Kherson Oblast

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Russia's foreign minister Lavrov blasts Ukraine in public, but officials say he's cut out of actual talks

Russia's top diplomat Sergey Lavrov has been almost completely sidelined from Moscow's most important foreign policy track — negotiations on ending Russia's war against Ukraine, two Ukrainian officials and one U.S. official told the Kyiv Independent. For decades, Lavrov served as the public face of Russian diplomacy and one of the Kremlin's most recognizable hardliners. Since the start of Russia's all-out war, he has remained one of the loudest voices defending Moscow's maximalist demands, reg

Russia's Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Moscow, Russia, on April 21, 2026.

Ukraine’s increasingly violent mobilization problem

Editor's note: The former soldier quoted in this article requested that his last name be withheld for security reasons. After eight months recovering from war wounds, Mykola returned to duty — not to the eastern front, but to a posting far from the fighting, at an enlistment office in the country's west. Still relearning how to walk again, he soon discovered how differently society regarded his new role. "Many people, including some of my acquaintances, now seem to view draft officers as the e

Members of the Kharkiv Regional Recruitment Office check a civilian's documentation in Kharkiv, Ukraine, on Aug. 8, 2024.

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When 23-year-old Russian student Valery Averin signed a military contract in January after being recruited into Russia’s drone forces campaign targeting students, he was told he would train as a drone operator. Three months later, he was dead near Luhansk after reportedly being sent into an assault unit despite having no military experience. His case, reported by the BBC Russian Service, appears to be the first known death linked to Russia’s growing campaign to recruit university and college st

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