Photo: Belarusian Interior Ministry The Belarusian Interior Ministry has held a new round of anti-riot drills designed to “ensure public order” ahead of January’s presidential election, the ministry said in a statement on Wednesday. The drills, which are being held from Tuesday to Friday, aim to train the country’s police to operate in “special circumstances”, namely “public order offences” during the upcoming election, the ministry said.

A Storm Shadow cruise missile at the Le Bourget Air Show in Paris, France, 19 June 2023. Photo: Lewis Joly / AFP / Scanpix / LETA A photograph of the wreckage of a missile with the inscription Storm Shadow clearly visible on it posted by Russian pro-war Telegram channel Dva Mayora. The Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) have used British Storm Shadow long-range missiles in the Russian Kursk region for the first time, Bloomberg reported on Wednesday.

On November 18, the group “Supporting Lyudmila Kolesnikova” reported that she was forbidden to correspond and receive letters. A relative of the lawyer, Anna ( name changed - Ed. ) told Novaya-Europa that not only Kolesnikova, but also her cellmate were forbidden to correspond. Anna suggested that this decision was due to the great resonance in the media.

The Georgian authorities have set the date of the first meeting of the newly elected parliament for November 25. And the opposition blocked the center of Tbilisi for three days demanding new elections. The Georgian opposition protests after parliamentary elections in Tbilisi.

Photo: Alexandra Astakhova / Mediazona A group of Russian doctors have appealed to Vladimir Putin to release a recently jailed paediatrician in a video message broadcast by independent radio station Ekho FM on Wednesday. Nadezhda Buyanova, 68, was sentenced to five and a half years in prison on charges of spreading false information about the Russian military on 12 November.

The Ukrainian Armed Forces launched a strike using long-range Storm Shadow missiles in the Kursk region, Z-channels and military correspondents reported. The anonymous military telegram channel “Two Majors” was one of the first to report the use of these missiles. As stated in the post, from 14:50 (Moscow time) the Ukrainian Armed Forces fired up to 12 British Storm Shadow missiles across the region. The village of Maryino came under fire.

The Russian authorities are increasingly cracking down on queer venues in the name of ‘traditional values’ Illustration: Alisa Krasnikova / Novaya Gazeta Europe Since the Russian Supreme Court recognised the “international LGBT movement” as extremist in November 2023, Russian police have cracked down on spaces that they deem to be LGBT-related or simply “obscene”, targeting events ranging from drag shows to board-game nights.

The State Duma adopted in the first reading a bill on special accounts for “foreign agents.” Speaker of Parliament Vyacheslav Volodin announced this. According to him, the document was supported unanimously. The authors of the initiative were 429 deputies. Volodin spoke about the preparation of a bill that would limit royalty payments to “foreign agents” on November 7.

Photo: OVD-Info Russian doctors recorded an appeal to Putin calling for the release of pediatrician Nadezhda Buyanova, who was sentenced to five and a half years in the case of military “fakes.” “This sentence is blatant lawlessness and a manifestation of cruelty. The case against Nadezhda Feodorovna is completely fabricated. There is no objective evidence of her guilt,” says the video published by Echo FM.

Affected countries suspect sabotage. Main Workers test Google's new undersea cable. Photo: EPA-EFE/Miguel Tona Workers test Google's new undersea cable. Photo: EPA-EFE/Miguel Tona What's happened? In the Baltic Sea on November 17, two underwater communication cables that run between Finland and Germany, as well as between Lithuania and Sweden, were destroyed. First, the 218 km long Swedish-Lithuanian fiber optic submarine cable was destroyed on Sunday morning.

Ukrainian soldiers undergo military training at a shooting range in the Kharkiv region of Ukraine on 14 November. Photo: EPA-EFE/SERGEY KOZLOV Russia will not accept the option of freezing the war in Ukraine along the current frontlines, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said on Wednesday, quoted by state-affiliated news agency Interfax.

The head of the Korenevsky district, who had committed a fine, was publicly booed at a meeting with the governor of the Kursk region. “New Europe” found out who its main competitor is Meeting with refugees on November 12. Photo: screenshot from VK video A week ago, a video from a meeting of Kursk refugees with Governor Alexei Smirnov circulated on social networks.

Nikolay Gaiduk. Screenshot from a video Nikolay Gaiduk. Screenshot from a video Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) has arrested a German citizen suspected of planning to sabotage energy facilities in the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad, state-owned news agency TASS reported on Wednesday. TASS, quoting the FSB, named the suspect as 57-year-old Nikolay Gaiduk, who was detained after entering Russia from Poland.

How do conscripts get nightmares? More and more often there are news about terrible raids on conscripts - they are caught on the street, placed face down on the floor, handcuffed and taken to military registration and enlistment offices. Residents of Moscow complained about SMS messages threatening criminal prosecution and demanding them to come to the military registration and enlistment office. The Ministry of Defense has plans for the autumn conscription, it is necessary to show results.

Photo: EPA-EFE/OLEG PETRASYUK The US Embassy in Kyiv will be closed on Wednesday amid a threat of what it called a “significant” Russian airstrike on the Ukrainian capital, it has said in a statement. “The US Embassy in Kyiv has received specific information of a potential significant air attack on November 20. Out of an abundance of caution, the Embassy will be closed, and Embassy employees are being instructed to shelter in place,” the statement published on the embassy’s website read.