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Leaders from nearly all European countries gathered in Prague for the inaugural meeting of the European Political Community. Just another talking shop? Or a good forum for getting things done? RFE/RL looks at the main takeaways from a day full of meetings.

Nika Shakarami, 16, left to join anti-government protests in Tehran on September 20. She was never seen alive by her family again. In an exclusive interview with RFE/RL's Radio Farda, Nika's mother says the family is now being pressured to echo the official account of her daughter's death.

The Kyiv-based Center For Civil Liberties, one of three recipients of the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize, has carved out a reputation as a dogged defender of rights and documenter of evidence of war crimes in the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Receiving the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize culminates a lifetime of human rights activism for Belarusian dissident Ales Byalyatski, who has been held in custody without trial by the government of Belarusian strongman Alyaksandr Lukashenka since July 2021.

Here are some of the highlights produced by RFE/RL's vast team of correspondents, multimedia editors, and visual journalists over the past seven days.

Determined to escape as shelling threatened their village in eastern Ukraine, two dozen desperate people thought they were taking a safe route out -- but it all went bad quickly. At a Kharkiv hospital, survivors recall an ambush that authorities say killed 13 children and 11 adults.

As Russian President Vladimir Putin marks his 70th birthday on October 7, military setbacks in Ukraine and an unpopular mobilization could have the Russian public rethinking their approval of the longtime leader who has crushed dissent and taken the country into a war that clouds its future.

Iran has faced more than two weeks of protests triggered by the death of a woman in police custody, police arrested a singer whose song became the anthem of the protests, and Tehran allowed a detained Iranian-American to leave the country.

Long before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Kharkiv artist Hamlet Zinkivskiy was known for the spare, thought-provoking murals that changed the face of his beloved city. Now he is turning its walls into a record of wartime experiences.

Unlike the Russians who had entered Georgia in the weeks immediately following the invasion of Ukraine in February, a new crop of Russians, many dodging the recent military draft, are arriving through a border in the Caucasus Mountains.