The key index of Russia’s main stock exchange tumbled 20 percent after a delayed opening as investors feared the effects of Western sanctions following Moscow’s decision to attack Ukraine.
The RTS index was down 20.16 percent on February 24 after reopening following a suspension implemented by authorities.
The ruble crashed more than 9 percent on currency markets, prompting the Russian central bank to intervene to “stabilize” markets.
"To stabilize the situation on the financial market, the Bank of Russia has decided to start interventions in the foreign exchange market," the central bank said in a statement.
"The Bank of Russia will ensure the maintenance of financial stability and continuity of the operation of financial institutions, using all necessary tools," it said.
It added that other financial institutions "have clear action plans for any scenario."
Stock markets around the world also fell sharply early on February 24 as fears of economic disruptions hit the markets.
Oil prices rose above $100 a barrel, their highest levels since September 2014, on concerns of a disruption in supplies should Western sanctions affect Russian oil exports.
Gold prices and the Japanese yen -- traditional safe havens in the midst of global uncertainties -- also jumped higher.
"Russia/Ukraine tensions bring both a possible demand shock [for Europe], and more importantly a much larger supply shock for the rest of the world given the importance of Russia and Ukraine to energy, hard commodities, and soft commodities," National Australia Bank's Tapas Strickland was quoted by AFP as saying.
BNY Mellon Investment Management's Lale Akoner was quoted as saying: "Expect volatility to really persist in the next few months" amid global uncertainties.
German Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht said during a visit to Lithuania that NATO must do more for common security to protect itself against any aggressive actions by Russia and President Vladimir Putin.
"The fact is that we, NATO, must do more for our common security because we cannot know how far Putin's delusions of grandeur can go," Lambrecht said while visiting German troops deployed in the Baltic nation.
"We've heard Russia's threats to Lithuania, which was implementing European sanctions on the border with Kaliningrad. [These are] not nearly the first threats, and we must take them seriously and be prepared," she said.
"The security of Lithuania is the security of Germany. It is this promise of common security that we are recommitting ourselves to today," she said at Lithuania's Rukla military base.
Germany heads an international combat brigade of 3,000-5,000 soldiers stationed in Lithuania.
The force is part of NATO efforts to bolster its eastern flank amid recent aggressive actions in the region by Moscow.
Lithuania has borders with the Russian Baltic Sea exclave of Kaliningrad as well as with Kremlin ally Belarus.
With its forces struggling against a dramatic Ukrainian counteroffensive, Russia's Defense Ministry on October 8 named General Sergei Surovikin as the new overall commander of Kremlin forces engaged in Ukraine.
The move marked the first official announcement of a single overall commander for all Russian forces fighting in Ukraine since its February 24 invasion of the country.
The announcement also came just hours after a blast and fire suspended traffic and damaged a key bridge linking Russia to the occupied Crimean Peninsula early on October 8 in a fresh blow to Moscow's prestige, although the origin of the blast has not been determined.
"By the decision of the defense minister of the Russian Federation, General of the Army Sergei Surovikin has been appointed commander of the joint group of troops in the area of the special military operation," the statement said, using the Kremlin's term for the invasion of Ukraine.
Since 2017, Surovikin has led Russia's Aerospace Forces -- an office created in 2015 when the Russian Air Force, the Air and Missile Forces, and the Space Forces were placed under one command.
In June, Surovikin was placed in charge of Russian troops in southern Ukraine. He had previously served in Tajikistan, Chechnya, and Syria.
In April, the BBC and CNN, citing Western officials and sources, reported that General Aleksandr Dvornikov had been appointed overall commander of Russian forces in Ukraine. The latest announcement did not mention Dvornikov.
Dvornikov has a notorious reputation for his conduct in the war in Syria, where Russia bombed civilian districts. Russian President Vladimir Putin awarded Dvornikov the Hero of Russia medal, one of the country's highest awards, for his work in Syria.
As Ukraine continues to liberate settlements in its eastern region from occupying Russian troops, Moscow has reportedly replaced other top commanders in its armed forces.
The head of Russia's North Caucasus region of Daghestan, Sergei Melikov, wrote on Telegram on October 7 that North Caucasus native Lieutenant-General Rustam Muradov had been appointed to lead the Eastern Military District.
The district is based in Russia's Far East, but much of its personnel is currently taking part in Russia's unprovoked invasion of Ukraine.
Muradov, who among other Russian officials has been slapped by Western sanctions, led troops in Ukraine's eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, parts of which have been under Russia-backed separatists' control since 2014. He also commanded Russian peacekeepers in Azerbaijan's breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh.
RBK news agency on October 7 cited sources close to the Russian military as saying Muradov replaced Colonel-General Aleksandr Chaiko without giving any details.
There has been no official confirmation of the report.
On October 3, RBK reported that the commander of the Western Military District, Colonel-General Aleksandr Zhuravlyov, had been replaced shortly after dramatic Russian losses in northeastern Ukraine in September and Ukraine's recapture of the strategic city of Lyman in the Donetsk region.
In September, General Dmitry Bulgakov, deputy defense minister in charge of logistics, was replaced by Colonel General Mikhail Mizintsev, who is accused by the European Union of orchestrating a siege of the Ukrainian port of Mariupol early in the war that killed thousands of civilians.
In August, state media outlets in Russia said the commander of the Black Sea fleet had been fired after Ukraine carried out several successful attacks, including the sinking of Russia's missile cruiser Moskva and the loss of eight warplanes in an attack on a Russian base in Ukraine's Crimea that was seized by Moscow in 2014.
Germany's state-owned railway operator blamed "sabotage" to its cables for an hours-long stoppage of all rail traffic in the north of the country on October 8, and launched an investigation into who was behind the interference.
Deutsche Bahn (DB) didn't say who it suspected and said service had since restarted.
But the outage follows a warning from the NATO military alliance and the European Union of the urgency of protecting critical infrastructure after sabotage was blamed for at least four sudden and sizable leaks last month in the Nord Stream gas pipelines that run from Russia to Western Europe.
Russia has responded to suspicions it was behind those gas leaks by calling such sabotage "unthinkable."
"Due to sabotage on cables that are indispensable for rail traffic, Deutsche Bahn had to stop rail traffic in the north this morning for nearly three hours," the German railway operator announced on October 8.
Earlier, it cited a technical problem with radio communications.
