Tag - russia

 
 

RUSSIA

Whether or not Russia deploys a nuclear weapon in space, what’s clear is that the U.S. and its two main adversaries, Russia and China, have developed increasingly advanced programs to wage conflict against assets in orbit.
WORLD
Feb 18, 2024
Russia’s bid for orbiting nuclear weapon highlights new space race
Researchers have spent years tracking and testing for the possible effects of a nuclear blast in space.
Residential buildings heavily damaged by  Russian military strikes in the front-line town of Avdiivka, Ukraine, last November.
WORLD / Politics
Feb 17, 2024
Ukraine troops withdraw from front-line city of Avdiivka
Capturing Avdiivka is the most significant territorial gain for Russian forces since they seized the eastern city of Bakhmut last May.
Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny in Moscow in August 2013. Navalny, the most outspoken domestic critic of President Vladimir Putin, has died in prison, Russian state media said Friday.
WORLD / Politics / ANALYSIS
Feb 17, 2024
Alexei Navalny's death deprives Russia's opposition of a leader and hope
His death leaves the groups that oppose Russian President Vladimir Putin with no obvious candidate to try to turn any discontent into mass protests.
French President Emmanuel Macron shakes hands with Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy during a news conference at the presidential Elysee Palace in Paris on Friday after signing a bilateral security agreement.
WORLD / Politics / FOCUS
Feb 17, 2024
Bilateral accords offer Ukraine a way to shore up security
New agreements with Germany and France deal with both current military support for Ukraine and its future defense against Russia.
Alexei Navalny speaks with journalists after he was released from a detention center in Moscow in August 2019
WORLD
Feb 16, 2024
Alexei Navalny, corruption fighter who defied Putin, dies at 47
Navalny fell sick during a walk and medical staff were unable to revive him, prison authorities said Friday.
Russian President Vladimir Putin visits an aerospace company in Korolyov, outside Moscow, in October last year.
WORLD / Politics / ANALYSIS
Feb 16, 2024
Russia seen as highly unlikely to put a nuclear warhead in space
A space threat identified by the U.S. could potentially be used for electromagnetic pulses to fry satellites' electronics.
A soldier participates in a multinational training exercise in the municipality of Hohenfels in Germany.
WORLD / Politics
Feb 15, 2024
Europe's race against time to rebuild militaries in uncertain world
The continent is a decade away from being able to defend itself unaided, officials say, while Russia could target a NATO member in three to five years.
U.S. President Joe Biden speaks about the aid package for Ukraine, from the State Dining Room of the White House in Washington on Tuesday.
WORLD / Politics
Feb 15, 2024
Biden pushes Republicans on Ukraine aid bill amid Trump opposition
The bill would also fund U.S. troops in the Middle East, humanitarian aid in Gaza and defense companies and submarine manufacturing in the United States.
The war in Ukraine has pitted the United States and its allies against Russian President Vladimir Putin (center).
WORLD / Politics
Feb 15, 2024
Russia’s advances on space-based nuclear weapon alarm the U.S.
A satellite-killing weapon, if deployed, could destroy civilian communications, surveillance from space and military command-and-control operations.
A Ukrainian soldier walks next to a howitzer while waiting for it to fire toward Russian positions, in the Donetsk region last month.
WORLD / Politics
Feb 15, 2024
Democracy slides amid wars and political polarization, study says
Standards across the world fell amid the spread of wars, authoritarian crackdowns and declining levels of trust in mainstream political parties.
Rescuers work at a site of a residential building heavily damaged during a Russian missile attack in Kharkiv, Ukraine, on Jan. 23.
WORLD / Politics
Feb 15, 2024
U.S. and EU talk Russia sanctions ahead of Ukraine war anniversary
A senior U.S. official said Washington and its allies are prepared to mark the war anniversary with "robust" sanctions.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un visits the North Korean Ministry of National Defense on the occasion of the 76th anniversary of the founding of the Korean People's Army, in Pyongyang in this picture released on Feb. 9.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Feb 14, 2024
North Korean arms trade is China’s problem too: U.S. official
Jung Pak's comments reflect long-running frustration in Washington over China’s unwillingness to help influence Pyongyang’s behavior.
A rally in Moscow marks the centenary of the Russian Revolution on Nov. 7, 2017. Vladimir Lenin's belief in principled pragmatism offers important lessons for today's political leaders.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 14, 2024
Lenin’s lesson for Israel and Ukraine
The Bolshevik leader brought strong principles together with concrete analysis, an approach that could guide political leaders in Israel and Ukraine alike.
Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas and other Baltic politicians placed on Russia's wanted list risk arrest if they cross the Russian border, but otherwise declaring them as "wanted" is unlikely to have any practical consequence.
WORLD / Politics
Feb 14, 2024
Moscow puts Estonia PM on wanted list for destroying Soviet-era monuments
After Russia invaded Ukraine, Baltic governments demolished the monuments they considered their former imperial overlords' propaganda tools.
Ukrainian soldiers in a trench in the Donetsk region of Ukraine in January
WORLD / Politics
Feb 14, 2024
Short on soldiers, Ukraine debates how to recruit new troops
A potential expansion of the nation’s military draft to replenish the exhausted, battered army has become an emotional, politically charged issue.
A sign erected in Hokkaido’s port of Nemuro calls for the return of the Russian-occupied islands that Japan calls the Northern Territories.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Feb 13, 2024
Geopolitical chess: Unpacking the Northern Territories conundrum
While domestic motivation for Tokyo to resolve the Northern Territories dispute may endure, the opposite is true in Moscow.
Former President Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally on Saturday. Many were alarmed by Trump’s comments that he would "encourage” Russia to attack U.S. allies that didn’t pay into NATO, but European leaders were already pondering the prospect of an alliance without the U.S.
WORLD / Politics
Feb 13, 2024
Once-bitten Europe is better prepared for Trump’s NATO tirades
The EU is quietly preparing an impact assessment of the November U.S. election — particularly the scenario in which Trump wins.
Human rights activists hold placards during a demonstration outside the Russian Embassy in Kathmandu on Feb. 5. Nepali mercenaries are fighting for Russia in Ukraine, lured to kill far from their Himalayan homeland by promises of a passport and cash, but wounded returnees warn anyone tempted to join the war: "Do not come."
WORLD / Politics
Feb 12, 2024
'There to die': Nepali mercenaries fight for Russia in Ukraine
While Nepali soldiers-for-hire can earn nearly double what they make at home, conditions are brutal and many are killed or wounded.
Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy shakes hands with then-Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi prior to their meeting in Kyiv in September.
JAPAN / Politics
Feb 12, 2024
Japan may ease Ukraine travel restrictions
Ukraine is under Tokyo's strictest travel advisory, which urges all Japanese citizens to evacuate and avoid all travel there.
U.S. television host Tucker Carlson interviews Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow in on Feb. 6. Carlson was criticized for failing to challenge the Russian leader on much of what he said.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 11, 2024
Putin interview showed why he really invaded Ukraine
Tucker Carlson lobbed questions to help the Russian president serve up his usual string of half-truths and outright falsehoods about the war in Ukraine.

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Visitors walk past Sou Fujimoto's Grand Ring, which has been recognized as the largest wooden structure in the world.
Can a World Expo still matter? Japan is about to find out.