OpenAI has said Iranian operatives used ChatGPT to create fake journalist personas and push anti-American narratives. RFE/RL looks at one of the personas.

A Starlink trial on an Italian hilltop connected an ordinary smartphone to the Internet without mobile coverage, a satellite dish, or an external antenna. It drew attention in Iran, where Internet access is heavily filtered and authorities imposed a near-total blackout during the January protests.

The head of a leading Russian pro-war blog linked to the country’s Defense Ministry has been detained in Montenegro, along with several other people who work for the blog.

Impoverished Afghans are illegally selling their kidneys to repay debts and buy food. The selling of organs comes as the war-torn country grapples with one of the world’s largest humanitarian crises.

As millions of Afghans struggle just to afford food, some have turned to selling one of their last remaining resources: a healthy kidney. The costs can be devastating: One woman said her health has deteriorated since she sold a kidney for a modest sum that failed to clear her family's debts.

A recent announcement that 177 cities, towns and villages will lose their “contaminated” status on January 1, 2027 affects some 566,400 people from a total of 930,600 living on Belarusian territory that was contaminated by the 1986 nuclear accident in Soviet Ukraine.

The US and Ukraine will hold talks in Miami on October 9 to discuss proposals aimed at ending Russia’s war vital pieces of infrastructure in Kyiv and other citiies ahead of winter.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio warned that Russia's war against Ukraine is at a stalemate but could escalate into a broader regional conflict if the deadlock pushes either side toward increasingly dangerous actions.

As Ukraine prepares for its fifth winter since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion, a document obtained by RFE/RL sets out a blueprint for a campaign by Moscow to inflict enormous suffering on civilians with attacks aimed at sharply cutting supplies of power, heat, and water.

More than 30 people were killed and several dozen others injured after a Russian attack on two passenger buses in Kramatorsk, according to Ukrainian authorities. Two buses were destroyed in the strike and public transportation was suspended.

Moldova saw more Russian drones crash on its territory in August than it did over all of 2025. Moldovan authorities are increasingly rattled—but there’s little a cash-strapped government can do beyond complaining diplomatically.

Dozens of people were killed in a Russian strike on the Ukrainian city of Kramatorsk on October 8, according to local authorities, a day after another deadly barrage killed at least 25 people across Ukraine.

Mikhail Klimaryov fled Russia to escape political persecution and now lives in Germany, but says he is still not safe. The constant pressure from Kremlin agents has, he says, driven him to "a kind of paranoia" about his security.

Authoritarian states such as Russia and Iran are increasingly pursuing their opponents even after they find shelter in apparently safe Western countries. RFE/RL talks to some of those affected.

Belarus’s Minsk Automobile Plant is under Western sanctions, limiting who can buy the vehicles produced there. That may be the reason trucks branded with the previously unknown “HAL” badge have been spotted amid strengthening trade relations between Belarus and Indonesia.

The European Union has expressed “deep concern” over Kosovo’s adoption of legislation that seeks to narrow the jurisdiction of a Hague-based war crimes court, saying the changes violate the country’s international obligations toward the bloc.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Iran will never be allowed to acquire a nuclear weapon, declaring that preventing Tehran from doing so is a red line for President Donald Trump. 

Russia launched a massive overnight missile and drone attack across Ukraine, killing at least 22 people. Strikes severely damaged a 5-story apartment building in the northeastern city of Pryluky and caused extensive damage to homes and infrastructure in Kremenchuk in the central Poltava region.

Two decades after the murder of Anna Politkovskaya, a tenacious investigative reporter who exposed the brutality of Russia's war in Chechnya and documented how President Vladimir Putin curtailed democracy in Russia, her daughter Vera says little has changed in the country's political climate.

A Liberian-flagged oil tanker caught fire off the Russian resort city of Sochi after an apparent drone attack, Russian authorities said on October 6. The 23 crew members, all Indian, were rescued. A Ukrainian monitoring site said the vessel as part of Russia’s so-called shadow fleet.