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Russian President Vladimir Putin has worked to revive Moscow’s influence in Africa over the past decade as he seeks to restore his nation’s great-power status. But will Russia’s war in Ukraine undermine those efforts?

Tehran has homed in on its drone technology as it looks to keep the security situation in Afghanistan in check and gain regional influence.

Far out in the suburbs of Tbilisi, residents attach giant crosses to the roofs of their apartment buildings. They light up the night sky and are a beacon for taxi drivers. No one is quite sure how the tradition got started.

As fighting between Russian and Ukrainian forces quiets down on the streets of occupied Kherson, another one appears to be brewing in its halls of education.

Stepan Oseyev, a 31-year-old career soldier from the settlement of Ust-Kiran in Russia's Buryatia region, was buried in late March after being killed in combat in Ukraine. His family and friends remember a determined young man for whom the military was the only escape from a life of poverty.

The Kremlin-controlled Black Sea resort of Crimea is buzzing this summer vacation season with military aircraft, not tourists, as Russia's invasion of Ukraine enters its fourth month. 

In an interview with Current Time, Ukrainian president adviser Mykhaylo Podolyak has warned that Moscow aims to destroy Ukraine's agricultural infrastructure and exploit a global food crisis set off by the war.

As a new government settles into office in Podgorica, questions are once again being raised about the troubled Chinese project that has only resulted in a 41-kilometer section of road in eight years.

The Tajik state media has been largely quiet about the war in Ukraine, an issue that is dividing Tajik society between the Russian narrative and news reports from Ukraine describing the death and destruction.

Turkmen officials are visiting schools in the capital to investigate complaints that parents are being forced to pay for school renovations. The probes began after RFE/RL's Turkmen Service reported on the long-standing practice of extortion in schools.