Page 575 - Icks News Today

A court in Minsk has sentenced a blogger to 18 months in a maximum security penal colony for her participation in protests against the government of authoritarian ruler Alyaksandr Lukashenka.

Charges in the high-profile Kumtor gold-mine case against the ousted first president of independent Kyrgyzstan, Askar Akaev, have been dropped, his associate says.

A Russian citizen has gone on trial in Minsk for his alleged actions against the rule of Belarusian strongman Alyaksandr Lukashenka.

Russia says it is expelling two German diplomats from Moscow in a tit-for-tat move following Germany's expulsion of two Russian diplomats after a court in Berlin convicted a Russian man of fatally shooting a former Chechen militant  in Berlin on the Kremlin's orders in 2019. 

Police in the Kazakh city of Oral have launched an extortion investigation into an activist after she was hospitalized in grave condition following a suicide attempt amid what she called a pressure campaign imposed on her by police for her activism on municipal housing.

U.S. authorities have unveiled the formal charges against Kremlin-linked Russian businessman Vladislav Klyushin, who was extradited from Switzerland to the United States last week over his alleged involvement in a global scheme to trade on hacked confidential information.

Belarus claims a group of people has damaged the facade of its embassy in London and physically assaulted some of its diplomats, "seriously" injuring one of them. There was no confirmation from British authorities.

Poland and Lithuania have joined Ukraine in calling for stronger sanctions against Russia, with Polish President Andrzej Duda saying that “everything must be done” to prevent potential Russian military aggression against Ukraine.

Ukrainian authorities have placed Petro Poroshenko under formal investigation for high treason, accusing the former president of links to financing Russia-backed separatists fighting government forces in the country’s east.

Here are some of the most compelling photographs from the 51st week of 2021 from around RFE/RL's region.