Written by 
Iran lodged a protest with Moscow over what it called the “violent” arrest of two Iranian students in the Russian city of Kazan, state media reported Saturday. The students were detained Friday at Kazan Federal University after visiting a visa extension center, where police allegedly subjected them to “inhumane and unprofessional beating,” according to the […]
U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said Saturday that thousands of North Korean troops currently stationed in Russia are expected to enter combat against Ukraine “soon.” Speaking during a visit to Fiji, Austin said around 10,000 North Korean soldiers are believed to be in Russia’s Kursk region, near the border with Ukraine, where they are being […]
Russian Senator Sergei Muratov presented an S-8 aircraft rocket to a municipal district in his native Kurgan region near Kazakhstan’s border, local media reported Friday. “May you develop as swiftly as this rocket. May you always hit your targets like this rocket,” Muratov said during a ceremony marking the 60th anniversary of the Pritobolny district […]
Russia’s Gazprombank has alerted clients abroad to potential payment disruptions with China’s UnionPay cards after being targeted by new U.S. sanctions, the RBC news website reported Friday. “There may be difficulties with the UnionPay payment system cards abroad from Nov. 21. If you are outside Russia, we recommend using cash,” Gazprombank said in a statement. […]
Russian troops have “ground down” Kiev’s best units, Defense Minister Andrey Belousov has claimed Russian forces involved in repelling a Ukrainian incursion in Kursk Region have “ground down” Kiev’s best military units and have effectively “derailed [its] entire campaign of 2025,” Russian Defense Minister Andrey Belousov has claimed. Kiev sent some of its best-armed and […]
Alsu Kurmasheva, a longtime journalist for the U.S.-funded RFE/RL news outlet’s Tatar-Bashkir service, became the second U.S. journalist to be jailed since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine when she was detained in October 2023. The dual U.S.-Russian citizen, who lives in Prague, was sentenced to 6.5 years in prison in July on charges of spreading “false […]
The US imposed fresh sanctions on Russia’s Gazprombank on Thursday, the Treasury Department said, wielding its most powerful sanctioning tool against the bank as US President Joe Biden steps up actions to punish Moscow for its invasion of Ukraine before leaving office in January. The move effectively kicks Gazprombank – one of Russia’s largest banks […]
Ukraine’s military reportedly fired U.K.-supplied Storm Shadow missiles into Russian territory for the first time on Wednesday, with pro-war bloggers claiming that the weapons targeted southwestern Russia’s Kursk region. Kursk region Governor Alexei Smirnov said Russian air defense systems intercepted two Ukrainian missiles but he did not specify what type of missiles they were. “A missile’s […]
President Vladimir Putin will not agree to freeze the war in Ukraine along the current front lines, the Kremlin said Wednesday, countering reports that he might consider such an arrangement in discussions with U.S. President-elect Donald Trump. “The [Russian] president has repeatedly said that any option of freezing the conflict won’t work for us,” Kremlin […]
A pair of undersea data cables in the Baltic Sea mysteriously stopped working in the last two days, and the first reaction from Germany and Finland, two NATO members, was essentially, “What have the Russians done now?” followed by, sotto voce, “Is there a chance this was an accident?” The two cables—one between Sweden and […]