy, and security arrangements," the White House account said of the call.
NATO's foreign ministers will meet in Berlin beginning on May 14 for two days of talks that will include Finland's and Sweden's potential membership. Swedish Foreign Minister Ann Linde and Finnish Foreign Minister Pekka Haavisto are expected to take part in the meeting, which will also include U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
Many members of the alliance have already expressed support for applications from Sweden and Finland.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, however, said on May 13 that he did not have a "positive opinion" of the Nordic countries' membership, explaining his reservations by citing Sweden and other Scandinavian countries’ alleged support for Kurdish militants and others Turkey considers to be terrorists.
Ankara appeared to ease off in its opposition somewhat on May 14, with a top foreign policy adviser to Erdogan telling Reuters that Turkey has not shut the door to the countries' potential membership bids. He said, though, that Ankara wants negotiations with the Nordic countries and to see them clamp down on any support for militants inside Turkey. "We are not closing the door. But we are basically raising this issue as a matter of national security for Turkey," Ibrahim Kalin said in an interview in Istanbul.
The potential opposition has fueled suggestions that Turkey could veto Finland's and Sweden's applications to join NATO, which to be approved would require unanimous support among the alliance's 30 member states.
Hours after Erdogan's comment, the White House and Pentagon said they were "working to clarify Turkey's position" regarding Sweden and Finland, while stressing that Ankara's standing in NATO would not change as a result of its position.
The city council in the Latvian capital, Riga, has agreed to dismantle a contentious Soviet monument in the city center.
The decision was made during a special session on May 13, with police surrounding the building where the meeting was held.
Most Latvians see the monument in the city center as more a symbol of the Soviet Union's occupation of Latvia than its purported purpose of honoring the liberation of the city from Germany in World War II.
It is unclear when the nearly 80-meter-tall obelisk and accompanying giant bronze statues in Riga's Victory Park will be dismantled, but the city's monument authorities have been instructed to take it down.
The issue of Soviet monuments in Latvia, which was occupied and annexed by the Soviet Union until 1991, has dogged relations between Riga and Moscow.
Moscow's relationship with EU- and NATO-member Latvia has been further strained by Russia's ongoing war in Ukraine and heightened rhetoric from the Kremlin regarding the Baltic states.
Police in Riga reportedly arrested several people at an unauthorized protest against the dismantling of the monument that was staged by members of Latvia's sizeable ethnic Russian minority on May 14.
Demonstrations were also held in front of the Latvian Embassy in Moscow.
On May 12, Latvian lawmakers approved a bill that would allow the Soviet monument to be dismantled. The bill amended a 1994 agreement between Latvia and Russia on the preservation of Soviet-era monuments.
"The changed geopolitical conditions...mean that Latvia can’t and won’t be bound to preserve...monuments to the Soviet occupation," Rihards Kols, the chairman of parliament’s commission on foreign affairs, said in explaining the move.
Kols added that Latvia will continue to fulfill its international obligations regarding burials and cemeteries holding the remains of Soviet troops.
Latvia has approved many post-independence laws aimed at weeding out Russian influence and boosting the status of Latvian language and culture.
The influx of Ukrainian refugees entering Germany has slowed to around 2,000 people a day.
German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said on May 14 that the number is down from a high of around 15,000 people a day in mid-March, when Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine was only weeks old.
Faeser was quoted by the Rheinische Post as saying that most of the Ukrainian refugees will eventually return to Ukraine.
However, she said, "some will stay if people see the chance to find their feet in the German labor market with their qualifications."
Germany's Welt am Sonntag newspaper reported on May 14, that more than 700,000 Ukrainian refugees have registered with the German authorities since Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24.
Around 40 percent of the Ukrainian refugees are minors, and just over 80 percent are women, according to the newspaper, which cited Interior Ministry data.
Altogether, more than 6 million Ukrainians have left their home country since the war began, according to the United Nations.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said that while the country's military is doing everything it can to drive Russian forces from Ukrainian territory, "no one today can predict how long this war will last."
