#Russian influence

#Russian influence

In a stunning geopolitical reversal, on October 29, the United States abruptly lifted sanctions on Bosnian Serb leader and genocide denier Milorad Dodik a known Kremlin ally who has long undermined Bosnia and Herzegovina's sovereignty. The decision, which contradicts years of US policy, intriguingly coincides with the beginning of direct dealings between Russia and Bosnia's Serb entity, Republika Srpska. The Russians, who had long treated Belgrade as the only authority representing all Serbs across the region,

Czech President and former chief of the General Staff of the Czech Armed Forces Petr Pavel is a level-headed man with strong nerves. Yet even though he almost never gets emotional in his capacity as head of state, he has seemed for quite some time to be deeply concerned about the state of democracy in the Czech Republic. On Tuesday evening, less than three days before the polls open in Czechia's parliamentary election, he spoke to the nation.

Moldova's most notorious fugitive businessman, Vladimir Plahotniuc, has been extradited from Greece to face trial over the country's biggest financial scandal, AFP and local media reported. The 59-year-old oligarch, accused of orchestrating the disappearance of $1bn from Moldovan banks in 2014, arrived in Chisinau on Thursday under tight security. The fraud, known locally as the theft of the century, amounted to about 12 percent of the nation's gross domestic product (GDP) at the time.

LVIV - Crowds of mourners were packed into the baroque-rococo St. George's Cathedral in Lviv, western Ukraine, on September 1, for the funeral of former parliament speaker Andriy Parubiy, who was gunned down in the city days earlier. The 54-year-old, who was still a lawmaker for the opposition European Solidarity party, was shot dead at around noon while walking along a city street on August 30.

President Trump's CIA Director John Ratcliffe tasked CIA analysts to review the agency's 2016 conclusions about Russian interference in the U.S. presidential election.