Harutyun Mansuryan is a multimedia video producer for RFE/RL in Prague.
A Russian sports coach spoke out against the war in Ukraine and twice tore down a pro-invasion "Z" sign from the door of a school in the Siberian village of Buryatia. Valery Yakovlev said he didn’t like children being "programmed” with pro-war symbols.
A Ukrainian mother tells how her 13-year-old son was killed when she and her children tried to flee a village occupied by Russian forces. Inna says that, at first, Russian troops allowed her family to leave and even waved goodbye, but then opened fire at the cars they were traveling in.
The port city of Mariupol was home to 400,000 people before Russia's invasion. It has been under siege by Russian troops and under constant shelling for more than 50 days. The city has been reduced to rubble. Thousands of civilians are believed to have died there.
Nearly 6,000 orphans have been evacuated from the war zone in Ukraine. According to Ukrainian law, they can't be adopted during the war. Current Time's Yuliia Zhukova and Serhii Syvko visited one of the shelters for evacuated orphans in the village of Yaremche in Ukraine's Ivano-Frankivsk region.
Since the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24, all public hospitals in the country have been operating under martial law and have been working 24/7. Some medical workers have moved their families into the hospitals with them, while volunteers have arrived to help.
Protests have become common in Ukrainian towns and cities occupied by Russian troops. On March 20, hundreds of people raised their voices in Kherson, Kakhovka, Berdyansk, and elsewhere and waved Ukrainian flags to demonstrate their opposition to the invading army.
Two-year-old Stepan Shpak was killed in Novye Petrivtsy, near the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, on March 16 in shelling by the Russian Army. His father spoke to Current Time on March 17.
On March 14, residents of the village of Bilozerka, near Kherson, went unarmed to protest against the Russian occupiers. Only bursts of gunfire in the air forced them to disperse.
Kyiv authorities say a Russian shell hit a nine-story residential building in the Obolon district in the early morning hours of March 14. Current Time's Boris Sachalko and Ivan Lubish-Kirdey were on site and spoke with residents of the damaged building.
Renewed anti-war protests took place in many major Russian cities, from Khabarovsk to Moscow, on March 13. As with previous demonstrations, many people were detained by security forces.
Obstetrician-gynecologist Kyrylo Ventskivskiy was working a night shift when Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24. He delivered the first baby born in wartime Ukraine. He's only gone home once since then.
Thousands of people are trying to flee the Ukrainian city of Irpin for the capital, Kyiv, almost 25 kilometers away. Ukrainian forces have blown up bridges near the city to stop advancing Russian tanks. Current Time filmed local residents trying to escape Russian shelling.
Thousands of people from across Ukraine continued to flood into the main railway station in the western city of Lviv on March 4 with the hope of traveling to neighboring Poland. Current Time spoke to some of those who had fled from the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv.
Musician David Geodakian was born in Yerevan 30 years ago, months after the collapse of the Soviet Union. He was too young to remember the momentous events that followed, but his father, Konstantin, was a witness to the changes that set Armenia on its path to independence. Three decades later, both men share their reflections on the differences between their generations and how their historic eras have helped shape their lives.
The impact of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in 1986 was felt not only in Soviet Ukraine, but also in parts of Belarus and western Russia. The town of Zlynka in Russia's Bryansk region is still living with the consequences, despite an official ruling that classifies the area as a "residential zone."
The centuries-old town of Sebezh sits near the borders of both Belarus and Latvia in Russia's western Pskov region. Residents are proud of their well-preserved old houses and rich history, but they've seen little development in a struggling town that was once called the "window to Europe."
Russians living in Siberia’s Altai mountains make a living by cutting the antlers off Maral deers. The dried antlers are sold for more than $300 per kilogram to China and South Korea where people believe they help boost libido and longevity. But animal rights groups call the practice cruel.
Since Ukraine opened its Soviet-era KGB archives in 2015, the public has been able to dig into the files and uncover many dark secrets of the past. But for some, the harsh revelations have been too much to handle as they learn that their relatives were secret police informants or agents.
Bolshoi Ussuriysky Island, an outpost on the Amur River in the Far East, was disputed by Russia and China for decades, but it has now been divided almost equally between the neighbors. The Chinese call it Heixiazi Island.
In Russia's Komi region, the village of Mutny Materik -- or Muddy Continent -- stands in the swamps along the Pechora River, without paved roads or a sewer system. The town's name was recently recognized as the funniest in Russia, but locals find the conditions of life here are no laughing matter.
Load more
