Out of Current Time’s coverage zone, two countries, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan, feature prominently in the findings of the Forbidden Stories-Amnesty International investigation into alleged surveillance by Israeli NSO Group's Pegasus spyware.
In May, a leaking pipeline spilled oil into a river and across a large area of the Komi region in northern Russia. Local officials and the LUKoil energy company said the cleanup work is now finished, but local environmentalists say the impact is greater than the company admits.
Half of Russia's oil is produced in the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous District of Siberia, but the lucrative industry has meant nothing but trouble for the region's indigenous people.
As Belarus faces international isolation for its brutal crackdown on opposition voices, it has been able to rely on Russia for support -- both political and economic. Despite a sometimes fraught relationship, Moscow has been pouring money into Belarus since the 1990s.
Thirty-five years after the April 26, 1986 blast that made Chernobyl the world's worst nuclear-energy disaster, tens of thousands of visitors visit the site each year. Current Time traveled to Chernobyl and the surrounding area to learn more about this magnetic draw during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Russia's remote Kurgan region, near Kazakhstan, is the location of about one-sixth of the country's uranium reserves. A subsidiary of the state nuclear agency is expanding its operations there. But for many local residents, the growth of the mines means not greater wealth, but greater dangers.
Viktor Kozlov used to drive a tractor on a Soviet-era state farm, but when times got tough, he moved to the coal-rich Siberian region of Krasnoyarsk and started selling coal to residents there to heat their homes.
Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka says Russia is blocking deliveries of Kazakh oil amid a tariff dispute with Moscow, Minsk's regular supplier.
It once was a proud and prosperous part of the Soviet Union’s robust uranium-mining industry. But today, residents of northern Kazakhstan’s Saumalkol call their home a ghost town.
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