An Iranian woman tells her story of defiance and coping. She joined the protest after the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, who died just days after her detention by the morality police for allegedly wearing her head scarf incorrectly.
In another incident more than a year later, 17-year-old Armita Garavand died after she was allegedly attacked on the Tehran subway for not wearing a hijab.

When Russian President Vladimir Putin arrived in Kazakhstan last week, he was greeted by his counterpart, Qasym-Zhomart Toqaev, and accorded the full pomp befitting a strategic ally. But there was a change in emphasis that was difficult to ignore. https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-central-asia-diplomatic-activitiy-surge-ukraine-war/32683831.html

After more than five months, Ukraine’s counteroffensive may be faltering. An audacious effort to set up bridgeheads across the Dnieper River could change that narrative.

https://www.rferl.org/a/bridgehead-dnieper-russia-ukraine-counteroffensive/32684589.html

Ukrainian troops continue to hold out in Avdiyivka as Russian forces attack the industrial city in the Donetsk region. Moscow launched an offensive on the area in early October in an effort to seize the frontline territory. Russian forces have suffered heavy losses during the onslaught, according to Ukrainian officials. Despite the daily fighting, some 1,500 residents continue to live among the ruins of their once peaceful neighborhoods.

“My great-grandfather didn’t participate in World War II for four years so that Russia would become a fascist state and attack Ukraine.”

https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-artist-skochilenko-sentenced-final-words-court-prison/32687860.html

Do the Ukrainian government’s media restrictions run counter to the country’s EU membership ambitions? Some Ukrainian politicians think so.

By @cxemu

https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-parliament-press-restrictions-censorship-journalists/32701375.html

A recent Russian police raid targeting migrant workers at a top retailer's warehouse near Moscow for military recruitment could hardly have gone unnoticed. https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-migrants-raids-attacks-pressure-fight-ukraine/32703657.html

The wife of a Russian ministry official, an interpreter for Vladimir Putin, and a former diplomat whom Western intelligence suspects of spy links: These are the Russians whose employment by the OSCE has raised concerns amid what critics call Kremlin efforts to paralyze the European security body.

https://www.rferl.org/a/32693816.html

Did Western countries hand Russia a victory by caving into Kremlin demands and snubbing Estonia as the 2024 chair of the OSCE?

https://www.rferl.org/a/news-analysis-russia-triumph-osce-meeting-skopje/32707080.html

An October Systema (@radiosvoboda) & @cxemu investigation revealed that a purported Russian private army called Redut operating in Ukraine is actually a shadowy recruitment network run by the Russian military’s main intelligence directorate, the GRU.

A follow-up investigation, based on battlefield records and multiple interviews with Redut fighters and recruiters, provides an unprecedented look into a hall of mirrors: contracts signed with nonexistent companies, fighters attached to military units on paper only, and in one case, a posthumous state award from Putin for a fighter of whom the Defense Ministry said it had no record.

This legal mirage has made it difficult for relatives of Redut mercenaries to track down those in charge to ask about unpaid wages, death benefits, or fighters’ whereabouts, leading to exasperated posts on Russian social media networks.

Recruiters say this system offers multiple benefits, such as being able to quit without the threat of a court-martial and "avoid paying taxes," according to one recruiter. But for those who return to Russia, it can be difficult to prove that they fought in Ukraine at all.

https://www.rferl.org/a/redut-fake-russia-gru-pmc-ukraine/32708853.html

Although the most active opponents of Russia's invasion of Ukraine and other policies of President Vladimir Putin have either left the country or been imprisoned, there are increasing signs of low-key resistance targeting the ubiquitous Z symbols of support for the war. https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-war-z-symbol-resistance-legal-actions-vandalism/32713146.html

You’ll be able to pay your taxes, share cat videos, find a romantic partner, or be summoned to fight in the war in Ukraine.

“For any authoritarian state, that's the absolute dream scenario,” one expert said.

https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-internet-app-social-media-surveillance-/32711114.html

In a new memoir, former Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbaev has admitted to fathering two sons with Miss Kazakhstan 1999 outside his official marriage.

https://www.rferl.org/a/nursultan-nazarbaev-admits-his-relationship-with-asel-qurmanbaeva-/32714668.html

A RFE/RL's Russia service investigation has found that a former Russian envoy to the EU whom multiple European diplomats say works for Russian intelligence is now coordinating between Wagner forces and local police in the Central African Republic following the mysterious death of Kremlin-connected warlord Yevgeny Prigozhin. https://www.rferl.org/a/wagner-russia-central-african-republic-investigation/32719917.html

A former Ukrainian lawmaker gunned down in a Moscow suburb is the latest hit in a shadowy assassination campaign that Ukraine has winkingly ducked responsibility for.

https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-russia-assassination-campaign/32721025.html?fbclid=IwAR3Khu7n8pcb2ezKUgi3BjfqfIYpSQcgE8OWAtqeImAyxQqyJimIlnnY7zk

He was a Russian diplomat until he was expelled by the EU for "illegal and disruptive actions."

Now he is an OSCE election observer.

A new investigation ⬇️⬇️⬇️

https://www.rferl.org/a/32726073.html

Russia's second missile assault on Kyiv this week injured at least 53 people, including 9 children, and damaged homes and a children's hospital, Ukrainian officials said on December 13. https://buff.ly/46VqHv5

Russian riot police raided an LGBT club in Yekaterinburg less than two weeks after Russia's Supreme Court banned the activities of the "international LGBT movement" --which legally does not exist -- in the country. Dozens of visitors were detained while police recorded their personal information.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lYMhWfe5jJA

Some 3.6 percent of the world's population is on the move; one in every eight migrants is a child.
Our journalists traveled to Mexico, Poland, Georgia, India, and further to report on the migration issues most affecting the 23 countries we broadcast in.

https://www.rferl.org/a/international-migrants-day-stories-hope-survival-refugees/32706880.html

Controversy continues over the methods used to remove Sofia's Red Army monument and whether it will be restored as promised.

Officially, the plan is to display it at a site where it will serve an “educational” role.

https://www.rferl.org/a/bulgaria-red-army-soviet-monument-uncertain-future/32738055.html