RFE/RL's Live Briefing gives you all of the major developments on Russia's invasion, how Kyiv is fighting back, the plight of civilians, and Western reaction. For all of RFE/RL's coverage of the war, click here.
Speaking during his nightly nationwide address on May 13, Zelenskiy said the outcome will depend not only on the Ukrainian people, but on "our partners, on European countries, on the entire free world."
Russian forces have suffered high casualties since their invasion of Ukraine in late February, and their ongoing offensive in Ukraine's east has made minimal territorial gains and is widely seen to be behind schedule.
But while Russia failed both in its attempts to quickly take all of Ukraine and then to encircle Ukrainian troops in besieged areas, Kyiv now sees the war entering a "third phase" in which Russian forces will seek to defend the territory it has captured.
"This shows that they plan to make it a long war," Ukrainian Interior Ministry adviser Viktor Andrusiv said in televised remarks on May 13. "Moscow appears to think that by dragging out the war in this way they can force the West to the negotiating table and get Ukraine to give in."
Zelenskiy said that "very difficult negotiations" with Moscow continue in an effort to evacuate Ukrainian forces from the southeastern port city of Mariupol, which has been devastated by Russia's military as it tries open a land corridor to the seized territory of Crimea.
Dozens of seriously wounded Ukrainian forces remain trapped inside the city's Azovstal metals plant, the last Ukrainian holdout in the city that has been the target of a seven-week siege by Russian forces.
Internationally recognized Iranian documentary filmmaker Mina Keshavarz is being held in Tehran’s Evin prison on unknown charges, a reliable source with knowledge of the case has told RFE/RL in response to questions about Keshavarz's whereabouts.
The information follows reports of security raids involving Keshavarz and another documentarist and the disappearance of another prominent Iranian, all in the past week.
Iranian authorities have not commented on the presumed arrests.
Previous reports said Keshavarz and fellow documentary filmmaker Firouzeh Khosravani were arrested on May 10 in Tehran after their homes were raided by security forces who confiscated personal belongings.
Those reports suggested Khosravani was also taken to Evin prison, where authorities routinely take political prisoners and a source of years of allegations of torture and other prisoner abuse.
On May 9, photographer Reihaneh Taravati was reportedly arrested in the Iranian capital, also on unclear charges.
Taravati had been arrested in the past, including in 2014 after appearing in an amateur video of her and other young Iranians dancing to Pharrell Williams' hit song Happy.
Iranian authorities frequently detain people without providing the public, or often families, information about their detention or specifics of their suspected wrongdoing.
Heidi Basch-Harod, executive director of the nonprofit organization Women’s Voices Now, has worked with Keshavarz.
She told RFE/RL she was worried about Keshavarz's well-being in Evin prison, where rights groups say prisoners are routinely subjected to coercion by their interrogators.
"I want no harm to come to Mina. She is an artist and filmmaker, a culture bearer who transports us to a place many of us will not have the chance to visit," Basch-Harod said.
Keshavarz has directed films like Profession: Documentarist, about seven women filmmakers; Braving The Waves, about an Iranian woman who helps other women find jobs but runs up against a corrupt local politician; and The Art Of Living In Danger, about her own grandmother's tragic life and suicide after being forced to marry at a young age.
"Mina has often expressed how frustrated she is by the inaccurate representation of women in Iran by mainstream media outlets and her work seeks to challenge those inaccurate representations," Basch-Harod said, adding that she hopes Keshavarz will be released soon to continue to create films.
Keshavarz's documentaries have been screened and awarded in several international film events, including the Women's Voices Now Film Festival and the Sarajevo Film Festival.
The White House has accused Moscow of "wrongfully" detaining American basketball player Brittney Griner and put its envoy for hostage affairs on the case after a Russian court extended the WNBA star's pretrial custody since her detention at a Moscow airport in February.
