Page 488 - Icks News Today

RFE/RL takes a look at some of the possible motives for Putin’s decision to recognize Moscow-backed entities in eastern Ukraine as independent countries.

Western nations and others condemned Russian President Vladimir Putin’s decision to recognize Russia-backed separatists' independence claims of the regions they hold in Ukraine, with the United States and its allies vowing to quickly impose new sanctions against Moscow.

Election officials in the tightly controlled Central Asian nation of Turkmenistan have registered three more presidential candidates known as being loyal to authoritarian President Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov.

Here are some of the most compelling photographs from the eighth week of 2022 from around RFE/RL's region.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered Russian troops into two separatist-held regions in eastern Ukraine in a military escalation that Western leaders have warned could lead to massive consequences for Moscow.

A court in Russia's southwestern city of Rostov-on-Don has handed prison terms to three individuals from the North Caucasus region of North Ossetia who took part in a massive rally in April 2020 against anti-coronavirus restrictions. 

Russia’s upper house of parliament has voted unanimously to grant President Vladimir Putin's request to use military force outside the country, a move further inflaming a crisis with Western countries over Ukraine.

After a day of vague and sometimes contradictory statements by Russian officials, President Vladimir Putin clarified that Russia had recognized as independent the separatist formations in eastern Ukraine not merely as they exist now, but as comprising the much larger territory that they claim.

The British government is leading calls for this year’s Champions League final to be moved out of Russia to punish the country for its intervention in Ukraine.

The Russian president’s sweeping declaration, changing the borders of Ukraine, stunned the world. In the front-line villages in Ukraine’s Donbas region, it didn’t change the fact that shells are still falling and people are still trying to maintain normalcy.