Tag Archives: ukraine

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Tuesday took the stage at a bar in Ukraine’s capital to play guitar and sing Neil Young’s 1989 hit “Rockin’ in the Free World” with a local band. The jam session came a day after Blinken spent a day meeting with senior officials, civil society figures and university students when he exhorted them …

On Tuesday, Vladimir Putin was inaugurated for another six-year term as president amid the worst crisis in Moscow’s relations with the West over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. During the traditionally ornate ceremony in the Kremlin, Putin called his compatriots a “united and great nation” and vowed to place Russia’s interests and security above anything else. Brimming with confidence, the Russian …

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba made a surprise visit to Russia-friendly Serbia on Monday, together with Ukraine’s first lady, Olena Zelenska, in a sign of warming relations between the two states. On his first visit to Serbia since the start of the Russian aggression on Ukraine in 2022, Kuleba met Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic and new Serbian Prime Minister Milos …

Residents of Ukraine’s second-biggest city, Kharkiv, remained defiant despite fierce fighting raging in the region after Russian forces launched an armored incursion on a new front that may presage a broader push into the area. As battles raged in the north and east of the Kharkiv region, the city itself enjoyed a rare moment of calm on Sunday, May 12. …

Only a few hundred residents remain in the embattled town of Vovchansk in northeast Ukraine, where Kyiv’s troops are locked in intense battles with the Russian army, according to local officials on Monday. The town, whose pre-war population of 17,000 had dwindled to just 2,500 before Russia renewed its ground assault last week, has emerged as focus point as pitched …

Forced to do more with less and learning from the war in Ukraine, U.S. special operations commanders are juggling how to add more high-tech experts to their teams while still cutting their overall forces by about 5,000 troops over the next five years. The conflicting pressures are forcing a broader restructuring of the commando teams, which are often deployed for …

The Irish government’s unwavering commitment to housing and feeding an unprecedented influx of migrants in the wake of a severe housing and cost of living crisis has brought the Irish electorate to boiling point. It has many similarities to the migrant crisis in the U.S. Hundreds of protests in towns have sprung up around the country with people calling on …

Russian President Vladimir Putin reappointed Mikhail Mishustin as the country’s prime minister on Friday, a widely anticipated move to keep on a technocrat who has maintained a low political profile. Mishustin and other technocrats in the Cabinet have been credited with maintaining a relatively stable economic performance despite bruising Western sanctions for Russia’s role in Ukraine. Most other Cabinet members …

An upcoming Ukraine peace summit, ostensibly the most ambitious bid in years by neutral Switzerland to mediate a major conflict, is instead showing how Swiss economic and security interests increasingly align with Western Europe over Russia. This is the view of both Swiss advocates of closer cooperation with Western powers and nationalist opponents who say Switzerland is abandoning its neutral …

The Ukrainian military has claimed it pushed back an attempted Russian incursion amid fears that Russian President Vladimir Putin will make renewed efforts to capture the city of Kharkiv. “Russia has launched a new wave of counteroffensive operations in the Kharkiv sector,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced Friday, claiming the Russians fought against his forces and that a fierce battle …