Der Spiegel magazine quoted anonymous security sources as saying cables for DB's communications network had been sliced in two places.
Rail service was affected through Lower Saxony and Schleswig-Holstein in addition to Bremen and Hamburg, and international rail journeys to Denmark and the Netherlands were also delayed as a result.
DB said no long-distance trains were running between Berlin, in the east of the country, and Hanover and North Rhine Westphalia in the west.
DB tweeted later that while many trains were running, "There are still impairments. Unfortunately, you still have to expect train and stop cancellations and delays."
The Swedish Security Police on October 6 said its initial probe confirmed that "detonations" caused "extensive damage" to the Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 pipelines last week.
Russia supplies around one-third of Europe's natural gas, which has been at the center of sanctions-related trade disputes since Russia launched its unprovoked invasion of Ukraine in February.
Before the alleged sabotage to the Nord Stream pipelines, Russia's gas provider several times cited technical holdups that it said prevented its deliveries to the West.
No media source currently available
An early morning blast and ensuing fire hit a section of the dual road-and-rail Crimea Bridge over the Kerch Strait and a span of the road bridge collapsed into the sea on October 8. A helicopter helped extinguish the blaze of several oil-carrying train carriages. The three-year-old, 19-kilometer bridge -- whose construction was launched by Moscow soon after it annexed Ukraine’s Crimea in 2014 -- became a symbol of Russian revanchism and has been used to transfer troops, weapons, equipment, and fuel from Russia to Ukraine during the current invasion. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered an official investigation into the bridge incident, and Russian Investigative Committee representatives were seen on the bridge hours later.
BELGRADE -- President Aleksandar Vucic says France and Germany have encouraged Serbia to allow its former province Kosovo to join international institutions and organizations, including the United Nations, in exchange for early membership in the European Union.
He quickly added that such a solution was unacceptable to Belgrade and contravened Serbia's constitution.
Neither Paris nor Berlin has confirmed the offer of any such quid pro quo deal.
"The bottom line is that Serbia allows Kosovo to join all international institutions and organizations, including the UN," Vucic told a press conference in Belgrade on October 8. "For that, Serbia would get quick entry into the EU and probably significant economic benefits."
Vucic and his ruling Progressive Party (SNS) consistently reject Pristina's 2008 declaration of sovereignty and have waged a decade-long campaign to discourage others from recognizing Kosovo, which fought a war of independence from Serbia in 1998-99.
Serbia's constitution declares that the overwhelmingly ethnic Albanian Kosovo is part of Serbia, although more than 100 countries recognize its independence.
But he also acknowledged damage that Belgrade's position might be doing to Serbia and the possibility that the costs might eventually outweigh Serbian objections.
"We will stick to [our Kosovo policy] until the the damage caused to Serbia is so much greater that we would have to accept a different reality," Vucic said. "Maybe a future government will make a different decision."
Vucic said Serbia would face consequences if it recognized Kosovo and he regretted accepting EU facilitation of efforts to resolve Kosovo's final status, a process that has been continuing intermittently for a decade.
"Since then, regardless of the signed Brussels agreement, we have not been able to put the formation of the Union of Serbian Municipalities on the agenda," Vucic said in reference to Pristina's continuing opposition to formalizing structures in majority-Serb northern Kosovo supported diplomatically and financially by Belgrade.
Vucic said Serbia's position on Kosovo was increasingly complicated "because the Western countries will try, as they think, to solve the problem of Kosovo in one way or another by Kosovo joining UN and because they think that way they would solve intra-European matters."
He also said the West is seeking to eliminate an argument frequently cited by President Vladimir Putin and other Russian officials to defend Moscow's actions.
Russia has leveraged its diplomatic support for Belgrade in the Kosovo dispute into trade, weapons, and other ties, in addition to citing it in criticism of Western decisions or justification for Moscow's actions.
Vucic said Serbia will maintain its refusal to impose sanctions on Russia, a position that has raised tensions given Serbia's candidate status for EU membership and ongoing accession talks.
A handful of EU countries including Spain, Slovakia, and Romania also don't recognize Kosovo.
Vucic suggested EU member and sometimes ally over ethnic issues in the former Yugoslavia Croatia was an "unreliable partner" as evidenced by events around an eighth EU sanctions package against Russia.
The Serbian president earlier accused Zagreb of removing a paragraph that would have granted Serbia and other landlocked Western Balkan countries an exemption allowing them to continue receiving Russian seaborne crude oil.
He said as part of its energy-diversification efforts, Serbia planned to build a $100 million oil pipeline toward Hungary, whose nationalist populist Prime Minister Viktor Orban has been accused of democratic backsliding and cozying up to Putin.
Another plan would see a pipeline via North Macedonia the Albania's Drac port.
Vucic said on October 8 that "at the moment Serbia has eight notes on the withdrawal of recognition of Kosovo."
He noted that Kosovo's admission process to the Council of Europe is expected to begin next month.
More scattered protests and crackdown violence struck Iran on October 8 as demonstrators angry over the death of a young woman detained over the dress code continued to defy officials' warnings of tough punishments to stem weeks of unrest.
Videos posted on social media from trusted sources showed small protests in Tehran, Karaji just outside the capital, and a few other cities.
There were also reports of striking workers in several cities in heavily Kurdish areas, where public outcry was initially strongest when word spread that 22-year-old Mahsa Amini died three days after being picked up in the capital by Iran's morality police.
The Oslo-based Iran Human Rights group said at least 92 protesters have been killed by the security forces, although other groups cite death figures of 160 or more, along with hundreds more injured and thousands arrested.
A Norway-based network of human rights campaigners which monitors abuses in heavily Kurdish northwestern Iran said Iranian riot police opened fire on people in at least two cities on October 8, with the protests in their fourth week.
"Security forces are shooting at the protesters in Sanandaj and Saqqez," said the Hengaw Organization for Human Rights.
They also used tear gas against crowds, the group said.
A widely followed Twitter account called Tavsir1500 reported shootings at protesters in two cities.
Videos shared by Hengaw showed young women or girls chanting "Woman, life, freedom!" at a school in Amini's hometown of Saqez, in Kurdistan Province.
Others waved their mandatory Islamic head scarves in the air in a daring challenge to the strict hijab laws that have been part of systemic discrimination against women and girls under Iran's religious leadership since the 1979 revolution.
