Fierce battles in eastern Ukraine have thrown a new spotlight on Russia's Wagner Group, a private military company led by a rogue millionaire with longtime links to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
WASHINGTON (AP) — For the second time this month, House Republicans have advanced a measure to restrict presidential use of the nation’s emergency oil stockpile — a proposal that has already drawn a White House veto threat.
TOKYO (AP) — A senior EU official said Friday that Russia has taken its war against Ukraine to “a different stage” by making indiscriminate attacks on civilians and non-military targets, while criticizing Moscow for triggering recent moves by Germany and the United States to send advanced tanks to Ukraine.
MOSCOW (AP) — A court in Moscow on Wednesday ruled to shut down Russia's oldest human rights organization, in the latest move amid a months-long, relentless crackdown on independent media, rights groups and opposition activists.
WASHINGTON (AP) — With Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the specter of nuclear weapon use, Earth crept its closest to Armageddon, a science-oriented advocacy group said, moving its famous “Doomsday Clock” up to just 90 seconds before midnight.
BERLIN (AP) — Supporters of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny placed a replica of the tiny “punishment cell” he has repeatedly been held in outside Russia's embassy in Berlin on Tuesday, in an effort to raise awareness of his fate.
PRETORIA, South Africa (AP) — Russia was willing to negotiate with Ukraine in the early months of the war, but the United States and other Western nations advised Kyiv against holding talks, Moscow's top diplomat said Monday.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Two businessmen have been charged with trying to conceal a sanctioned Russian oligarch's ownership of a luxury yacht seized in Spain last year by the U.S. government, the Justice Department said Friday.
WASHINGTON (AP) — CIA Director William Burns visited Kyiv last week to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, a U.S. official said Thursday, in the latest example of high-level contacts between the U.S.
DAVOS, Switzerland (AP) — Bill Browder, a leading critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin, criticized the World Economic Forum on social media for jacking up his entrance fee to the annual meeting in Davos that he has attended for the last 27 years.
ST. PETERSBURG, Russia (AP) — Russian President Vladimir Putin said Wednesday that Moscow's action in Ukraine was intended to stop a “war” that has raged in eastern Ukraine for many years.
Speaking at a meeting with veterans, Putin said Moscow had long sought to negotiate a settlement to the conflict in Ukraine's Donbas, an eastern industrial region where Russia-backed separatists have battled Ukrainian forces since 2014.
As Russian troops wage a ferocious house-to-house fight for control of strongholds in eastern Ukraine, a parallel battle is unfolding in the top echelons of military power in Moscow, with President Vladimir Putin reshuffling his top generals while rival camps try to win his favor.
MOSCOW (AP) — Russia’s top military officer was put in charge of troops fighting in Ukraine on Wednesday, a move that appears to reflect the Kremlin’s dissatisfaction with the current leadership and flaws in the military's performance.
PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — The U.S. would risk enabling the spread of extremism in Europe if it stopped providing support to Ukraine in its war with Russia, Maine's independent senator said Monday in the wake of meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina (AP) — Thousands of flag-waving Bosnian Serbs gathered on the outskirts of the capital Sarajevo Monday to celebrate an outlawed holiday associated with Bosnia’s brutal inter-ethnic war in the 1990s.
SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina (AP) — The Bosnian Serb separatist leader on Sunday awarded Russian President Vladimir Putin with the highest medal of honor for his “patriotic concern and love” for the Serb-controlled half of Bosnia.
MOSCOW (AP) — Orthodox Christians packed churches on Friday evening for Christmas Eve services, a holiday darkened for many by the conflict raging between Orthodox neighbors Russia and Ukraine.
Patriarch Kirill, leader of the Russian Orthodox Church, the world's largest Orthodox denomination, led elaborate services at Moscow's Christ the Savior Cathedral, with dozens of priests and officiants arrayed in rich vestments swinging smoking incense censers and chanting the liturgy.
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — An uneasy quiet settled over Kyiv on Friday despite air-raid sirens that blared there and across Ukraine shortly after a Russian cease-fire declaration for Orthodox Christmas went into effect.
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday ordered his armed forces to observe a unilateral 36-hour cease-fire in Ukraine this weekend for the Orthodox Christmas holiday, the first such sweeping truce move in the nearly 11-month-old war.
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday sent a frigate armed with the country's latest Zircon hypersonic missile on a trans-ocean cruise in a show of force as tensions with the West escalate over the war in Ukraine.
BRUSSELS (AP) — Natural gas storage levels in the European Union stand at nearly 84% and were higher in December than the average amount in reserve 4-6 years ago, the EU’s executive branch said Wednesday, despite Russian attempts to choke off supplies amid its war on Ukraine.
