Author: Reporter

The military defector was killed in a hail of gunfire and then run over by a car in Spain. The opposition figure was struck repeatedly with a hammer in Lithuania. The journalist fell ill from a suspected poisoning in Germany. Since President Vladimir Putin launched his invasion of Ukraine, attacks, and harassment of Russians — prominent or not — have been blamed on Moscow’s intelligence operatives across Europe and elsewhere. Despite attempts by Western governments to dismantle Russian spy networks, experts say the Kremlin apparently is still able to pursue those it perceives as traitors abroad in an attempt...

A Somali woman pushed her bandaged hand between two vertical bars of a thick metal barrier separating Belarus from Poland, as she and four other women gazed toward the European Union. They nodded gratefully as a Polish humanitarian aid worker called to them across a stretch of land as wide as a one-lane road and promised to help. Polish soldiers patrol nearby. The verdant patch of Bialowieza Forest that spans the border is among the flashpoints of a monthslong standoff between Belarus and its main backer and ally Russia, and the 27-member European bloc, which saw a surge in...

Signing an agreement with Russia to stop the war with Ukraine would amount to signing a deal with the devil, a top adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said, as external forces seek to pressure the nation into a toxic deal to end more than two years of fighting. A deal would only buy time for Russian dictator Vladimir Putin to strengthen his army and usher in another, potentially more violent chapter in the war, Mykhailo Podolyak said in an August interview. “If you want to sign a deal with the devil, who will then drag you to hell,...

Ukraine is on its way to being able to “stand on its own feet” militarily, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on July 19, noting that more than 20 other countries have pledged to maintain their own military and financial aid to the country even if the U.S. were to withdraw its support under a different president. Blinken for the first time directly addressed the possibility that convicted felon and former President Donald Trump could seize the November election and abandon commitments to Ukraine. The U.S., under President Joe Biden, has been the most important supporter of Ukraine’s more...