Hey, you’re busy! We know rferl.org isn’t the only website you read. And that it’s just possible you may have missed some of our most compelling journalism this week. To make sure you’re up-to-date, here are some of the highlights produced by RFE/RL’s team of correspondents, multimedia editors, and visual journalists over the past seven days.
Russian law enforcement officers play a key role in the industrial-scale theft of oil from the nation’s network of pipelines, an illicit business that robs the public coffers of hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue and wreaks damage on the environment, a new RFE/RL investigation shows. By Sergei Khazov-Cassia
Vladimir is less than two hours by train from Moscow but average wages in the city pale by comparison. It is in such places that jailed opposition leader Aleksei Navalny’s beleaguered movement is working to highlight corruption and change mindsets despite unrelenting pressure from the Russian state. By Matthew Luxmoore
In the city of Ovruch in the Zhytomyr region of Ukraine, the number of patients with COVID-19 continues to grow and the government has already designated the region a “red zone” for its high rate of new cases. RFE/RL visited the regional hospital and spoke with Viktoria Lytkivska, a doctor who has been treating patients since the start of the pandemic. Over 30,000 COVID-19-related deaths have so far been recorded in the country, with infections now at their highest level since November. By RFE/RL’s Ukrainian Service and Neil Bowdler
In 1999, Saeed Zinali was arrested amid student protests that rocked Iran. More than two decades later, his mother continues to search for him. By RFE/RL’s Radio Farda
Russia’s remote Kurgan region, near Kazakhstan, is the location of about one-sixth of the country’s uranium reserves. A subsidiary of the state nuclear agency is expanding its operations there, using sulfuric acid to leach out the uranium ore. But for many local residents, the growth of the mines means not greater wealth, but greater dangers. By Harutyun Mansuyan and Current Time’s Unknown Russia
RFE/RL spoke with three Russians from the Urals region who emigrated from Russia after despairing that their efforts to reform their country would produce no good. By Yelena Shukayeva and Robert Coalson
Raman Bandarenka died from his injuries after being beaten up by masked men in November 2020, but the authorities in Belarus claimed he was drunk before he was detained by police. It was the start of an alleged cover-up that has seen a doctor jailed for disclosing that there was no alcohol in his body and evidence that senior regime figures were at the scene when Bandarenka was attacked. By Ray Furlong, Current Time, and RFE/RL’s Belarus Service
When the KGB sanctioned the opening of the Leningrad Rock Club in March 1981, it probably had no idea that this small, “alternative” venue would become synonymous with the tumultuous changes that swept through the Soviet Union just a few years later. By Coilin O’Connor
They come from Ukraine, Moldova, and Kyrgyzstan — and they have been deported from Russia for joining peaceful protests in support of jailed opposition leader Aleksei Navalny. They are now divided from their Russian wives and children. The head of a parliamentary commission into alleged foreign interference in Russian affairs said any foreigners involved in demonstrations should face automatic deportation. By Ray Furlong and Current Time
Competition between Beijing and Washington will shape the supercontinent, but Eurasia won’t be a flashpoint for tensions between the two world powers. By Reid Standish