In another video it shared, a group of girls could be heard chanting the same phrase -- the catchcry of the protests -- as they entered a school in Sanandaj, the capital of Kurdistan Province.
Another video Hengaw claimed was from Sanandaj showed a driver slumped at the wheel after the group claimed he was shot dead while honking amid a street demonstration.
AFP confirmed the presence of a large banner on an overpass in central Tehran that read, "We are not afraid anymore. We will fight."
Iranian expulsions, censorship, and interrupted communications make reporting inside the country difficult.
Eyewitness accounts said Amini had been beaten during her arrest, while her father has said she suffered bruises to her legs and has held the police responsible for her death.
The state-controlled ISNA news agency said on October 7 that Iran's Forensic Medicine Organization had determined "underlying diseases" were the cause of Amini's death, while making no mention of whether she had suffered any injuries. A report on state television added that the forensic report showed Amini's death was related to "surgery for a brain tumor at the age of 8."
The street protests quickly spread after officials denied the dress-code enforcers were responsible before any investigations were done, and senior leaders including Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei have since suggested that foreign elements are behind the unrest.
Hard-line President Ebrahim Raisi has made similar charges, including at a ceremony on October 8 at Tehran University to mark the start of the new academic year.
The executive board of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has approved an additional $1.3 billion in emergency funds for Ukraine stemming from hardships from the Russian invasion and related gaps in grain production and sales.
The UN financial agency said in an announcement that the financing "will help close a financing gap from shortfalls in grain exports."
It was disbursed under a new "food shock window" under a rapid-financing instrument set up to help Ukraine meet an "urgent balance of payment needs," the IMF said.
"More than seven months after the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the humanitarian and economic toll remains massive, resulting in large and urgent fiscal and external financing needs," the IMF said.
It also credited Ukrainian authorities with "having maintained an important degree of macro-financial stability in these extremely challenging circumstances" since the unprovoked Russian invasion began in late February, following eight years of lower-level conflict between Russia-backed separatists and Ukraine's government in the eastern part of the country.
A Russian blockade on Ukrainian ports along the Black Sea coast has further hurt Ukraine, and a Turkish- and UN-mediated deal to enable Ukraine to renew its wheat and other grain shipments has foundered.
The IMF said it predicted that Ukraine's economy will contract by around 35 percent in 2022 year on year, compounding financial woes.
Bulgaria could be forced into new elections yet again after the victorious center-right GERB party was rebuffed by what many regarded as its last hope for coalition talks in a hung parliament days after its fourth elections in just 18 months.
The head of We Continue The Change (PP), Kiril Petkov, said on October 8 that his centrist, pro-Western electoral alliance is not interested in a coalition with Boyko Borisov and his GERB allies.
Most analysts saw PP as the only potential kingmaker for GERB after most other groups dismissed talk of cooperation with Borisov, who spent three stormy and divisive tenures as prime minister between 2009 and 2021.
Borisov and his GERB party have been the target of widespread corruption accusations, but he pledged recently to organize a "Euro-Atlantic" government with or without himself as prime minister.
Petkov served as prime minister from December to August largely on the strength of the PP's opposition to perceived corruption and other failures under Borisov's governments.
Petkov said his idea of a Euro-Atlantic government that supports the European Union and NATO is one "without corruption."
His PP co-leader, Asen Vasilev, said after a national party meeting this week that "we will not go to talks with GERB for the first term" but "will be a constructive opposition and will not hinder the formation of a cabinet."
Bulgarians voted in national elections in their Balkan country for the fourth time in 18 months on October 2 and gave GERB a plurality of around 25 percent, or 67 deputies in the 240-seat National Assembly, with PP placing second with just over 20 percent and 53 seats.
The southeastern EU member country of nearly 7 million people has been plagued by political gridlock since 2020 when it was rocked by nationwide protests, as public anger over years of corruption boiled over. Much of the ire was directed at Borisov and his GERB party.
The Bulgarian Rise party, a seemingly pro-Russian party that won 12 legislative seats this month, is the only party whose leader has expressed a willingness to enter coalition talks with GERB.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a decree installing a new operator for a massive international oil-and-gas project in Russia's Far East, affecting billions of investment dollars from major U.S., Japanese, and Indian companies.
The maneuver and decree on October 7 appear to repeat a strategy that the Kremlin has used recently to seize other foreign-owned energy assets.
Putin ordered that authority be given to the Russian government to decide whether foreign stakeholders in the massive Sakhalin-1 oil and gas project may retain their holdings in the joint venture.
The move toward nationalization further complicates U.S. Exxon Mobil's efforts to exit Russia since international sanctions were imposed over Putin's order of a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in late February. Exxon has a 30-percent stake in the operations of Sakhalin-1.
It also sets up possible disputes with Japanese Sodeco, which has a 50-percent stake, and India's ONGC Videsh.
Neither Exxon nor Sodeco immediately responded to Putin's decree.
The Kremlin order cites the establishment of a Russian company under Rosneft subsidiary Sakhalinmorneftegaz-shelf to control investors' rights in Sakhalin-1.
It sets a one-month deadline once that company is established for foreign partners to request shares in the new entity via the Russian government.
The United States has helped lead the unprecedented trade and other sanctions since Russia's full-scale invasion began, while Japan stopped buying Russian oil in June.
New Delhi has mostly remained silent on the Russian aggression against its post-Soviet neighbor, but Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi suggested in September at his first face-to-face meeting with Putin since the invasion that "today's era is not one for war."
The Sakhalin-1 project off Sakhalin Island on Russia's eastern coast operates three fields in the Okhotsk Sea, using advanced extended-reach technology for some of the longest wells in the world.
Putin used a July decree to seize full control of a sister project in the Far East, Sakhalin-2, in which Shell and Japan's Mitsui & Co and Mitsubishi Corp were partners.
Russia on October 7 declared Oxxxymiron, one of the country's most popular rappers, to be a "foreign agent" as it updated its registry to add activists, writers, and journalists, including some who work for RFE/RL.
Oxxxymiron, 37, whose real name is Miron Fyodorov, has called the Kremlin's Ukraine offensive a "catastrophe and a crime." He canceled a Russian tour in protest of the invasion, subsequently left Russia, and gave a series of concerts titled Russians Against the War in Turkey, Britain, and Germany.
