Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
@RFERL
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Free media in unfree societies. Local reporting and intensive coverage of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, unrest in Iran, Taliban in Afghanistan, and more.
Washington, Prague, & more
Joined May 2009
1/š§µ If you are in Russia, you may not be able to access RFE/RL content. The Kremlin has imposed unprecedented censorship. Here's how to bypass it.
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87-year-old Elvira survived the Holocaust and the Nazi siege of Leningrad. She told @radiosvoboda that what she witnessed in Mariupol was worse.
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A week-long "reduction in violence" between the Taliban and U.S. and Afghan security forces will begin at midnight local time.
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Allowing "Roger Waters, an open supporter of [Russian President Vladimir] Putin, to play in Krakow. would be shameful for our city," a city councilor said on social media. "Let him sing in Moscow."
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Soso Glonti, a fitness coach with Russian and Georgian citizenship, burned his Russian passport and joined the Ukrainian forces. "I asked myself: 'Are things really the way they say?'" he told @currenttimetv.
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Dutch judges are to deliver their verdicts today in the case of the airliner shot down over eastern Ukraine. Here's what we know about the events of July 17, 2014, when MH17 was hit by a Buk surface-to-air missile system, killing 298 people:
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"They saw this ["Zā] symbol on the back of our car. They attacked us with accusations that we are fascists. [They said] that we attacked Ukraine.". Russian tourists in š°šæ have faced anger from locals and even fines from police for sporting pro-war Z stickers on their cars.
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Lyubov Sobol posted a video showing armed, masked men barging into her office ahead of today's rally in Moscow. Sobol was one of the opposition candidates not allowed to stand in the upcoming municipal elections.
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We asked people in Moscow if they think the war in Ukraine is going according to the Kremlin's plan. "Yes, if the plan was to destroy Russia," said one woman. "After we retreated from Kyiv? Our generals have sh*t for brains if you'll forgive me," a man told us.
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Ukrainian troops told @radiosvoboda that Gepard mobile antiaircraft systems donated by Germany have proven effective at stopping Russian-operated drones made in Iran.
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If Ukraine had been a NATO member, there would not be a war in the country now, Sanna Marin said on January 17 at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
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"They killed everything in my soul.". Volodymyr Obodzinskiy lost his entire family in early March, when a Russian air strike hit his house and killed his 40-year-old wife, Natalya, his 14-year-old son Volodymyr, 19-year-old daughter Ivanka, and her 1-year-old twins.
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A family from Mariupol spoke about going through a filtration camp and being sent to Moscow. The mother eventually got her children out, while the husband stayed in Russia. A @hrw report says the practice of forcibly relocating Ukrainian citizens to Russia is a war crime.
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When this 76-year-old Russian pensioner needs to herd her cows, she skates across the frozen waters of Lake Baikal to find them.
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Thousands gathered outside Georgiaās parliament buildings on February 25, calling for an end to Russia's invasion of Ukraine. They also called for the resignation of Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili, who said his country would not join the West in sanctioning Moscow.
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A local councilor from St. Petersburg who called on Vladimir Putin to resign says he's been overwhelmed by the level of support from members of the public. Report by @CurrentTimeTV
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Millions of people died of starvation in 1932-33 when Soviet authorities seized food to force Ukrainian peasants to join collective farms. One woman reveals how her great-grandfather secretly photographed the suffering in the city of Kharkiv.
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Hundreds of anti-war protesters took to the streets of the Russian city of Yekaterinburg on Feb. 26 to denounce their country's military invasion of Ukraine. Chanting, "No to war," many of the protesters said they were ashamed of their nation and several were detained by police.
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Police detained the head of the Russian Alliance of Doctors, Anastasia Vasilyeva, after she requested permission to examine Aleksei Navalny inside a prison. The Kremlin critic has been moved to a sick ward in the facility amid reports of a possible tuberculosis outbreak there.
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Ukraine is using heavy weapons supplied by the West to push back Russian forces in the Donbas. The Czech RM-70 Vampire rocket system has been deployed by Ukrainian troops in frontline battles in the Donetsk region, a hotly contested area in Russia's war on Ukraine.
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A 77-year-old Russian pensioner has found global fame after 30 million people saw our video of her skating across the ice of Lake Baikal in Siberia.
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Russian opposition activist Konstantin Sinitsyn has been found dead of head injuries in the entranceway to his St. Petersburg apartment building.
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Moscow Councilwoman Aleksandra Parushina says she was struck in the head by police who "brutally" dispersed protesters near Mayor Sergei Sobyanin's office on July 27. Read more here:
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Dutch authorities plan to name suspects in MH17 downing tomorrow.
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BREAKING: Romania's Constitutional Court annuls presidential election and orders the process be completely rerun.
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Tens of thousands of Belarusians have jammed the streets of Minsk and other cities and towns, as opposition protesters continued their campaign to pressure President Alyaksandr Lukashenka to call new elections. Read more here:
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A local official told Russian conscripts, "You are not cannon fodder," in a video published online recently. The men responded by angrily shouting that, actually, that's exactly what they are.
