Author: Reid Standish/RFE/RL

As North American Treaty Organization (NATO) leaders gathered in Madrid for a key summit that focused on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Russian forces are continuing to make incremental gains in the war. Government troops are still defending Lysychansk, the last city held by Kyiv in the eastern Luhansk Oblast. But with no end in sight...

Russian forces are edging closer to seizing the last pocket of resistance in Ukraine’s eastern Luhansk region, with battles raging in Severodonetsk and near its sister city, Lysychansk. The Russian gains have been costly, analysts say, with high casualties and equipment losses, leading British defense intelligence to predict that Moscow’s momentum will slow over the...

Russian troops are in the midst of an attack on two cities straddling a river in eastern Ukraine that is designed to encircle Ukrainian forces in what could be a decisive battle for Moscow’s military campaign in the country. The city of Severodonetsk – which sits on the easternmost part of Ukrainian-held territory in the...

Since the first shots were fired in the early hours of February 24, China has walked an awkward line of supporting Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine while attempting to distance itself from the destruction Russia’s military has inflicted. On February 4, Chinese President Xi Jinping met with Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in Beijing on the sidelines...

Russia’s military intervention in Kazakh­stan to support the country’s embattled regime was an effort by Moscow to help head off a popular revolt attempting to unseat a friendly autocrat in a neighboring country. And a week after mass protests and subsequent riots first swept Kazakhstan, the Kremlin’s gamble appears to be working. Kazakh President Qasym-Zhomart...