From a bunker in eastern Ukraine, the 33-year-old soldier asks her comrade to fly a reconnaissance drone over her childhood home, hoping for a final glimpse before it becomes just another city pulverized by years of fighting.

The soldier took up arms a decade ago to defend her home region, Donetsk, where Ukraine has been battling Russian-backed forces since 2014. Since Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022, the region has become synonymous with Ukraine’s fight for survival. Battlefield developments in Donetsk are considered a gauge of each side’s fortunes in the war.

Gould-Davies, a senior fellow for Russia and Eurasia at the International Institute for Strategic Studies who has served as the U.K. ambassador to Belarus, wrote recently that foreign-policy setbacks and economic challenges have put Russia in a bind,

Ukraine expects to have a $3.5 billion fund by next month to buy weapons from the U.S. and sustain its fight against Russia's invasion.

President Donald Trump said Monday that he may supply Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine. He said he might sell them to NATO countries, who will send them to Ukraine.

Many recruits were unaware they were signing Russian-language contracts they could not understand and were later forced to reimburse Smirnova from their own bank accounts.

The Najaf Criminal Court has sentenced an Iraqi man to life in prison for trafficking people to Russia to fight in the war against Ukraine.

Three of the eight children were separated from their parents and “displaced” to Russia because of front-line fighting, Melania Trump said. The other five were separated from family members across borders because of the conflict, including a girl who has gone from Ukraine to Russia, she said.

Cuba's Foreign Ministry on Saturday said U.S. claims that its troops were fighting in Ukraine were unfounded, and released for the first time information on legal proceedings against Cubans for mercenary activity in the war in Eastern Europe.