Ray Furlong

As Moldova's presidential election goes into a second round runoff on November 3, the pro-Western incumbent faces a tough battle for votes in a town where 95 percent voted against the European Union in a recent referendum.

The Russian military appears to be firing at Ukraine from the Caspian Sea, possibly adding environmental damage on the world's largest lake to the human and material cost of Moscow's full-scale invasion.

Civilians in Pokrovsk, Ukraine, are facing twin threats of the Russian Army advancing on their town and the onset of winter.

Caspian Seals are unique and not found anywhere else in the world, but their numbers are declining sharply.In October-November 2024, more than 1,000 dead seals were found washed up on the shore of Kazakhstan -- cause of death unknown.

A 10-year obsession with unique Caspian Seals almost ended during the trauma of a mass die-off, but this Kazakh scientist refuses to give up.

Sometimes river waters lap high along the banks by the Kremlin in Kazan, Russia, but other times they're just a dull, muddy trickle. It's not just the weather that's causing this, and activists are crying foul.

This is the exclusive story of a Ukrainian shopkeeper turned territorial defense volunteer whose body was found, with his hands bound and a bullet wound in his head, at the site of an abandoned Russian headquarters in Bucha. Oleksiy Pobihay was among hundreds of Ukrainians massacred by occupying Russian forces in March 2022. Using phone intercepts, previously unpublished videos, documents, and witness statements, RFE/RL has pieced together the story of Pobihay's life and death.

Iran has recorded a massive uptick in its fishing catch in the Caspian, even as the sea shrinks. But as fishermen celebrate, experts are ringing alarm bells.

Ukrainian troops have complained that people are avoiding military service and leaving them outnumbered on the front line, in interviews near Kupyansk in northeastern Ukraine on November 20. With Russian forces advancing in the area, the few remaining civilians appeared stressed and depressed about the situation.

A 77-year-old Ukrainian man overcomes power cuts resulting from Russian air strikes with his own energy, by pedaling a bicycle hooked up to an electricity generator that lights his home and charges his phone. Oleksandr Klimenko also has his own wind turbine and solar panels.