Griner's lawyer, Aleskandr Boikov, said the two-time Olympic gold medalist and Phoenix Mercury star's custody was extended by a month by a Khimki court outside Moscow on May 13. Griner, 31, could face a 10-year jail sentence on possible charges over traces of cannabis or hashish oil in a vape device allegedly uncovered in a security check at Sheremetyevo Airport. Like a number of WNBA players who augment their salaries by playing in Russia in the off-season, Griner has played for the UMMC team in Yekaterinburg since 2014. "She is OK," Boikov said of Griner after the procedural hearing on May 13, at which the court rejected her request for transfer to house arrest. A U.S. Embassy consular officer who spoke to Griner at the hearing "was able to confirm that Brittney Griner is doing as well as can be expected under what can only be described as exceedingly difficult circumstances," State Department spokesman Ned Price added. Price said Washington was watching Griner's case closely. The White House said the Russian system wrongfully detained her and it was putting its special presidential envoy for hostage affairs, Roger Carstens, on the case. Griner's detention came as Washington was warning of imminent orders by Russian President Vladimir Putin for an all-out invasion of Ukraine, but was not announced until the launch of that war a week later deepened the gulf in U.S.-Russia relations. Bilateral diplomatic channels are still open. But there are fears that one of women's basketball's winningest players could become a bargaining chip in increasingly rancorous relations, a fact that has contributed to her family and others remaining unusually silent on the case. Griner is now due to be held until at least June 18 as the Russian investigation continues, according to the court ruling. Russia and the United States swapped prisoners in April, with Moscow releasing ailing former U.S. Marine Trevor Reed, who was detained in 2019, in exchange for Russian pilot Konstantin Yaroshenko, who was serving a 20-year sentence for drug trafficking. Russian authorities still hold U.S. citizen Paul Whelan, another former Marine detained in 2018 on subsequent espionage charges he and the U.S. government deny.
The Finnish subsidiary of Russian state-owned energy provider Inter RAO has announced a halt in electricity supplies to Finland as of May 14 over unpaid bills.
But the timing of the cutoff points to Moscow anger over its northwestern neighbor's sudden abandonment of neutrality to join the NATO alliance since Russia invaded Ukraine. The Finnish subsidiary, RAO Nordic, said it hadn't received payments for energy provided through the Nord Pool power exchange since May 6. "This situation is exceptional and happened for the first time in over 20 years of our trading history," RAO Nordic said. The import cutoff will go into effect at 1 a.m. local time on May 14 (2200 GMT/UTC on May 13), according to Finnish grid operator Fingrid, which warned weeks ago of the possibility of a suspension. Fingrid said Finnish households and other consumers were safe and that Russian power accounts for only around 10 percent of the country's consumption. "Missing imports can be replaced in the electricity market by importing more electricity from Sweden and also by domestic production," Fingrid said. Unprecedented sanctions against Russian financial, diplomatic, and commercial interests over the unprovoked aggression against Ukraine have crippled many trade and other flows between Russia and the West. Last month, Russian officials announced a cutoff of natural gas supplies to EU and NATO members Poland and Romania, which have lent considerable support to Ukraine since the invasion began in late February. It cited their refusal to pay in rubles for supplies contracted in euros or other non-Russian currencies. RAO Nordic has cited problems collecting payments from Nord Pool, according to Fingrid. "Nord Pool is the one paying for them. Fingrid is not a party in this electricity trade. We provide the transfer connection from Russia to Finland," Reima Paivinen, a Fingrid executive, told Reuters. A Nord Pool spokesman confirmed that settlements had always been in euros or Norwegian, Swedish, or Danish currencies but never rubles, "in line with our standard procedures."
The de facto leader of Georgia's breakaway region of South Ossetia has set a date of July 17 for a referendum on uniting with Russia that is bound to be dismissed as a sham by Tbilisi and most outsiders.
Russia recognized South Ossetia and another region, Abkhazia, as independent countries after fighting a brief war against Georgia in 2008. Moscow maintains thousands of troops in both regions. "Anatoly Bibilov signed a decree on holding a referendum in the Republic of South Ossetia," the de facto leader's office said in a statement. It cited the people's "historic aspiration" to join Russia. Bibilov had said on March 30 that the mountainous region of around 60,000 people would take imminent measures to join Russia, which it borders. Bibilov was defeated by the leader of the Nykhas party, Alan Gagloyev, in a May 8 runoff election for the leadership of South Ossetia in a vote that Georgia, the European Union, and the United States all dismissed as bogus.
