The Homel regional court in southeastern Belarus has started the trial of journalist Larysa Shchyrakova on charges of facilitating extremist activities and discrediting Belarus as a crackdown on dissent by the country's authoritarian ruler Alyaksandr Lukashenka continues.
Ukraine's parliament on July 27 voted to strip Yuriy Aristov, a lawmaker from President Volodymyr Zelenskiy's Servant Of the People party, of his mandate because he has been out of the country for almost two months on vacation.