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

Ukraine is slowly losing ground, men, morale, support from the West -- and possibly the war against Russia.

Not since the opening weeks following Russia's full-scale invasion in February 2022, when its forces seemed poised to capture the Ukrainian capital and force the government to capitulate, has the outlook for Ukraine's military commanders and its political leadership been so gloomy. https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-western-weapons-doubt-russia-war-military/32740637.html

Bad weather and ongoing Russian strikes have left an estimated 520 settlements in Ukraine without electricity as the capital, Kyiv, was targeted by more than two dozen drones launched by Russia on December 22.

The Energy Ministry said about 400 settlements were cut off the power grid by a sudden bout of bad weather in five regions. https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-kyiv-drone-attack-russia-war/32742955.html

Russian forces in 2022 occupied at least two sites that used the TRASSIR video-surveillance system: the Chernobyl nuclear power plant and the strategic southern city of Kherson. There is no known evidence that the system facilitated these occupations. https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-cctv-moscow-spying-schemes-investigation/32747767.html

When Wagner mercenary force founder Yevgeny Prigozhin was killed in a fiery plane crash in August, exactly two months after leading a rebellion that challenged President Vladimir Putin’s 24-year grip on power, it cast a thick cloud over the future of Russia’s footprint in Africa. https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-africa-wagner-prigozhin-ukraine-war-putin/32749091.html

Known as "Polar Wolf," the strict-regime prison to which opposition politician Aleksei Navalny has been sent is a place where a water cannon is an instrument of torture. https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-navalny-arctic-polar-wolf-prison/32749723.html

A Ukrainian air strike on the large Russian landing ship Novocherkassk on December 26 is the latest in a string of attacks that have hobbled Moscow's naval capacity since it launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022. https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-ukraine-war-naval-losses-photos/32674787.html

Ukrainian officials say at least 12 people died in a massive Russian air attack overnight on December 28-29 that combined hypersonic and other missiles along with drones to hit military and civilian targets all over the country including the capital, Kyiv, in what appeared to be the biggest bombardment of the 22-month-invasion. https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-russia-air-strikes/32751953.html