Russia

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky says he is ready to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin "personally" in Istanbul on Thursday for talks over ending the war.

His post on X came shortly after Donald Trump demanded Ukraine agree to Putin's offer of direct talks between the two countries in Turkey.

"There is no point in prolonging the killings. And I will be waiting for Putin in Türkiye on Thursday. Personally," Zelensky wrote.

He had earlier said his country was open to talks with Russia but only after a ceasefire was in place...

Friedrich Merz says Russian President Vladimir Putin's proposal for direct peace talks with Kyiv is insufficient. The German chancellor says a ceasefire with Ukraine should come first. 

We've seen presidents and vice presidents come into office before with pie-in-the-sky ideas about how easy it is to bring about world peace if only the mean old United States would stop being such a warmonger. At some point, however, reality tends to intrude. In no case has this been truer than in our Russia policy. Woodrow Wilson, as late as in January 1918, in his "Fourteen Points," declared that "the treatment accorded Russia by her sister nations in the months to come will be the acid test of their good will, of their comprehension of her needs as distinguished ...

Chinese leader Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a joint statement “further deepening” their partnership following talks in Moscow Thursday – a show of solidarity in the face of global uncertainties unleashed by US President Donald Trump’s “America First” diplomacy.

Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin signed an agreement Thursday deepening their “strategic partnership” — a day after the Chinese autocrat took a swipe at the Trump administration.

The heads of state met in Moscow to discuss “the most important issues,” including the Ukraine conflict and Russia-US relations, according to the Kremlin press service.

Russian President Vladimir Putin treated Chinese President Xi Jinping to a bright fanfare and a long red carpet walk as the two leaders met at the Kremlin ahead of the Victory Day parade in Moscow on May 9.

The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs posted a video of the formal greeting on social media, after which Putin hailed his "dear friend" Xi ahead of the celebrations to mark 80 years since the end of World War II in Europe.

A Harvard Medical School researcher currently detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement says she should have reviewed customs protocols before attempting to enter the US with “non-hazardous” frog embryo samples but insists what she told immigration agents was misunderstood.

“I never provided false information to any government official,” Kseniia Petrova, a Russian national, said in a statement issued Thursday. “Some of my words were misunderstood and inaccurately reflected in the statement that the officer presented for my signature.”

For many months, President Biden has been rallying global leaders to provide more military aid to Ukraine and pressing Congress to pass a multibillion-dollar aid package to help the country beat back Russian aggression. Former President Donald J. Trump has been undermining that effort, pressing Republicans to thwart it.

But on Wednesday, Mr. Trump tried to flip the script, suggesting that he would do more to protect Ukraine than Mr. Biden, who he said would effectively cede Ukraine as a gift to President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia...

Ukrainian journalist Viktoriia Roshchyna was tortured during the year she spent in Russian detention, and her body was returned to Ukraine with several organs missing, according to a joint investigation published on Tuesday.

Roshchyna, 27, disappeared in the summer of 2023 while reporting on black site prisons in Russian-occupied eastern Ukraine. She died under unclear circumstances while being held at a Russian prison in September 2024. Her remains were returned in February 2025 as part of an exchange of bodies between Russia and Ukraine.

Russia will settle for nothing less than a demilitarized Ukraine and the annexation of 20% of the nation in any peace settlement, Russia's foreign minister said in an interview, demands that would suggest President Vladimir Putin is flouting President Donald Trump's call for peace to end the three-year war, according to multiple reports.