Russian has warned its citizens not to travel to Britain, citing what it called London's "unfriendly course" toward Russia.
In a statement on May 13, the Foreign Ministry in Moscow said that Russian citizens had been facing problems in recent days when trying to get British visas to enter the United Kingdom. According to the ministry, the British Embassy in Moscow told Russian officials that its visa section was mainly working with visa applications filed by Ukrainian refugees, delaying the processing of visa applications filed by Russian citizens. The ministry added that following the sanctions imposed against Russian financial institutions by the West, it is impossible to pay visa fees with VISA and Mastercard payment cards, which adds to the complexity of the process of obtaining the British visas. Western countries slapped Russia with sanctions over its unprovoked invasion of Ukraine that started on February 24. "Taking into account the extremely unfriendly course of Great Britain towards our country, and to avoid financial losses and other possible problems, we recommend Russian citizens abstain, if possible, from trips to Great Britain and attempts to obtain British visas. Until the normalization of the situation, we will act in the same way towards English people," the statement said.
U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin used his first conversation with Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu since the start of the Russia's all-out invasion of Ukraine to call for an immediate cease-fire there, the Pentagon has said.
RFE/RL's Live Briefing gives you all of the major developments on Russia's invasion, how Kyiv is fighting back, the plight of civilians, and Western reaction. For all of RFE/RL's coverage of the war, click here.
"Secretary Austin urged an immediate cease-fire in Ukraine and emphasized the importance of maintaining lines of communication," the U.S. Defense Department said in a statement on May 13. The Pentagon provided no other details of Austin and Shoigu's first direct talks since February 18, nearly a week before tens of thousands of Russian troops poured across the Russian and Belarusian borders into Ukraine. The invasion has been met with fierce and surprisingly effective Ukrainian defenses supported by Western military shipments and funding, and sparked unprecedented trade, financial, and diplomatic sanctions against Russia as well as Western girding of areas that border Russia. The Pentagon and U.K. military briefers have said they believe the Russian military planners wildly overestimated possible local sympathy for Moscow and that the invaders' military aims are weeks behind schedule. Russian officials have hinted at a campaign to control major eastern and southern swaths of Ukraine and possibly try to seize Ukraine's entire Black Sea coast.
Thousands of protesters have blocked government buildings in the Armenian capital as nearly two weeks of opposition-led demonstrations continued in an effort to force Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian from office.
The protests and an ongoing disobedience campaign began after Pashinian suggested the international community wanted Armenia to "lower the bar" on its claims in the breakaway Azerbaijani territory of Nagorno-Karabakh. They have also been fueled by public outrage over the death of a pregnant woman struck by Pashinian's motorcade as it traveled through Yerevan. "With this we are showing that Nikol [Pashinian] has no power in the country," Ishkhan Saghatelian, deputy speaker of the National Assembly, was quoted as saying among flag-waving protesters. Some of the protesters briefly blocked access to a medical university on May 13. Armenians have been forced to recalibrate some of their security priorities since six weeks of intense fighting with Azerbaijan ended in defeat in 2020. Pashinian has survived multiple opposition efforts to unseat him since then. The region has also been rattled by the proximity and potential implications of Russia's recent invasion of another post-Soviet state, Ukraine. Yerevan's battle against Azerbaijani forces over Nagorno-Karabakh and surrounding districts more than a year ago ended in a humbling cease-fire that acknowledged Azerbaijani control of swaths of territory held for decades by ethnic Armenians and left Russian troops there to monitor the peace. Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev recently signaled a desire for peace talks but said Yerevan must renounce some territorial claims. The Armenian Foreign Ministry said on May 3 that Yerevan and longtime foe and Azerbaijani ally Turkey had agreed to move forward with efforts to normalize relations "without conditions," a move that could lead to the reopening of their shared border.
Moldova's foreign minister says there are "internal forces" in the country seeking to "destabilize the region" in the shadow of Russia's war on Ukraine but that Chisinau is working to ensure that such efforts don't spread the conflict.
