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Russia’s defense ministry on Saturday admitted its forces had retreated from key towns in northeastern Ukraine after a stunning advance by Ukrainian troops. The Defense Ministry said it had pulled forces out of the village of Balakliya and the strategically crucial city of Izyum in the Kharkiv region, after a decision to “regroup” and transfer them to Donetsk in the south.” The retreat represents one of the biggest setbacks for Russia since President Vladimir V. Putin launched the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February. “In order to achieve the goals of the special military operation, a decision was made to...

KIEV, Ukraine — Until this week, Ukrainians seemed to see President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as beyond reproach, a national hero who stayed in Kiev despite the risk to his personal safety to lead his country against invading Russian troops.In the interview with The Post, published Tuesday, Zelenskyy cited his fears that Ukrainians would panic, flee the country and trigger economic collapse as the reason he chose not to share the stark warnings passed on by U.S. officials regarding Russia’s plans.“If we had communicated that . . . then I would have been losing $7 billion a month since last October...." Zelenskyy...

KYIV, Ukraine — A powerful attack on a Russian air base in occupied Crimea was the work of Ukrainian special forces, a Ukrainian government official told The Washington Post on Wednesday, suggesting an increasingly important role for covert forces operating deep behind enemy lines as the country expands efforts to expel Russian troops. The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly on the matter, did not disclose details of how Tuesday’s attack was carried out. The attack marks a significant escalation in the nearly six-month-old war, demonstrating a new ability by...

The euphoria that accompanied Ukraine’s unforeseen early victories against bumbling Russian troops is fading as Moscow adapts its tactics, recovers its stride and asserts its overwhelming firepower against heavily outgunned Ukrainian forces. Around 200 Ukrainian soldiers are now being killed every day, up from 100 late last month, an aide to President Volodymyr Zelensky told the BBC on Friday — meaning that as many as 1,000 Ukrainians are being taken out of the fight every day, including those who are injured. But the odds against the Ukrainians are starting to look overwhelming, said Danylyuk, the government adviser. “The Russians are...

Negotiations in Vienna aimed at reviving the Iran nuclear deal were called off indefinitely on Friday after Russia upended the talks by raising objections to Moscow’s participation while under the new U.S. sanctions imposed in punishment for its invasion of Ukraine. The European Union’s foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell announced the decision to “pause” the talks in a tweet, citing “external factors” for the decision to break off the talks. Negotiators for the seven countries involved have spent most of the past year huddled in Vienna 2015 trying to find ways to revive the 2015 nuclear deal following President Donald...

As Iran girds for possible war with the United States, President Trump may turn out to be the best friend it has. Despite the saber-rattling of senior aides and Trump’s own tweets, when push has come to shove over the past two years, the president has repeatedly backed away from the threatened use of military force. Whether the target has been North Korea, with which warnings of “fire and fury” have become little more than an exchange of “beautiful” letters between Trump and Kim Jong Un, or Venezuela, where the threat of “all options” has failed to upset the status...

Turkey is confronting what amounts to a strategic nightmare as bombs explode in its cities, its enemies encroach on its borders and its allies seemingly snub its demands. As recently as four years ago, Turkey appeared poised to become one of the biggest winners of the Arab Spring, an ascendant power hailed by the West as a model and embraced by a region seeking new patrons and new forms of governance. All that has evaporated since the failure of the Arab revolts, shifts in the geopolitical landscape and the trajectory of the Syrian war. Russia, Turkey’s oldest and nearest rival,...