Lavrov claimed Moscow was intent on defending 'international law' and rejected any notion of Russia breaking international law in Ukraine, asserting that its forces never targeted 'exclusively civilian' targets.
The Hungarian tax authority has just confirmed it detained seven people and two cash-in-transit vehicles coming from Austria towards Ukraine, saying it is pursuing criminal proceedings on suspicion of money laundering. The contents of their transit has also been confirmed as per earlier statement by Ukraine's state-owned Oschadbank. But the authority pointedly said that one of the seven men arrested was a former general of the Ukrainian intelligence services.
Iran's media landscape is divided between outlets closely affiliated with the state and those considered reformist. State-aligned outlets include organizations such as Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB), Tasnim, Fars News, and Mehr News. These conservative outlets often promote narratives that support Iran's ruling clerical establishment.
A typical Capricorn, so stubborn, says his wife, Sveta. It was 2015, the war in Donbas was growing in intensity. I heard someone on TV complaining that Roma aren't defending their homeland. This pissed me off, and so I volunteered, says Ilchak. In the territorial recruitment centre in Uzhhorod the Ukrainian soldiers were surprised, but they had to take him.
When the first Ukrainian-designed drone to be made in a German factory rolled off the production line last month, Volodymyr Zelenskyy knew it marked a turning point for the economy. With drone-making joint ventures also well advanced in Finland and Denmark, war-torn Ukraine has shown how its businesses can adapt and break out of their bomb-threatened domestic confines, becoming more integrated into the EU's industrial network with each passing day.
One could attribute Russian attempts at hacking and influencing the 2016 general election to retaliation for the CIA's involvement in Ukraine, or to a personal vendetta against former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton with regard to Ukraine ahead of the Maidan revolt, or to rousing anti-Putin sentiment in Russia: ... Five years ago, he blamed Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for the anti-Kremlin protests in Moscow's Bolotnaya Square. "She set the tone for some of our actors in the country and gave the signal," Putin said. "They heard this and, with the support of the U.S. State Department, began active work." (No evidence was provided for the accusation.) ...
In video comments, the U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi said, "Make no mistake, under President Trump's leadership and this administration, you have the right to worship freely and safely. And if I haven't been clear already, if you violate that sacred right, we are coming after you." So people have a First Amendment right to worship that DOJ will protect, but journalists suddenly have no First Amendment right to report on issues of public interest and concern? We disagree.
Gazprom and Rosneft are critical components of President [Vladimir] Putin's industrial-scale campaign of child deportation, transportation indoctrination. The report concludes with high confidence that the companies facilitated the transportation and/or reeducation of at least 2,158 children from Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine between 2022 and 2025.
In 2022, the world watched aghast as Russian troops invaded the European country of Ukraine. A group of psychologists viewed this as an opportunity to conduct a natural experiment to monitor how the stress and fears of being in a country under attack and at war would impact people's viewing of pornography. By this point, it was well-established that many people use pornography as a way to cope with loneliness, stress, and depression.
It was like living in two worlds, and having to go from one to another in a dramatic way. From attending film festivals and walking down red carpets to crossing the Poland border and getting into the trenches, recalls Ukrainian filmmaker Mstyslav Chernov (Kharkiv, 40 years old) of September 2023, when he was headed from screening to screening, kicking off the race to the Oscars that he would ultimately win with his documentary 20 Days in Mariupol.
But the echoes of the Russian president, Vladimir Putin's imperial land grab of the waiter's own country are clear to him. They're crazy. The pair of them. For those paying more attention in Ukraine, amid Russian airstrikes, the freezing cold and power cuts, the correspondences are not only clear, but often alarming even if for now Trump has switched from sabre rattling to trying to rationalise a vague and incoherent deal he thinks he struck for the territory with Nato.
It is just before dawn, the December temperature a couple of degrees above freezing; time for troop rotations to start across Ukraine's 750 mile front. A crew of four from Da Vinci Wolves battalion are loading up into an M113 armoured personnel carrier at a secret location ready to be driven out to a safe point. From there they will walk to their position and remain on the front for 10 or 12 days.
There is nothing quite as eerie as living in a city with no power. Outside, ice and snow, Inside, there is no water from the tap, no electricity, not even the background noise of normal life. The city goes quiet, unnaturally quiet, until the low growl of generators breaks the silence. In that moment, everything stops. It feels apocalyptic, not because of panic or chaos, but because of what's missing.
UNESCO expressed "serious concern" about recent Russian attacks on Ukrainian cities "that have caused damage to civilian infrastructures, including heritage sites" in Odesa, Lviv, and Kyiv.
Taras always resented his dark-red Russian passport and was happy to replace it with a blue Ukrainian one. But it was a process that took him 11 years and two trials. He is one of more than 150,000 Russian nationals living in Ukraine as the war with Russia continues. Most are relatives or spouses of Ukrainians or were born in Ukraine. Some are dissidents seeking refuge or volunteers with the Ukrainian army.