Foreign Minister Nicu Popescu acknowledged that the situation in Moldova was "fragile, but it is nevertheless calm." He also said his country's rightful place is in the European Union and he hopes Moldova's accelerated EU bid gets quick acceptance from the bloc "in the next few weeks and months." "We do not face an acute military crisis today," Popescu told reporters on the sidelines of a three-day G7 foreign ministers' meeting on Germany's Baltic coast focused largely on the war and its ripple effects on food and energy supplies. Moldova and its tiny breakaway region of Transdniester share a roughly 1,200-kilometer border with Ukraine and fears of a spillover have intensified since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine began in late February. The European Union on May 4 pledged to boost military aid to Moldova, a poor nonmember where around 1,500 Russian troops still guard a Soviet-era military depot over Chisinau's objections. The pro-Russian leadership in Transdniester has pointed fingers across the border at Ukraine for some of a string of explosions and other minor incidents in recent months. On May 13, it said two attacks with Molotov cocktails targeted a fuel depot and conscription center in the regional capital, Tiraspol. The resulting fires were quickly extinguished, it said.
In a Reuters interview, Popescu said he couldn't assign blame but he linked the Transdniester blasts to the ongoing war in Ukraine. He expressed Chisinau's commitment to resolving the Transdniester problem "through peaceful dialogue and diplomacy." He said an "absolute majority of citizens in the Transdniestrian region doesn't want to live in a war zone and want peace, but there are forces inside that want to fuel destabilization." "They are limited, but want to play games stoking up tensions, provoking, [making] the population of Transdniestria hysterical and making nervous the population of Moldova," Popescu said. "There are internal forces that want to destabilize this region and bring war closer to our homes. We are working to make sure this is not happening." Post-Soviet Moldova is a poor and mostly Romanian-speaking country that remains hugely dependent on Russian natural gas. Nearly half a million refugees have fled to Moldova from Ukraine during the current fighting, with most continuing on but around one-quarter of them staying. Popescu said his country needed financial resources and "to adapt everything" to cope with the influx.
Transdniester is a narrow strip of land between the rest of Moldova and Ukraine. It declared independence from Chisinau in 1990 and the two sides fought a brief war in 1992 that was quelled by Russian troops intervening on th side of the separatists. Popescu cited Moldova's decision in the first week of the Ukraine war to submit its EU application and said its leadership was working hard on judicial and other reforms to make it an attractive candidate. "We believe that we are a country that has a European history, language, society, and a relatively consolidated democracy," Popescu said. "We believe our place is inside the European Union...and hope that in the next few weeks and months the EU will recognize our European aspirations." Nearby Georgia, which fought a five-day war in 2008 with Russian troops backing two of its breakaway regions, also submitted its EU application soon after Russian troops poured over Ukraine's border on February 24.
ROSTOV-ON-DON, Russia -- A court in Russia has sentenced another group of Crimean Tatars to lengthy prison terms on charges of being members of a banned Islamic group amid an ongoing crackdown on representatives of such groups.
The Crimean Solidarity human rights group said Russia's Southern District Military Court in the southwestern city of Rostov-on-Don on May 12 sentenced Tofik Abdulgaziyev, Vladlen Abduklkadyrov, Izzet Abdullayev, and Medzhit Abdurakhmanov to 12 years in prison each. Bilyal Adilov was handed a 14-year prison term. All had pleaded not guilty. The five men, all of whom are activists of the Crimean Solidarity group, were arrested in March 2019 along with more than a dozen other Crimean Tatars in Crimea, which Russia illegally annexed the region from Ukraine in 2014. Hizb ut-Tahrir is an Islamic group banned in Russia but not in Ukraine. Ukrainian Deputy Foreign Minister Emine Dzheppar condemned the court ruling, calling it "further proof of Russia's deliberate policy of the annihilation of Crimean Tatars in Crimea." "Russia must cancel the decision of the so-called 'court,' release all illegally held Ukrainian citizens, and stop the political persecution and repression of representatives of the Crimean Tatar people," Dzheppar wrote on Twitter. Since Moscow seized Crimea, Russian authorities have prosecuted dozens of Crimean Tatars for allegedly belonging to the Islamic group. Moscow's takeover of the peninsula was vocally opposed by many Crimean Tatars, who are a sizable minority in the region. Exiled from their homeland to Central Asia by Soviet authorities under the dictatorship of Josef Stalin during World War II, many Crimean Tatars are very wary of Russia and Moscow's rule.
