Putin's sanctioned oil czar emerged from shadows to wield vast power
When Vladimir Putin brought Igor Sechin out of the shadows and into the Kremlin 14 years ago, Russian newspapers said they had no photographs of him and alluded to his behind-the-scenes influence by calling him Darth Vadar. A man with no energy industry background, Sechin ...
Money trail leads to Putin's circle
Outside a Moscow stadium one night in 2006, deputy central banker Andrei Kozlov was walking to his car after playing soccer when two men opened fire, pumping bullets into his head and neck and also killing his driver. Days earlier, the man leading Russia's fight ...
Ukraine rebels free Swedish hostage; Obama seeks unity against Russia
Pro-Russian rebels paraded European monitors they are holding in eastern Ukraine on Sunday, freeing one but saying they had no plans to release another seven as the United States and Europe prepared new sanctions against Moscow. U.S. President Barack Obama called for the United States ...
Ukraine forces kill five rebels as Russia starts drill near border
Ukrainian forces killed up to five pro-Moscow rebels on Thursday as they closed in on the separatists' military stronghold in the east and Russia launched army drills near the border in response, raising fears its troops would go in. Under an international accord signed in ...
Ukraine president calls for new offensive in east as crisis deal falters
Ukraine's acting president, Oleksandr Turchynov, called Tuesday for government forces to relaunch an offensive against pro-Russian rebels after a local politician from his own party was found dead with signs of torture. Kiev's first push failed last week to retake one of the towns in ...
Pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine said Tuesday they were holding an American journalist in the city of Slovyansk and the online news site Vice News said it was trying to secure the safety of its reporter Simon Ostrovsky. The self-declared separatist mayor of Slovyansk told ...
How U.S. worsened its Putin problem
In September 2001, as the U.S. reeled from the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, Vladimir Putin supported Washington's imminent invasion of Afghanistan in ways that would have been inconceivable during the Cold War. He agreed that U.S. planes carrying humanitarian ...
Deadly gunbattle in eastern Ukraine shakes fragile Geneva accord
At least three people were killed in a gunfight in the early hours of Sunday near a Ukrainian city controlled by pro-Russian separatists, shaking an already fragile international accord that was designed to avert a wider conflict. The incident triggered a war of words between ...
A collection of contradictions, east Ukraine's pro-Russian militants dig in
It is part Soviet theme park, part wacky anti-Western wonderland. Stuck to the barricades outside the "Donetsk People's Republic" are several caricatures of U.S. President Barack Obama. There is Obama as Hitler, complete with mustache. There is Obama, Bonaparte and the Fuhrer, and the words: ...
Washington raises pressure on Moscow over Ukraine; pro-Russia separatists vow not to end occupation
A day after an international deal in Geneva to defuse the East-West crisis in Ukraine, pro-Russian separatists vowed not to end their occupation of public buildings and Washington threatened further sanctions on Moscow if the stalemate continued. Leaders of gunmen who have taken over city ...
There are important differences between Russia's intervention in Crimea and the events unfolding this week in eastern Ukraine that suggest Moscow has adapted its Crimean playbook and may be pursuing a different outcome. Unlike the Black Sea peninsula, where thousands of Russian troops were already ...