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If you are a Slavic language speaker, you will understand this completely made-up language. So how do you create a language that can be instantly understood by hundreds of millions of people? Interslavic is even used in movies, like the new Czech war drama The Painted Bird.
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Czech President Petr Pavel said that Russian civilians living in the West should be monitored by security services. Speaking to @radiosvoboda, he said "when World War II started, all Japanese population living in the United States was under a strict monitoring regime as well."
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Some people would in principle support Ukraine but are too worried what will happen if Ukraine defeats Russia, Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis believes. "Who cares what Putin would do? It is not about that," he said in Munich on February 17.
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The bodies of Russian soldiers killed in battle in Ukraine are filling up morgues in Belarus, local residents told RFE/RL.
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"All eyes are now on Hungary and Turkey. We are waiting for these countries to ratify our applications. I think it would be important that this would happen preferably sooner than later," Marin said.
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2/š§µ Use a VPN, such as nthLink, a free solution by the Open Technology Fund.
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Seven-year-old Roman is one of dozens of victims of Russia's attack on July 14 on the city of Vinnytsya. He is covered in burns, while his mother died in the explosion and was identified only through a DNA test. By @currenttimetv
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Scientists are beginning ask whether the European measles epidemic was bolstered by Russian trolls who infiltrated anti-vaccination groups to spread the Kremlin's agenda.
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A flash drive left behind by fleeing Russian forces in Ukraine contains hundreds of documents which identify key officials involved in handling, and allegedly torturing, civilians in occupied areas. @cxemu obtained the flash drive and has exclusive details ā¬ļø
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During a September counteroffensive by Ukraine's armed forces, about 400 towns in the Kharkiv region were liberated from Russian occupiers. Ukrainian tank crews spoke to @radiosvoboda about how they launched a surprise attack, coordinated by a commander observing with a drone.
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When this 76-year-old Russian woman needs to herd her cows, she skates across the frozen waters of Lake Baikal to find them.
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The mothers of Russian soldiers involved in Moscow's invasion of Ukraine angrily confronted the governor of Siberia's Kemerovo region, asking if their sons were "lied to" and being used as "cannon fodder." Read more here:
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Police have raided the office of opposition politician Aleksei Navalny's Anti-Corruption Foundation in Moscow, a step he claims is an attempt to disrupt the publication of a damning investigation against the head of Russia's second-largest bank.
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Drone video revealed widespread devastation in the besieged Ukrainian port city of Mariupol on March 22.
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Photos from Kyiv this morning show the aftermath of Russian shelling after the Russian military began a large-scale attack on Ukraine.
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3/š§µ Here are some more detailed instructions in Russian:
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Protesters in Vladivostok braved truncheon-wielding riot police to rally today in support of jailed opposition leader Aleksei Navalny.
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The European Court of Human Rights has called for the "immediate" release of Russian opposition politician Aleksei Navalny.
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Sobol faces up to five years in prison for ringing the doorbell of an FSB officer implicated in Navalny's August poisoning.
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A Russian businessman covered his store with the names of Ukrainian cities that have been bombed by the Russian forces. Now he could face up to five years in prison. "They're not Martians. We're responsible for their actions," he says. By @currenttimetv
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In a dramatic turn of events, former Bosnian Croat General Slobodan Praljak appeared to drink what he said was poison at the ICTY.
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"Vladimir The Underpants Poisoner": Mocking Putin And Taking On His Jailers. This Is What Navalny Said In Court
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Thousands of residents of Ukraine's second-biggest city marched through the city center on February 5 carrying national flags to demonstrate patriotic spirit amid tensions with Russia.
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"It doesn't matter to us what kind of army you have; what matters to us is our land. We will fight for it until the end," said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy.
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4/š§µ Download the Tor browser to access dark web versions of our websites in English and Russian. RFE/RL English site on the dark web:
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"I was watching the war. and thinking, 'Someone needs to do something.' And then when the children's hospital at Mariupol got shelled, I realized "someone" is me." . Foreigners fighting for Ukraine told us about their reasons for volunteering for battle.
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A massive construction effort is under way in Golokhvastovo, 50km southwest of Moscow, to build a hospital for the treatment of COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus. The site is expected to have 500 patient beds and separate dormitories to house a staff of 1,000.
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Today is the 7th anniversary of the downing of MH17 over eastern Ukraine in 2014. Here's what happened:
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The German PzH 2000 is considered one of the best self-propelled guns in the world and they are now in action against Russian forces. @radiosvoboda spoke to a newly trained Ukrainian crew about their powerful new weapon.
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Satellite images bolster accusations that Russia is transporting huge quantities of stolen Ukrainian grain to Bashar al-Assad's regime in Syria. @radiosvoboda has documented a series of shipments through the largest grain terminal in Russian-occupied Crimea.
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Ukrainian civilians in the Kyiv region made Molotov cocktails as they prepared to defend their homes from invading Russian forces. People filled bottles with polystyrene plastic and gasoline and said they were ready to fight for their country and help the Ukrainian military.