Fyodorov, human rights activist and feminist politician Alyona Popova, and journalist Irina Storozheva of Khabarovsk were added to the list of so-called foreign agents. Oxxxymiron lists Ukraine as a source of funding, while Popova and Storozheva, in addition to Ukraine, list RFE/RL.
Writer Dmitry Glukhovsky and journalists Evgenia Baltatarova of Buryatia and Iskander Yasaveev of Mari El were also included in the updated register of media outlets that are deemed foreign agents. Yasaveev collaborates with Idel.Realii, a project of RFE/RL.
Glukhovsky is one of the most widely read science fiction writers in Russia. He is the author of the post-apocalyptic fiction novel and bestseller Metro 2033.
After the start of the Russian military invasion of Ukraine, Glukhovsky repeatedly published anti-war posts on his social media accounts. He also talked about the killing of Ukrainian civilians and the losses suffered by the Russian Army.
In June he was placed on the federal wanted list by the Russian Internal Affairs Ministry in a criminal case of discrediting the Russian army.
The Justice Ministry also labeled the Yekaterinburg Resource Center for LGBT an unregistered foreign-agent organization.
Russia's foreign agents registry has been used extensively against opponents, journalists, and human rights activists accused of conducting foreign-funded political activities.
No media source currently available
A blast and fire suspended traffic and damaged a key bridge linking Russia to the occupied Crimean Peninsula early on October 8 in what Moscow authorities said was a car bombing and a senior aide to Ukraine's president suggested was a fresh blow by Kyiv targeting operational support for Moscow's seven-month-old full-scale invasion.
Meanwhile, Kyiv tallied gains in its ongoing counteroffensives in eastern and southern Ukraine over the past week, while pro-Russia forces claimed their first gains in over a month in the eastern Donetsk region around Bakhmut.
A video shared on pro-Ukrainian social media showed a raging fire on the rail section of the dual road-and-rail Crimea Bridge over the Kerch Strait and a collapsed span on the nearby road segment.
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.
"Today at 6:07 a.m. on the road traffic side of the Crimean bridge...a car bomb exploded, setting fire to seven oil tankers being carried by rail to Crimea," Russian news agencies quoted the national antiterrorism committee as saying.
Mykhaylo Podolyak, an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, sent a tweet suggesting Ukrainian involvement. He called the bridge incident "the beginning" but stopped short of a claim of responsibility by Kyiv.
"Crimea, the bridge, the beginning," Podolyak tweeted, in English. "Everything illegal must be destroyed, everything stolen must be returned to Ukraine, everything occupied by Russia must be expelled."
The three-year-old bridge became a symbol of Russian revanchism and has been used to transfer troops, weapons, equipment, and fuel from Russia to Ukraine during the current invasion.
Russian media and Telegram channels reported that traffic was halted on the bridge after Ukrainian reports of a huge explosion there at around 6 a.m. local time.
Hours later, the Russian Transport Ministry said limited road traffic had resumed on undamaged lanes of the bridge.
Russia's TASS quoted a spokeswoman for the Taman management of federal highways of Russia's Federal Road Agency (Avtodor) as saying "personnel from the Russian Emergencies Ministry and the road service are working on the site to contain the fire."
Shared images showed black smoke billowing from a huge blaze at one end of the 19-kilometer road-and-rail bridge, which was completed in 2019.
The Crimea Bridge is Europe's longest and was intended to consolidate Russia's control over Crimea, which it invaded and annexed in 2014.
Reports of intense fighting in many areas of Ukraine continued, one day after the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to human rights activists in Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine against the backdrop of harsh crackdowns by Moscow and its allies in Minsk on dissent and the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Hours earlier, Zelenskiy said in his nightly address late on October 7 that Ukrainian forces have recaptured more than 770 square kilometers and 29 municipalities in the past week since Russia's "sham" referendums in four regions of Ukraine.
But pro-Russian forces said overnight on October 7-8 that they had recaptured ground in the area around the strategic city of Bakhmut in the Donetsk region in the first Russian claim of a territorial gain since Kyiv's counteroffensive began more than a month ago.
Russia-backed separatists in Donetsk said on October 7 that they retook several villages near Bakhmut, including Otradovka and Veselaya Dolina.
Russian forces also launched another effort to storm Bakhmut, a key strategic city of around 70,000 before the war where Moscow and its separatist allies have been shelling for weeks.
A Current Time correspondent on the front lines in northern Donetsk said late on October 7 that Ukrainian fighters appeared to have repelled the Russian forces trying to break through a defense line in the direction of Bakhmut.
RFE/RL cannot independently verify claims by either side in areas of intense fighting.
A day earlier, shelling damaged a power line providing electricity to one of the reactors at Ukraine's Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said as it announced that its director will travel to Moscow early next week.
The shelling forced the reactor to temporarily rely on its emergency diesel generators to run cooling systems, the IAEA said on October 7 in a news release.
Ukrainian officials later said the number of dead from a Russian aerial attack on residential buildings in Zaporizhzhya blamed on "kamikaze" drones rose to 11.
The head of the military administration in the Donetsk region said officials are now aware of two areas in the liberated city of Lyman containing victims of the Russian occupation there.
Pavlo Kyrylenko said one of the sites holds the remains of about 200 people buried individually who are believed to be civilian victims.
The other is a mass grave with military and civilian remains. The exact number of bodies it contains is not yet clear.
The Ukrainian military has liberated 29 settlements and more than 770 square kilometers in eastern Ukraine, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on October 7 as Russian and Ukrainian human rights organizations were awarded a share of the Nobel Peace Prize on the same day that Russian President Vladimir Putin celebrated his 70th birthday.
The liberated Ukrainian settlements include six in the Luhansk region -- one of four that Russia illegally annexed after conducting what Zelenskiy said were "pseudo-referendums" on the question of joining Russia.
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.
"In total, since the beginning of this offensive operation, 2,434 square kilometers of our land and 96 settlements have already been liberated," Zelenskiy said, adding up the gains in a counteroffensive that began several weeks ago. "There are also good results in the south of Ukraine this week. Every day we are liberating our land and our people there from the pseudo-referendum. We will certainly reach the lands that were occupied by Russia before," he said in his nightly address.
