Michael Scollon is a senior correspondent in RFE/RL's Central Newsroom in Prague.
During a briefing in Tehran to discuss the Kremlin's position in the ongoing nuclear talks, Moscow's ambassador to Iran took umbrage to a question about Russia's war in Ukraine. Levan Dzhagaryan scolded the journalists, reminding them that they should use Russia's preferred terminology.
This week’s Gandhara Briefing takes a look at how the Taliban is further destroying Afghanistan’s cultural heritage, an online school that helps Afghan girls continue their studies, and Islamabad’s cease-fire with Pakistani militants.
The Taliban wants to turn back the clock on girls' education but failed to study up on modern technology. Hundreds of school-age Afghan girls are circumventing the ban on them attending school by going online, learning everything from computer programming to sculpting.
Afghanistan's health-care system is on the brink of collapse following the Taliban's seizure of power and the sudden withdrawal of both foreign forces and the international funding that came with them.
The Taliban has attempted to craft an image of transparency since returning to power in Afghanistan, but photographs of acting Interior Minister Sirajuddin Haqqani at work have muddied the effort.
Iranian journalist and activist Sepideh Gholian has become somewhat of an expert at exposing the torture tactics used in Iranian prisons. Now, her latest eyewitness accounts of prisoner abuse that she posted on social media have landed her back behind bars.
When U.S. air strikes targeted terrorist training camps in Afghanistan on October 7, 2001, it signaled the beginning of a nearly 20-year war that quickly toppled the Taliban, only to see the extremist group ultimately return to power in Kabul.
Budget-sector workers in Russia were pictured flocking to polling stations across the country as voting in nationwide legislative elections began.
As the old joke goes, the Soviet Union was heralded for producing the world's largest microchips and the fastest watches. But Russia alone can lay claim to having a "single voting day" over a span of three days.
Russians have little access to independent views or polling ahead of the elections, and one of the small windows into potential fraud -- live-stream monitoring -- has been closed. Critics fear the ground is being prepared for vote-rigging and a foregone conclusion favoring the ruling party.
The countdown is under way for Russia's controversial e-voting platform, which will be debuted in the upcoming State Duma elections by some very remote voters, including a cosmonaut and a polar explorer.
The CSTO is scrambling to respond to the regional security void left by the sudden U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan. But while the loose-knit, Russian-led defense grouping is busy holding military exercises and high-level meetings, its strength as an alliance is in doubt.
President Vladimir Putin is in a giving mood ahead of Russia's upcoming legislative elections, leading critics to say he is bribing vulnerable voters to boost the pro-Kremlin ruling party.
A Russian grocery chain's effort to highlight "real families" appears to have gotten a little too real after negative feedback forced an LGBT family to flee the country after appearing in one of the store's "Recipe For Happiness" adverts.
The departure of U.S.-led troops from Afghanistan has given Russia a chance to showcase its diplomatic and military influence on the world stage. But experts say Moscow's initial moves have revealed that the Kremlin has no long-term strategy in place.
Momentum for early parliamentary elections in Moldova has been building for months. Now, an angry electorate is preparing to decide on July 11 whether the small country on Europe’s edge will move toward the West or remain in Russia's orbit. A look at how it got here and what is at stake.
Russia wasted little time staking its claim to Crimea's archeological bounty after seizing control of the Ukrainian peninsula in 2014. After seven years of extensive excavations, Moscow has collected a treasure trove of new and disputed discoveries.
A new round of EU sanctions is expected to take a bite out of the Belarusian economy. But the measures cutting off exports destined for Europe could also unintentionally be a boon to another Western adversary -- Russia.
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