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Women in Minsk have formed human chains in solidarity with protesters detained and beaten by the police.
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Yanukovych has been charged with high treason, complicity in an aggressive war against Ukraine, and complicity in premeditated activities aimed at altering Ukraine's state borders.
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Navalny has suggested that the EU get tougher on Russian oligarchs who are close to the Kremlin by banning them from entering the EU.
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This was the last story produced by @radiosvoboda journalist Vira Hyrych before she was killed in an April 28 Russian missile strike on her apartment building in Kyiv.
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6/š§µ We also encourage readers in Russia to subscribe to our Telegram channel:
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On August 23, 1939, the U.S.S.R. and Nazi Germany signed the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, secretly agreeing to change Europe's borders.
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"You wouldn't buy Nazi-themed clothing, would you?" Lithuania asks Walmart to stop selling clothing with Soviet hammer-and-sickle symbols.
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Calling Moscow's invasion of Ukraine a war is a criminal offense in Russia. Yet one Russian protester has for months been picketing with a sign that reads "No *ar!" He's been detained and brutally beaten on the streets of Smolensk for his actions. Report by @CurrentTimeTV
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Dare to be awesome: one of our top feel-good videos of the year. Merry Christmas!
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Turkmenistan's president announced the end to free gas, electricity, water, and salt. What does the country's People's Assembly say? "We, the happy youth of a beautiful epoch, support your domestic and foreign policies with all our hearts."
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Belarus has withdrawn all of its diplomats from Ukraine. When Ambassador Ihar Sokol was leaving on March 18, a Ukrainian border officer tried to hand him "30 pieces of silver" -- a reference to the biblical story of the betrayal of Jesus by Judas.
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Dozens of protesters marched on October 1 in the Serbian capital, Belgrade, in support of Ukraine after Russian President Vladimir Putin signed agreements to formally seize four Ukrainian territories partially occupied by Moscow.
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A child pets his cat in a bomb shelter near Kyiv, Ukraine, on March 6.
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Pavel Viktor, a science teacher in Odesa, Ukraine, started posting his lectures on YouTube for absent students. He never expected the videos to gain millions of views beyond his classroom.
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"We've also made clear to Belarus that if it allows its territory to be used for an attack on Ukraine, it would face a swift and decisive response from the United States and our allies and partners," State Department spokesman Ned Price told reporters.
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Pushing the limits of a Polish-made Krab self-propelled gun, a Ukrainian artillery team says it hits key Russian targets and separates enemy infantry from better-armed comrades to make them vulnerable to ground attacks. By @currenttimetv
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A determined Ukrainian barista who survived a Russian air strike on her cafe has inspired local residents with her courage and now hordes of coffee customers who saw her viral video are turning out to buy hot brews and express support. Report by @radiosvoboda and
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"Come on out, don't be afraid of anything. Nobody wants to live in a country where tyranny and corruption reign. The majority is on our side," Navalny said, calling on his supporters to come out for a second weekend of nationwide protests.
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Truncheon-wielding police confronted big anti-government rallies in cities across Russia's regions today -- in Novosibirsk, Chelyabinsk, Bernaul, Perm, Tomsk, and Ufa.
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Two alleged #GRU agents and 12 others were found guilty and sentenced in #Montenegro today for a plot to overthrow the country's government and stop its membership in #NATO. #Russia
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A Russian citizen has been detained in Montenegro at the request of U.S. authorities on suspicions of having illegally interfered in the 2020 U.S. election, according to Russian and Montenegrin media on June 21.
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Thousands of people have marched in Moscow and other Russian cities to mark the anniversary of the killing of Boris Nemtsov, a vocal Kremlin critic and former deputy prime minister who was gunned down five years ago near the Kremlin.
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The Czech Republic, with a population of about 11 million people but which does not border Ukraine, has taken in more than 270,000 refugees, according to government figures.
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7/š§µ Also consider subscribing to our newsletter, The Week In Russia, for continued access to our reporting.
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A video shot by a Russian soldier captures a military mutiny in Ukraine. One of them said to his mother that his superiors were humiliating the troops, "treating us like we're. I don't know who." By @currenttimetv
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Polish-made Krab howitzers are powerful and surprisingly comfortable to operate, according to Ukrainian crews fighting in the Donetsk region. But such large weapons are desirable drone targets, so the crews are careful to remain vigilant and stay under cover.
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Children from occupied areas of Ukraine were taken to a camp in Chechnya for "military-patriotic" training, according to Russian officials. "Children were taken from Ukraine to be taught to hate Ukrainians," is how a human rights activist described it to @currenttimetv.
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Lyudmila Bukhantsova was shocked to learn on social media that her son, a Russian soldier, had been captured by Ukrainian forces. He had only told her he was going on military exercises. Now she is desperately looking for information, @svobodaradio reports.
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Tens of thousands joined an anti-government rally organized in Budapest by Peter Magyar, a former insider of Hungary's ruling Fidesz party. The businessman addressed the crowd on March 15, marked in Hungary as a national holiday.
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