Claire Bigg covers Russia, Ukraine, and the post-Soviet world, with a focus on human rights, civil society, and social issues.
Nearly one year after their release from prison in Azerbaijan, that country's most prominent dissident couple battles the exile blues but remains determined to continue fighting human rights abuses at home.
A Russian voyager whose record-breaking around-the-world balloon flight capped a career of extremes is urging people to be more adventurous. Fyodor Konyukhov, who has also rowed across oceans and climbed Mt. Everest twice, told RFE/RL that human beings "should strive to discover new worlds.
As France reels from a devastating attack in Nice, the Riviera city’s long history of Islamist radicalization may come into the spotlight.
Russia's politically charged imprisonment of Crimean film director Oleh Sentsov has outraged critics as a perceived effort to suppress dissent on the Ukrainian peninsula following its forceful annexation by Moscow in 2014. Mike Downey, a film producer and the deputy head of the European Film Academy, talks about why the case remains important to people across Europe.
Supporters in Ukraine and beyond have marked Oleh Sentsov's 40th birthday -- the third consecutive birthday the Crimean film director has spent behind bars in Russia, which convicted him of conspiring to commit terrorism on the annexed Ukrainian peninsula.
An estimated 29,000 North Koreans have fled to the South since the Korean War in the early 1950s. Few of them, however, are willing to share details about their lives in the world's most reclusive country. One defector agreed to share his story with RFE/RL's Roman Super.
As Europe grapples with Britain's decision to leave the EU, the bloc's eastern partners are weighing the implications of a Brexit for their own countries.
A growing number of ordinary Russian citizens are being assaulted and intimidated in what they believe is retaliation for online posts critical of authorities. The attacks are taking place against the backdrop of a deepening government crackdown on Internet freedoms.
A gay couple in Moscow could be charged with holding an unsanctioned protest after paying tribute to the victims of a mass shooting in Orlando, Florida. The pair came to the U.S. Embassy with flowers, candles and a sign saying "Love Wins."
Russia's NTV state television channel is facing an unexpected backlash over a bit of its trademark anti-Western rhetoric.
Sometimes political tensions can center on seemingly innocuous objects. Bridges, for instance.
The Moscow Helsinki Group, one of Russia's top human rights organizations, turned 40 on May 12. Co-founder Lyudmila Alekseyeva looks back at its early days in the Soviet Union and how founding the group shaped her life.
A female Georgian TV host caught up in a massive sex-tape scandal has taken a bold stand against a dirty trick that is now targeting female politicians and public figures.
Yelena Sablina has been waging a legal battle to change Russia's law on organ donation. Two years ago, Sablina accidentally found out that her deceased daughter's organs had been removed without her knowledge.
A new system governing disability benefits in Russia is being panned by patients, parents, and health advocates as unfair and "profoundly vicious." Hundreds of thousands of people, many of them with severe illnesses or disabilities, have had their payments cut off under the new system.
The exiled head of the Chechen separatist government says strongman Ramzan Kadyrov is now so powerful that the Kremlin may have difficulty removing him. Akhmed Zakayev accuses the Chechen leader of terrorizing his critics and organizing the murder of opposition politician Boris Nemtsov at the behest of the Russian president.
Authorities close down a Siberian district's only maternity ward due to budget cuts, leaving mothers-to-be stranded and at risk.
Russian fund-raising charities are working overtime to compensate for the plight of the ruble, which has dealt a blow to patients needing life-saving treatment abroad.
More than 200 Russian dissidents have fled to Ukraine over the past two years, but only a handful have been granted political asylum. Some fear they could be sent back and are warning that Ukraine is not a safe place for embattled Russian opposition activists.
Officials in a northern Russian republic have burned more than 50 books whose content was deemed "alien to Russian ideology." The books were reportedly published by the Soros Foundation, which Russian prosecutors recently declared "undesirable."
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