Russia's Defense Ministry said on October 7 that its forces had repelled Ukrainian advances near the city of Lyman in the Donetsk region and had retaken three villages elsewhere in the region. The ministry also claimed Russian forces had prevented Ukrainian troops from advancing on several villages in the southern Kherson region. Reports from the battlefield could not be independently confirmed. They came on the same day that the Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded the Nobel Peace Prize to Russian rights group Memorial, Ukraine's Center For Civil Liberties, and a human rights activist jailed in Belarus. The awards were seen as a repudiation of Putin, who marked his 70th birthday on October 7. Activists marked the milestone in various ways. In the Georgian city of Batumi, he was "gifted" a ticket to The Hague, where the International Criminal Court is located.
In the Russian city of Samara, activist Vladimir Avdonin conducted a solo picket holding a poster with the words "Putin is a criminal." He stood at one of the busiest intersections in the city for about half an hour, according to Idel.Realii. The activist has been "congratulating" Putin on his birthday in this way for several years and has been subjected to searches and fines more than once but was not detained this time. In a show of support for Putin, students in St. Petersburg stood in a formation on a main city square spelling out the phrase "Putin is my president." They were reportedly driven to the square and handed posters and Russian flags before they marched onto the square. Back in Ukraine, an official in the city of Zaporizhzhya said the number of people killed as a result of an attack on October 6 had increased to 14.
WATCH: Russia has resorted to using Shahed-136 drones from Iran in its war on Ukraine. Ukraine says it's already downed many of the drones, which work by slamming into their intended target, laden with explosives.
No media source currently available
"Disappointing news continues to come to us from the analysis of debris on the houses that were affected by yesterday's attack," said city council secretary Andriy Kurtev on October 7, expressing condolences to all those who lost relatives and friends. Moscow denies carrying out targeted attacks on civilians despite numerous testimonies to the contrary. An official in the eastern town of Lyman, which was recently liberated by Ukrainian troops, said 200 graves and a mass grave had been discovered there. Pavlo Kyrylenko, governor of the eastern Donetsk region, published photos on his Telegram channel showing emergency personnel in white protective suits working in a cordoned-off area. Exhumations had already begun, Kyrylenko wrote.
According to initial findings, the dead could be both Ukrainian soldiers and civilians. Ukrainian troops took control of Lyman on October 2 after Russian forces withdrew a day earlier. A mass burial site was found last month near the eastern city of Izyum after Ukrainian troops took over towns in the Kharkiv region. Hundreds of bodies were exhumed, including 30 with signs of torture.
The English city of Liverpool will hold the 2023 Eurovision Song Contest, the BBC has reported, after Britain stepped in on behalf of Ukraine, which won this year's contest on a wave of support following Russia's invasion.
The BBC's Eurovision show presenter, Graham Norton, announced the selection of Liverpool, saying the show will be held on May 13 in the northwestern English city that is home to the Beatles and other world-famous bands.
Ukraine had been due to host the contest after its folk-rap group Kalush Orchestra won the 2022 Eurovision crown under a decades-long tradition that the winner gets to host the show the following year.
The group beat 24 competitors in the final in May in Turin, Italy, with Stefania, a rap lullaby combining Ukrainian folk and modern hip-hop rhythms.
But the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), which runs Eurovision, ruled in June that Ukraine could not guarantee the safety of the more than 10,000 people involved in the production of the annual show plus tens of thousands of fans.
Britain was invited to host based on the second-place finish of British singer Sam Ryder with his song Space Man.
The government in Kyiv vowed to fight the decision but agreed to a U.K.-hosted event after assurances that it would have an "extremely high integration of Ukrainian context and presenters."
Eurovision is the world's biggest live music event, featuring performers from across Europe and Central Asia as well as Israel and Australia.
The BBC will stage the event, which normally draws a television audience of close to 200 million. Ukraine will automatically qualify to the grand final of the competition, the EBU said.
Shelling has damaged a power line providing electricity to one of the reactors at Ukraine's Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Power Plant, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has said as it announced that its director will travel to Moscow early next week.
The shelling forced the reactor to temporarily rely on its emergency diesel generators to run cooling systems, the IAEA said on October 7 in a news release.
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.
The UN's nuclear watchdog said it was informed of the shelling, which took place on October 6, by senior Ukrainian operating personnel at the site.
The diesel generators supplied power to the reactor after its connection to the back-up line was cut during shelling that occurred in an industrial area outside the power plant's perimeter. The high-voltage external power line is the only one available to the plant.
The generators operated for about 90 minutes, while an alternative source of power from four of the other reactors was connected to the unit, whose core cooling was maintained at all times, the IAEA said.
"The incident once again underlined the precarious nuclear safety and security situation at Europe's largest nuclear power plant -- now located in an active war zone -- and especially the fragile and vulnerable supplies of external power that are needed for cooling and other essential nuclear safety and security functions," the IAEA said.
Oleksandr Starukh, the Ukrainian governor of Zaporizhzhya, said earlier on Telegram that the Russian military launched a missile attack on the regional center and its immediate surroundings.
He added that there was a risk of repeated shelling and warned people to stay indoors.
Russia seized control of the Zaporizhzhya plant shortly after it launched its unprovoked invasion of Ukraine on February 24. The plant's Ukrainian operators have remained on site to run the plant.
IAEA Director-General Rafael Grossi has praised the operators as "courageous, skilled, and experienced," saying they have been finding solutions to overcome problems that keep occurring because of the conflict.
"However, this is not a sustainable way to run a nuclear power plant. There is an urgent need to create a more stable environment for the plant and its staff," Grossi said.
Grossi visited Kyiv on October 6 for talks with President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on the situation at the plant and the IAEA's proposal to set up a nuclear safety and security protection zone around it.
He described his meeting as "excellent," saying on Twitter that there was progress toward a setting up the safety zone.
Grossi will travel to Russia early next week for further consultations on the plan, the IAEA said. The agency had previously said Grossi would travel to Kyiv and Moscow this week.
Russian President Vladimir Putin on October 5 ordered the Russian state to seize complete control of the power plant after he signed decrees that Moscow claims absorb into Russia four regions that it only partially controls.
Ukraine's state nuclear energy company, Enerhoatom, dismissed Putin's move and said Russian documents regarding the Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant were "worthless, absurd, and inadequate."
The IAEA on October 7 also expanded its presence at the power plant when four IAEA nuclear safety experts arrived to replace two colleagues who had been at the site since September 1.
The experts are providing independent and impartial observations and assessments of the situation at the plant. They would also provide support to the nuclear safety and security protection zone if it is established.
