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Perhaps foreseeing a Russian win or stalemate in Ukraine, some foreign policy experts urge that it cede territory. French President Emmanuel Macron calls for not “humiliating” Russia. These entreaties could miss the mark. The battlefield is fluid and could turn for or against Ukraine. The West should prudently prepare for Ukrainian success as well as a less favorable outcome. A few weeks ago, euphoria reigned when Ukrainian forces pushed back Russian attempts to seize Kyiv, Kharkiv and Odesa — Ukraine’s three largest cities. Now, pessimism is ascendant. President Volodymyr Zelensky speaks of “very fierce” fighting in eastern Ukraine and high...

Ukrainian President Voldymyr Zelensky warned on Friday that Russia’s invasion of his country was just the beginning, predicting Russian forces would become a threat to other countries in the region. In a video address uploaded on Facebook and Telegram, Zelensky said Russia was preparing to move into a breakaway region of Moldova, a small country bordering Ukraine and Poland.

Russia’s Moskva missile cruiser, dubbed by a “carrier-killer” by NATO, has passed through the Straits of Gibraltar and is now heading toward the eastern Mediterranean to join the Russian naval force as flagship. The Russian Navy said in a statement that the Moskva cruiser passed through the Straits of Gibraltar on September 10. Interfax news agency added that the Moskva cruiser, “commanded by Sergey Tronev, Captain 1st Rank of the Guards… has enough room for maneuver now.” “The Black Sea flagship entered the Russian Navy's area of responsibility in the Mediterranean at 11:00 pm Moscow time yesterday," the agency reported...

(CNSNews.com) – Pushing ahead his proposal to avert military strikes against his ally in Damascus by having it surrender its chemical weapons stocks, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Tuesday the initiative would only be feasible if the U.S. pledges not to use force. The plan will only work, he said in a statement released on the Kremlin website, “if the United States and other nations supporting it tell us that they’re giving up their plan to use force against Syria.” “You can’t really ask Syria, or any other country, to disarm unilaterally while military action against it is being contemplated.”...

President Barack Obama’s media blitz began on Monday evening, as he gave interviews to six television networks in which he presented his case on Syria. In his interview with NBC News, Obama called a Russian proposal for Syria to turn over control of its chemical weapons to international monitors in order to avoid a military strike a “potentially positive development” that could represent a “significant breakthrough.” At the same time, he said, he remains skeptical that the Syrian government would follow through on its obligations based on its recent track record. “Between the statements that we saw from the Russians--...

The Jewish population is slowly disappearing in Russia, with a demographic expert predicting as much as a 25 percent drop in the latest census figures. The vast majority of Jewish children are the offspring of mixed marriages. Mark Kupovetsky, a specialist on Russian Jewish demography, told the RIA Novosti news agency in Moscow last week that he estimated current figures would show up to 60,000 fewer Jews than were found during the 2002 census.

The much-trumpeted "reset" of relations between Russia and the U.S. was dealt a slap in the face last week as Moscow went on the offensive against Ukraine and Georgia. After Russian President Dmitri Medvedev waded into Ukrainian politics with barbed criticism of his Ukrainian counterpart's "anti-Russian" policies, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin embarked on a provocative trip to reaffirm support for Abkhazia, the Moscow-backed territory that enjoys de facto independence from Georgia.

Annan hails Russia's Kyoto move From correspondents in United Nations October 1, 2004 UN Secretary General Kofi Annan today hailed Russian steps to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, which would bring the measure on climate change into effect. "He welcomes this step, since the entry into force of the Kyoto Protocol, made possible by Russia's ratification, will be the essential first step in tackling the planetary challenge posed by climate change," Mr Annan's spokesman said in a statement. "He takes this occasion to remind the entire international community of the need to bring a greater sense of urgency to this crucial...

Fate of Russia's lost art treasure revealed after 60-year cover-up John Ezard, arts correspondent Saturday May 22, 2004 The Guardian (UK) Steven Spielberg would have called it Indiana Jones and the Eighth Wonder, and supplied a happy ending. In a damp cellar, guarded by deadly snakes and senile but savage SS men, the holy grail of Russian art treasures would triumphantly have been liberated. According to evidence disclosed today in Guardian Weekend, the truth is more squalid. Peter the Great's 18th century Amber Room, rated as the world's prime missing art treasure, valued at £150m, perished in the chaos of...

Despite of the total collapse and economic degradation that the country is experiencing, Russia is still a super-power. There are just few people who know that Lieutenant-General Vladimir Grigorkin made a considerable contribution into Russia's might. Like hundreds of people of this kind, this man spent his best years in the Siberian woods and Central Asia deserts where the nuclear shield was being created for the country. The Energia-Buran project was the greatest one in which Vladimir Grigorkin participated. He still feels proud to speak about his participation in the project. "Now this well-known but still classified program is widely...

The terrible suicide bombing by two young women at a Moscow rock concert on the weekend reaffirms Peter the Great's remark that "Russia is a place where things that can't happen happen." With 15 killed and 60 injured, the latest outrage by suspected Chechen terrorists calls into question President Vladimir Putin's plan to elect a new president of Chechnya next fall, and is another setback in Russia's quest to become a normal European nation. I have just returned from an extended visit to Russia, where the decade-long transformation from the communist, authoritarian empire of the Soviet Union into a shrunken,...