Iranian authorities have arrested at least 22 demonstrators protesting against price hikes in subsidized food staples in two cities in the southwest of the country.
President Ebrahim Raisi this week announced a series of economic measures, including cutting subsidies and increasing the prices of several staples, such as flour and cooking oil. Iranians reacted to the expected price hikes by taking to the streets in several cities in the southwestern province of Khuzestan, the official government news agency IRNA reported on May 13, where the government has reportedly imposed a near-total shutdown of mobile Internet for the past week. Amateur videos posted on social media showed protests in Dezful and Mahshahr, where protesters chanted against Raisi and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
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Some reports suggested that security forces used tear gas to disperse the protesters. Street protests were also reported in Andimeshk, the capital city of the western province of Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari. IRNA said 15 people were arrested overnight in Dezful in Khuzestan, as well as seven others in the city of Yasuj in Kohgiluyeh-Boyerahmad Province in the south. Demonstrators in the southern city of Izeh attacked shops and tried to set fire to a mosque, the report claimed. Rallies also took place in other cities and in the Fashapuyeh district of Tehran Province, it added. Speaking on May 9 on state television, Raisi pledged that the price of traditional bread, gasoline, and medicine would remain unchanged. In order to compensate for the rise in prices, Raisi said direct payments equivalent to approximately $10 or $13 would be disbursed for two months for each family member of low-income households. Later, he said Iranians will be offered electronic coupons that would allow them to access a limited amount of subsidized bread. Reports suggested that the price of cooking oil had almost quadrupled since Raisi's announcement, while the price of eggs and chicken nearly doubled. Many Iranians are struggling to make ends meet amid a poor economy crushed by U.S. sanctions and years of mismanagement.
KYIV -- The first trial of a Russian soldier accused of war crimes for killing a Ukrainian civilian during Moscow's unprovoked invasion has opened in Kyiv.
Dozens of journalists packed inside a small courtroom in the Ukrainian capital, where the suspect appeared in a small glass cage for the start of a trial that has drawn international attention amid accusations of repeated atrocities by Russian forces.
Sergeant Vadim Shishimarin, 21, is accused of killing a 62-year-old civilian who was riding a bicycle in the village of Chupakhivka in the northeastern region of Sumy, a crime for which he could get life in prison.
The killing occurred just days after Russia's unprovoked invasion of Ukraine. Shishimarin, a member of a tank unit that was captured by Ukrainian forces, admitted that he shot the civilian in a video posted by the Security Service of Ukraine.
“I was ordered to shoot,” said Shishimarin, of the February 28 killing. “I shot one (round) at him. He falls. And we kept on going.”
Shishimarin’s video statement is “one of the first confessions of the enemy invaders,” according to the Ukrainian security service.
Ukrainian Prosecutor-General Iryna Venediktova last month identified 10 soldiers of the 64th Mechanized Infantry Brigade of the Russian armed forces, saying that they are suspected of "cruelty toward civilians and other war crimes," adding that Ukrainian investigators are continuing to gather evidence and those named were just the first.
She also said at the time that investigations were under way to find out if the 10 Russians took part in the killing of civilians in Bucha.
The retreat of Russian forces from Bucha and other towns near Kyiv revealed harrowing evidence of brutal killings, torture, mass graves, and the indiscriminate targeting of civilians in the fighting.
On May 12, the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) overwhelmingly approved a resolution to set up an investigation into allegations of abuses by Russian troops in areas of Ukraine they temporarily controlled.
The UNHRC's resolution cited apparent cases of torture, shootings, and sexual violence, along with other atrocities documented by a UN team on the ground.
