The time had come to bend the knee — or at least bend to reality. A delegation of Russian diplomats arrived last Tuesday in a caravan of white SUVs for a summit in Damascus and an unenviable assignment: lay the groundwork for Russia to keep its military bases in Syria, less than two months after … Read more
North Korean soldiers who joined their Russian allies in battle against Ukrainian forces have been pulled off the front lines after suffering heavy causalities, according to Ukrainian and U.S. officials. The North Korean troops, sent to bolster Russian forces trying to push back a Ukrainian offensive inside Russia’s borders, have not been seen at the … Read more
Internal political tensions in Ukraine have been rising in anticipation of a cease-fire that might lead to elections. This week, they burst into the open with a striking public rebuke of President Volodymyr Zelensky by the mayor of Kyiv. In a video address issued on Wednesday, the mayor of the country’s capital, Vitali Klitschko, accused … Read more
When Ilya Rusinov returned to the Russian work force after rehabilitating a vertebra damaged in the Ukraine war, his first job was teaching in a school. But he had also launched a side project, a patriotic club he called Zveno, or “Squad,” that provides military training for different age groups, including teenagers. After struggling at … Read more
They have been circling each other carefully for seven days now — sending out invitations to talk, mixing a few jabs with ego-stroking, suggesting that the only way to end the Ukraine war is for the two of them to meet, presumably without the Ukrainians. President Trump and Vladimir V. Putin, whose relationship was always … Read more
Europe’s longest-serving leader, President Aleksandr G. Lukashenko of Belarus, cruised to his seventh election victory in a row on Sunday in a contest that his exiled opponents dismissed as a sham, whose only purpose was to cement his autocratic grip on the former Soviet republic, Russia’s closest ally. “Don’t use the word election to describe … Read more
When a 28-year-old volunteer named Nikolai stepped onto a sandy beach on Russia’s Black Sea coast in a hazmat suit just before New Year’s Eve, he was so overwhelmed by the amount of thick oil film that he almost broke down. He and other volunteers were tasked with shoveling away the oil-drenched sand, but “the … Read more
At the start of his second term President Trump has positioned himself at the crest of a global wave of hard-line conservative populism, offering fuel and inspiration to surging nationalist parties in the European Union and beyond. Those parties are generally united by tough stances against immigrants, support for what they call “traditional” values in … Read more
The war of attrition between Russia and Ukraine is killing soldiers at a pace unseen in Europe since World War II. Ukrainian artillery fire, explosive drones and mines are killing Russian troops, as they repeatedly charge across the no-man’s land. As Ukrainian positions are exposed, they are suffering heavy casualties inflicted from afar by Russian … Read more
Since Russia invaded his country three years ago, President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine has survived a military assault on his capital, assassination plots, corruption scandals in his government, political infighting and ominous setbacks in his army’s fight against Russia. He had enough support from Ukrainians to carry him through each time. Now, with Donald J. … Read more