George Simion, leader of the Romanian far-right AUR party, at a press conference for foreign media at the party's headquarters in Bucharest Photo by DANIEL MIHAILESCU / AFP By the end of June, Romania was left without a working government: parliament this week rejected another candidate for prime minister. President Nikušor Dan was faced with a choice between the seemingly impossible reassembly of the pro-European coalition and early elections.

On June 24, the Zamoskvoretsky Court of Moscow sentenced former Moscow City Duma deputy and deputy chairman of the Yabloko party Maxim Kruglov to seven years in a general regime colony in the case of disseminating “fakes” about the Russian army. Even before his arrest, Kruglov decided to write a book about his favorite director, Paul Thomas Anderson. He continued working on the text in the pre-trial detention center.