KAZAN, Russia -- A court in Kazan, the capital of Russia's Republic of Tatarstan, has extended the pretrial detention for activist Andrei Boyarshinov, who was charged with terrorism over his calls to stop Russia's ongoing unprovoked invasion of Ukraine.
Boyarshinov's lawyer, Rim Sabirov, told RFE/RL that the Vakhitov district court ruled on May 13 that his client must stay in pretrial detention until at least August 18.
Boyarshinov was placed in custody on March 18 and charged with public calls for terrorism and justifying terrorism.
The charges stem from unspecified online posts Boyarshinov made before and during unsanctioned rallies in Kazan where demonstrators demanded a halt to Russia's war in Ukraine.
The court initially sent Boyarshinov to house arrest, but after prosecutors appealed the ruling, the pretrial restriction was changed and the activist was sent to pretrial detention.
Boyarshinov has told RFE/RL that he considers the case against him to be politically motivated, emphasizing that "I am, and will be, against this war."
Sabirov told RFE/RL that he will appeal the court's May 13 ruling.
Many activists, journalists, and others have left Russia for other countries since Moscow launched a wide-scale attack on Ukraine on February 24.
On March 5, President Vladimir Putin signed a law that calls for lengthy prison terms for distributing "deliberately false information" about Russian military operations as the Kremlin seeks to control the narrative about its war in Ukraine.
The law envisages sentences of up to 10 years in prison for individuals convicted of an offense, while the penalty for the distribution of "deliberately false information" about the Russian army that leads to "serious consequences" has a punishment of up to 15 years in prison.
It also makes it illegal "to make calls against the use of Russian troops to protect the interests of Russia" or "for discrediting such use" with a possible penalty of up to three years in prison. The same provision applies to calls for sanctions against Russia.
Russia’s Federal Security Service has said that almost 4 million Russian citizens left the country in the first three months of 2022 .
ALMATY, Kazakhstan -- Another Kazakh activist has been released from prison after a court replaced the remainder of his five-year sentence with a parole-like penalty amid an outcry by human rights groups over political prisoners in the Central Asian nation.
Abai Begimbetov was released from a penal colony in the town of Zarechny, near Almaty, on May 13, civil rights activist Rakhilya Beknazarova told RFE/RL.
The Qapshaghai City Court decided to replace Begimbetov's prison term with parole-like sentence on April 27. The ruling took force on May 13.
Last month, the same court replaced the remainder of prison terms with parole-like sentences for two other activists, Qairat Qylyshev and Askhat Zheksebaev, who were released on April 27 and May 3 respectively.
The three men, along with a fourth activist, Noyan Rakhymzhanov, were sentenced to five years in prison each in October last year on charge of having links with the opposition Democratic Choice of Kazakhstan (DVK) and its affiliate Koshe (Street) party.
The activists, who were recognized as political prisoners by human rights organizations in Kazakhstan, pleaded not guilty and claimed during their trial that they only participated in peaceful protests and exercised their constitutionally protected rights.
The case sparked protests by rights defenders and opposition activists in Kazakhstan, who said the harsh sentences handed to the four activists do not go along with President Qasym-Zhomart Toqaev's current campaign "to build a new democratic Kazakhstan," a move to distance himself from his predecessor Nursultan Nazarbaev. Nazarbaev, along with his clan, lost control over the oil-rich nation following deadly anti-government protests in early January.
Many activists across the tightly controlled former Soviet republic have been handed prison terms or parole-like restricted freedom sentences in recent years for their involvement in the activities of the DVK and the Koshe party and for taking part in the rallies organized by the two groups.
The DVK is led by Mukhtar Ablyazov, the fugitive former head of Kazakhstan’s BTA Bank and an outspoken critic of the Kazakh government. Kazakh authorities labeled the DVK extremist and banned the group in March 2018.
Earlier this year, Human Rights Watch criticized the Kazakh government for using anti-extremism laws as a tool to persecute critics and civic activists. Several hundred people have been prosecuted for membership in the Koshe party.
Kazakh authorities have insisted there are no political prisoners in the country.
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