"Today's rotation underlines our determination that the IAEA will stay at the plant as long as it is required," Grossi said in the IAEA news release. "Their presence is necessary to help stabilize the situation, which remains very difficult and volatile."
As Ukraine continues to liberate settlements in its eastern region from occupying Russian troops, Moscow has reportedly replaced another top commander in its armed forces.
The head of Russia's North Caucasus region of Daghestan, Sergei Melikov, wrote on Telegram on October 7 that North Caucasus native Lieutenant General Rustam Muradov had been appointed to lead the Eastern Military District.
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The district is based in Russia's Far East, but much of its personnel is currently taking part in Russia's unprovoked invasion of Ukraine.
Muradov, who among other Russian officials has been slapped with Western sanctions, led troops in Ukraine's eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, parts of which have been under Moscow-backed separatists' control since 2014.
He also commanded Russian peacekeepers in Azerbaijan's breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh.
RBK news agency reported on October 7, citing sources close to the Russian military, that Muradov replaced Colonel General Aleksandr Chaiko, without giving any details.
There has been no official confirmation of the report.
On October 3, RBK reported that the commander of the Western Military District, Colonel General Aleksandr Zhuravlyov, had been replaced shortly after dramatic Russian losses in northeastern Ukraine in September and Ukraine's recapture of the strategic city of Lyman in the Donetsk region.
In September, General Dmitry Bulgakov, deputy defense minister in charge of logistics, was replaced by Colonel General Mikhail Mizintsev, who is accused by the European Union of orchestrating a siege of the Ukrainian port of Mariupol early in the war that killed thousands of civilians.
In August, Russian state media said the commander of the Black Sea fleet had been fired after Ukraine carried out several successful attacks, including the sinking of Russia's missile cruiser Moskva and the loss of eight warplanes in an attack on a Russian base in Ukraine's Crimea that was seized by Moscow in 2014.
DUSHANBE -- Tajik blogger Daleri Imomali has gone on trial in Dushanbe on charges human rights organizations call unfounded.
Sources close to prosecutor's office in Dushanbe told RFE/RL on October 7 that The Shohmansur district court in the Tajik capital started the trial behind closed doors on that day.
Imomali is charged with illegal entrepreneurship, premeditated false denunciation, and cooperating with the banned Group 24 opposition movement, which was officially designated in the country as a terrorist organization in 2014.
In March 2015, the movement's founder, Umarali Quvatov, was assassinated in Istanbul, Turkey.
Imomali pleaded guilty to the illegal entrepreneurship charge, but rejected the other two. If convicted, Imomali faces more than 10 years in prison.
Known for his articles critical of the government, Imomali was detained along with noted journalist Abdullo Ghurbati on June 15 and sent to pretrial detention three days later.
Ghurbati was sentenced on October 4 to 7 1/2 years in prison on charges of publicly insulting an authority, minor assault of an authority, and participating in the activities of an extremist group. Ghurbati pleaded not guilty to all three charges.
Human Rights Watch and the Committee to Protect Journalists have demanded Tajik officials immediately release Imomali and Ghurbati.
Tajik President Emomali Rahmon has been criticized by international human rights groups for years over his disregard for independent media, religious freedoms, civil society, and political pluralism in the tightly controlled former Soviet republic.
Russian human rights defender Svetlana Gannushkina and a Ukrainian delivery nurse from Mariupol, Tetyana Sokolova, have won an international award for their efforts to help people affected by Russia's ongoing unprovoked invasion of Ukraine.
Gannushkina and Sokolova were honored as the winners of the London-based organization RAW in WAR's (Reach All Women in War) Anna Politkovskaya Award on October 6.
Gannushkina, chairwoman of the Moscow-based Civil Assistance rights group, has been involved in assisting Ukrainian refugees who had to leave their homes after Russia launched its full-scale aggression against Ukraine in late February and for those Russian citizens who are not part of the war in Ukraine.
The 80-year-old human rights activist was detained by police in Moscow in February during a protest against the war in Ukraine.
Sokolova continues to work in a maternity hospital in Mariupol despite constant shelling of the building by Russian armed forces. She said 27 children were born in the maternity hospital's basement in 45 days at the time.
WATCH: Tetyana Sokolova recalls not only working under fire, but also the everyday dramas of war: women breastfeeding other babies amid a milk formula shortage, and a heartbreaking stillbirth in the basement.
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The award is named after Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya, who exposed human rights abuses in Chechnya and was assassinated on October 7, 2006.
Prominent digital rights and Internet freedom activists Amir (Jadi) Mirmirani and Milad Nouri have reportedly been arrested by security forces in Iran along with several other activists.
The arrests, reported on social media by friends and family members of those detained, come amid weeks-long nationwide anti-government protests sparked by the death last month of Mahsa Amini, a young woman arrested by Iran's morality police for "improperly" wearing the mandatory head scarf, or hijab.
As protests continue, the Iranian government has imposed a near-total Internet shutdown.
Mirmirani has informed the public many times about Iran's partner companies cutting off the Internet in recent years.
His arrest comes after he repeatedly accused Iranian IT companies SahabPardaz and ArvanCloud of being involved in cutting off Internet access in order to facilitate the suppression of protests.
Four other digital activists -- Arian Eghbal, Mohsen Tahmasbi, Adel Talebi, and Meysam Rajabi -- are among other digital rights activists who have reportedly been arrested for protesting the Internet shutdown in recent days.
Videos published on social media overnight on October 6 by other activists showed protests being held in at least five cities of Iran, including Tehran, Rasht, Islamshahr, Bokan, and Kermanshah.
A video obtained by Radio Farda purportedly shows security forces in Tehran attempting to detain a young man while what appear to be bystanders intervene and help him escape.
Another video, apparently shot in the northern Iranian city of Rasht on October 7, shows a group of schoolgirls coming into the street and chanting slogans against the Islamic republic.
International support for Iran’s protests continues, with prominent personalities taking a stance in favor of the protesters.
After French Oscar-winning actresses Juliette Binoche and Marion Cotillard posted videos of themselves cutting their hair in support of women in Iran, British author J.K. Rowling has once again voiced her backing of Iranian women protesters.
"We must see justice for #MahsaAmini, #NikaShakarami, and all Iranian women currently being killed, beaten, and raped for standing up for their human rights. This is femicide," Rowling tweeted.