MOSCOW (AP) — Russian President Vladimir Putin’s New Year’s address to the nation usually is rather anodyne and backed with a soothing view of a snowy Kremlin. This year, with soldiers in the background, he lashed out at the West and Ukraine.
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese leader Xi Jinping vowed Friday to deepen their bilateral cooperation against the backdrop of Moscow’s 10-month war in Ukraine, which weathered another night of drone and rocket attacks following a large-scale missile bombardment.
MOSCOW (AP) — Russian President Vladimir Putin oversaw the commissioning of new warships and vowed Thursday to further strengthen his country's navy.
“We will speed up and increase the volumes of construction of ships of various projects, equip them with the most modern weapons, and conduct the operational and combat training using the experience received during the special military operation,” Putin said, referring to Russia's 10-month-old campaign in Ukraine.
MOSCOW (AP) — With its brutality, technological accomplishments and rigid ideology, the Soviet Union loomed over the world like an immortal colossus.
It led humankind into outer space, exploded the most powerful nuclear weapon ever, and inflicted bloody purges and cruel labor camps on its own citizens while portraying itself as the vanguard of enlightened revolution.
BERLIN (AP) — A Swiss court has granted a six-month “stay of bankruptcy” to the operating company for the never-opened Nord Stream 2 pipeline, which was built to bring Russian gas to Germany but put on ice shortly before Russia invaded Ukraine in February.
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — President Vladimir Putin claimed that Russia is ready for talks to end the war in Ukraine even as the country faced more attacks from Moscow — a clear sign that peace wasn't imminent.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The idea of a daring wartime trip by Volodymyr Zelenskyy to Washington had percolated for some time before the surprise visit was revealed just hours ahead of the Ukrainian president's arrival.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Volodymyr Zelenskyy's dramatic visit to Washington was a moment for the White House to demonstrate to Russia's Vladimir Putin that the United States would sustain its commitment to the war for, as President Joe Biden put it, “as long as it takes.”
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — The Kremlin warned Wednesday that increasing the supply of U.S. arms to Ukraine would aggravate the devastating 10-month war ignited by Russia's invasion, and Russia's defense minister called for expanding Moscow's military by at least 500,000 troops.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate voted overwhelmingly Wednesday to confirm the new U.S. ambassador to Russia.
Hours before Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was expected to arrive in Washington for a historic visit, senators voted to 93-2 to confirm veteran diplomat Lynne M.
FORT MEADE, Md. (AP) — Russia’s war in Ukraine and anti-regime protests in Iran limited both Moscow and Tehran’s ability to try to influence or interfere in the recent U.S. midterm elections, a senior American military official said Monday.
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russian President Vladimir Putin made a rare trip Monday to Moscow's ally Belarus as his forces pursued their campaign to bombard Ukraine from the air amid a broad battlefield stalemate almost 10 months into the war.
With the war in Ukraine grinding through its 10th month, both sides are locked in a stalemated battle of attrition, which could set the stage for a new round of escalation.
Many observers see the current deadlock as beneficial to Ukraine, allowing it to receive more state-of-the-art weapons from the West and prepare for new counteroffensives.
BACKGROUND: After a year of Russian troop buildup, diplomatic wrangling, and months of consternation of will he or won’t he, on February 24, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a military invasion of Ukraine.
President Vladimir Putin has ditched his annual marathon news conference following a series of battlefield setbacks in Ukraine — a tacit acknowledgment that the Russian leader's war has gone badly wrong.
OSLO, Norway (AP) — The winners of this year's Nobel Peace Prize from Belarus, Russia and Ukraine shared their visions of a fairer world and denounced Russian President Vladimir Putin's war in Ukraine during Saturday’s award ceremony in the Norwegian capital.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Biden administration is accusing Russia of moving to provide advanced military assistance to Iran, including air defense systems, helicopters and fighter jets, part of deepening cooperation between the two nations as Tehran provides drones to support Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine.
MOSCOW (AP) — Russian President Vladimir Putin said Friday that Moscow could adopt what he described as a U.S. concept of using preemptive military strikes, noting it has the weapons to do the job, in a blunt statement amid rising Russia-NATO tensions over Ukraine.
MOSCOW (AP) — A prominent Russian opposition figure was on Friday sentenced to 8 1/2 years in prison after being convicted on charges stemming from his criticism of the Kremlin’s action in Ukraine.
MOSCOW (AP) — A representative of one of the organizations sharing this year's Nobel Peace Prize said Friday that Russian President Vladimir Putin should face an international tribunal for the fighting in Ukraine.
COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) — There will be no lasting peace in Ukraine until there is justice and human rights, the head of the Ukrainian Center for Civil Liberties said Thursday as she arrived in Oslo to receive the Nobel Peace Prize with fellow human rights campaigners from Belarus and Russia.