Neil Bowdler is a multimedia editor at RFE/RL.
From June 28, Moscow restaurants, cafes, and bars have been ordered to only serve guests who have been vaccinated, had COVID-19 within the last six months, or have had a negative PCR test within the previous three days.
The COVID-19 vaccination program in Pakistan's Sindh and Punjab provinces is being hampered by a shortage of vaccine doses. People in Sindh's provincial capital, Karachi, were turned away after lining up in the sun for inoculations.
Some 100,000 doses of a locally produced COVID-19 vaccine called QazVac have already been distributed in Kazakhstan -- before the publication of late-stage clinical trial data. Independent health experts say more data should have been released.
Several Russian regions have started vaccinating domestic animals against COVID-19 at veterinary clinics. Russia's agricultural safety watchdog Rosselkhoznadzor made the announcement on May 26.
A Belarusian journalist has been detained by police after the commercial passenger aircraft in which he was traveling from Greece to Lithuania was diverted to Minsk due to a purported bomb threat. Raman Pratasevich was taken away by police shortly after his Ryanair flight landed.
A Hungarian woman, Szilvia Bedo-Nagy, gave birth the day she was admitted to an intensive-care unit with COVID-19. She was put on a ventilator and then on an artificial lung and kept in an induced coma for 40 days but defied expectations and recovered.
An independent TV channel in Siberia is one of the few Russian media outlets that has covered jailed opposition figure Aleksei Navalny. The Krasnoyarsk Independent Regional Channel (TVK) has reported on Navalny's anti-corruption investigations and on protests against President Vladimir Putin.
Most Ukrainian hospitals are overwhelmed with coronavirus patients. The number of hospitalizations over the past month has increased dramatically and many medical facilities are suffering from an acute oxygen shortage.
In Kyrgyzstan, five directors are making a series of short films about the COVID-19 pandemic hitting the country in the spring and summer of 2020. Ten different stories will tell about how ordinary people experienced quarantine and how the local health-care system was unready for the outbreak.
Current Time has visited the intensive-care unit of a COVID-19 hospital in Kyiv, where a recent surge in infections means every single bed is full. Many patients arrive in critical condition and require mechanical ventilation of their lungs.
The COVID-19 pandemic is raging across Ukraine. At a small rural hospital in the village of Lavriv in the country's Lviv region, there are no spare beds and patients are lying in corridors. Ukraine has recorded over 37,000 deaths since the start of the pandemic.
A Ukrainian couple with 13 children have both died of COVID-19 in quick succession. The funeral was held for Diana Rodikova on March 31, just days after her husband, Volodymyr, succumbed to the virus. Eleven of their children are under 18.
Bulgaria's Sofia Opera continues to stage performances for the public under strict hygiene rules, despite the COVID-19 pandemic. A small audience of up to 250 people is allowed to watch performances from the balconies, with the orchestra spread across most of the main seating level.
In the city of Ovruch in the Zhytomyr region of Ukraine, the number of patients with COVID-19 continues to grow and the government has already designated the region a "red zone" for its high rate of new cases.
A week before the sixth anniversary of the murder of Russian opposition politician Boris Nemtsov, a makeshift memorial on the bridge where he was killed was cleared again by authorities. Volunteers who maintained the photos and flowers on the Bolshoi Moskvoretsky Bridge were detained.
A barber in the Afghan capital, Kabul, has installed a small library in a corner of his shop. Assadullah says he dropped out of school early, but is encouraging other people to read as much as possible in a country where literacy levels remain low.
The transgender community in Karachi has found its own place of worship after being harassed or turned away from other churches in the Pakistani city. The First Church For Eunuchs -- a term used in Pakistan for transgender people -- was set up by Pastor Ghazala Shafique of the Church of Pakistan.
The small village of Shabdan in Kyrgyzstan's Chuy Valley used to be inhabited predominantly by ethnic Russians. But with many having moved to Russia and others marrying Kyrgyz partners, ethnic divisions here have become less distinct.
Hungary's last remaining independent news radio station has been knocked off the air in Budapest. The country's media authorities refused to extend Klubradio's FM license, saying it "repeatedly infringed" on the compulsory registration law by twice submitting documents late.
A new Georgian documentary tells the tale of a billionaire's quest to move 200 massive trees, at huge expense and with great difficulty, across land and sea to a private park. Taming The Garden, by the film​maker Salome Jashi, premiered at this year's international Sundance Film Festival.
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