The head of a Ukrainian human rights group that has won the Nobel Peace Prize says Russian President Vladimir Putin should face an international tribunal for launching his ongoing unprovoked invasion of Ukraine that has claimed thousands of lives.
Oleksandra Matviychuk, who leads Ukraine's Center for Civil Liberties (CCL), said hours after the group was named as a Nobel Peace Prize winner on October 7 that to "give the hundreds of thousands of victims of war crimes a chance to see justice...it is necessary to create an international tribunal and bring Putin, (Belarus ruler Alyaksandr) Lukashenka and other war criminals to justice."
"The UN and its member-states should conduct international peace and security reform to create guarantees for all countries and their citizens, regardless of their participation or non-participation in military blocs or military capacity. Russia should be excluded from the UN Security Council for systematic violations of the UN charter," Matviychuk added in a post on Facebook.
The CCL shared this year's Nobel with Russian human rights group Memorial and jailed Belarusian dissident Ales Byalyatski, who founded the rights group Vyasna.
ASTANA -- The former deputy secretary of Kazakhstan's Security Council, Marat Shaikhutdinov, has been sentenced to seven years in prison on charges of high treason and espionage.
The Committee of National Security (UQK) said on October 7 that Shaikhutdinov's verdict and sentence had been announced on September 21.
The UQK added that two other men in the case, Leonid Skakovsky and Oleg Zhdan, had also been handed prison terms.
Skakovsky was sentenced to 11 years and three months on a high treason charge, while Zhdan got 11 years in prison after he was convicted of espionage.
The KNB statement did not give any other details.
The 63-year-old Shaikhutdinov had served as deputy secretary of Kazakhstan’s Security Council since 2009. In 2015 he was promoted to the post of first deputy secretary.
In late March this year, President Qasym-Zhomart Toqaev removed him from the post.
An Iranian coroner's report says Mahsa Amini's death was not caused by blows to the head or limbs but was instead linked to disease, disputing family objections that the 22-year-old was in good health when taken into custody for purportedly wearing a hijab improperly.
The state-controlled ISNA news agency said on October 7 that the Forensic Medicine Organization had determined "underlying diseases" were the cause of death while making no mention of whether she had suffered any injuries.
A report on state television added the forensic report showed Amini's death was related to "surgery for a brain tumor at the age of 8."
Amini was arrested on September 13 by Iran's morality police and died three days later.
Eyewitness accounts said Amini had been beaten during her arrest while her father has said she suffered bruises to her legs, and has held the police responsible for her death, which has sparked a wave of protests across the country over the treatment of women and poor living conditions in the country in general.
Meanwhile, the mother of a 16-year-old who was killed during a demonstration in support of Amini has rejected official claims that her daughter fell from a building, saying she died from blows to the head.
Speaking to RFE/RL's Radio Farda, Nasreem Shakrami said she had come under pressure from the authorities to follow the government's narrative -- that her child fell from the upper floor of a building -- concerning her death.
Shakrami said the authorities kept her daughter Nika's death a secret for nine days and then snatched the body from a morgue to bury her in a remote area, against the family's wishes.
She said that a forensics report showed Nika's body was intact, but that some of her teeth, some bones in her face, and in the back of her skull were broken, leading her to believe he daughter was beaten.
"The damage was to her head," she said. "Her body was intact, arms and legs."
At least 154 people, including nine children, have been killed during the 18 days of protest, according to a human rights group, with the government warning that the harsh crackdown by security forces against any dissent will continue.
However, the spontaneous protests have shown signs of broadening across the country and among different parts of society.
Iranian actress and UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador Mahtab Keramati said she has informed the UN Children's Fund about reports of children being killed during the ongoing protests in Iran.
Protests triggered by the death of a young Iranian woman after she was detained by the notorious morality police for not wearing the mandatory hijab properly have been violently suppressed by the government over the past three weeks.
At least 154 people, including nine children, have been killed during the 18 days of protest, according to a human rights group.
"I have raised all these issues with UNICEF officials in Iran and will follow up on this matter," Keramati wrote on her Instagram account on October 6, adding that she condemned any violence, especially against women and children.
She had been widely criticized on social media for being silent about the suppression of children.
In response, she said her silence does not mean passivity or a lack of empathy.
"I am aware of the heartbreaking reports related to the killing, wounding, and arrest of a number of children and teenagers in protests and the use of children under the age of 18 to confront the protesters," Keramati wrote in an Instagram post.
However, her post was deleted from her Instagram account hours later.
Ashkan Pouyan, a neurosurgeon in the southeastern Iranian city of Zahedan, on October 5 published a picture on social media of a bullet that was removed from the body of a 13-year-old child who was shot in his back in the September 30 massacre in the city.
Pouyan was later reported on social media as missing, while his social network accounts were also disabled.
In recent days, images were posted on Twitter and Instagram of Tehran children appearing to be under the age of 18 wearing helmets and armed with batons which were used to suppress the protesters.
KEMEROVO, Russia -- The former director general and co-owner of a shopping mall that was destroyed by a fire in 2018, killing 60 people including 37 children, has been sentenced to eight years in prison.
The central district court in the city of Kemerovo sentenced Vyacheslav Vishnevsky on October 7 after he pleaded guilty to bribing the former director of the regional construction control agency, Tanzilya Komkova, to obtain a permission to renovate the building of a factory in the city and turn it into the Zimnyaya Vishnya (Winter Cherry) mall.
The mall was destroyed by the March 2018 blaze, one of the deadliest in Russia since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.
The court also ordered Vishnevsky to pay a fine of 21 million rubles ($346,600).
Vishnevsky said he paid Komkova 7 million rubles ($115,500) and got permission for the renovation and documents allowing the renovated building to be used as a shopping mall.
Investigators concluded that the renovation of the building was made with violations of fire safety regulations that led to the tragedy. They said blocked fire exits, an alarm system that was turned off, and "glaring violations" of safety rules before the blaze started contributed to the high death toll.
Vishnevsky resided in the European Union from 2016. He was arrested in Poland in 2019 at Moscow's request and extradited to Russia in March 2020.
Komkova was sentenced to 18 years in prison on a charge of bribe-taking in December last year. Several other regional officials involved in the case were also sentenced to lengthy prison terms at the time.
In October 2021, managers and security officers of the mall were handed prison terms of between five and 14 years on charges of violating fire safety rules and negligence that led to loss of human lives.
A total of 16 people, including leaders of the regional Emergency Ministry, have been charged with crimes that investigators say led to or aggravated the tragedy.
The Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to human rights activists in Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine against the backdrop of harsh crackdowns by Minsk and Moscow on dissent and the Kremlin's invasion of Ukraine.
The head of the Norwegian Nobel committee, Berit Reiss-Andersen, said on October 7 that jailed Belarusian human rights activist Ales Byalyatski, Russian rights group Memorial, and Ukraine's Center For Civil Liberties, had been awarded the prize for 2022.
The committee said the laureates have made an outstanding effort to document "war crimes, human right abuses, and the abuse of power" while demonstrating "the significance of civil society for peace and democracy."
Despite the announcement coming on the 70th birthday of President Vladimir Putin, Norwegian Nobel Committee chief Berit Reiss-Andersen said that while the awarding of the prize to those critical of him and regimes like his was not a direct message to the Russian leader, it was a way to highlight the "way civil society and human rights advocates are being suppressed."
French President Emmanuel Macron hailed the decision, calling the winners "unswerving defenders of human rights in Europe."
"Ales Byalyatski, the Memorial NGO in Russia and the Center for Civil Liberties in Ukraine: the Nobel Peace Prize pays tribute to unswerving defenders of human rights in Europe. As peacemakers, they can count on France's support," Macron wrote on Twitter.
U.S. President Joe Biden congratulated the winners for championing human rights in the face of "intimidation and oppression."
The winners "remind us that, even in dark days of war, in the face of intimidation and oppression, the common human desire for rights and dignity cannot be extinguished," Biden said in a statement.
The 60-year-old Byalyatski, who founded the Vyasna (Spring) rights group in Belarus, is currently in prison on tax evasion charges his supporters have rejected as politically motivated.
Svyatlana Tsikhanouskaya, the exiled Belarusian opposition leader, said she was proud that Byalyatski received the award and it will mean the world will pay more attention to Belarus and its political prisoners.
"Of course, I would like to hug him. I remember the last time when we met each other he said: 'Svyatlana, do what you do. Defend Belarus on the international stage. Talk about us. We, as human rights defenders, will do our job,'" she told RFE/RL's Belarus Service during a meeting of EU political leaders in Prague.
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She added that the award highlights the importance of Belarus in the European context.
"I hope that this will give our political friends certain push to draw attention to Belarus even more, work more, put pressure on the regime so that all political prisoners, including Ales Byalyatski, will be released as soon as possible."
Since a 2020 presidential election handed authoritarian ruler Alyaksandr Lukashenka a sixth term in power despite opposition and international cries that the vote was rigged, thousands of people have been beaten, detained, and tortured by security forces for voicing dissent.
Belarusian Foreign Ministry spokesman Anatol Hlaz said a number of decisions by the Nobel Committee in recent years had been "so politicized that…Alfred Nobel had to turn over in his coffin."
He added in comments quoted by the Russian news agency RIA Novosti that the Belarusian government "simply lost all interest in it at a certain stage."
Olav Njolstad, director of the Norwegian Nobel Institute, dismissed the criticism. "I'm quite sure we understand Alfred Nobel's will and intentions better than the dictatorship in Minsk," he said.
Russia's Supreme Court shut down Memorial, one of the country's most respected human rights organizations, last December saying the group had violated the controversial law on "foreign agents."
Memorial has since created a new group, Memorial, The Center To Defend Human Rights, which operates without the status of being a legal entity.
The prize was announced on the same day that a court in Moscow was holding a hearing on seizing Memorial's assets, the rights group noted.
"Putin has banned Memorial, but the world recognizes true heros," said Latvian Foreign Minister Edgars Rinkevics.
Lana Estemirova, the daughter of Natalya Estemirova, the slain head of the Memorial Human Rights Center's office in Russia's North Caucasus region of Chechnya, told RFE/RL that she "cried and was emotionally overwhelmed" when she heard that Memorial was named by the committee.
"Memorial is just an incredibly important organization for the Caucasus," she said, adding that winning the award will be a blow to the Kremlin-backed, authoritarian leader of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov.
"For [Kadyrov], Memorial and my mom were opponents whom he was ready to destroy. They criticized his activities openly and were not scared of him," Estemirova said.
Kadyrov has been accused by Memorial and other rights groups of overseeing abuses against perceived opponents, roundups and summary procedures by law enforcement, as well as numerous intimidation tactics since taking power with the Kremlin's backing in 2007.
Natalya Estemirova led Memorial's office in Chechnya and documented extrajudicial killings, kidnappings, and other abuses by law enforcement officers in the region before she disappeared in Chechnya's capital, Grozny, on July 15, 2009.
Her body was found hours later in neighboring Ingushetia with gunshot wounds to the head and chest. Nobody has been convicted of her killing.
The Kyiv-based Center for Civil Liberties, founded in 2007, has worked to strengthen Ukraine's civil society while also pushing to further the rule of law and adherence to international law.
Its work documenting war crimes and human rights violations has gained importance since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
"Proud to be awarded #NobelPeacePrize, this is a recognition of work of many human rights activists in Ukraine and not only in Ukraine," the group said in a tweet.
The European Council says the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan have met on the sidelines of a summit in Prague and agreed to a civilian EU mission alongside their common border, where clashes last month killed more than 200 people in the worst flare-up of fighting between the two Caucasus neighbors since 2020.
The council said in a statement on October 7 that Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev met in the presence of the EU Council President Charles Michel and French President Emmanuel Macron on the margins of the first gathering of the European Political Community.
Pashinian agreed to “facilitate a civilian EU mission alongside the border with Azerbaijan,” according to the statement released early on October 7.
Azerbaijan “agreed to cooperate with this mission as far as it is concerned,” the statement said.
The civilian European Union mission will start later this month and will last for a maximum of two months, the statement said, adding that the next meeting of a border delimitation commission will take place in Brussels by the end of the month. The statement said the two sides have reaffirmed the recognition of each other's territorial integrity and sovereignty.
"Armenia and Azerbaijan confirmed their commitment to the Charter of the United Nations and the Alma Ata 1991 Declaration through which both recognize each other's territorial integrity and sovereignty," the statement said.
"The aim of this mission is to build confidence and, through its reports, to contribute to the border commissions," the council said.
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 resulted 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.
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