The foreign ministers of Russia and Turkey spoke by telephone on Sunday, a day after Ankara angered Moscow by sending five Ukrainian commanders home with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in what Russia called a violation of a prisoner exchange agreement. The Russian and Turkish foreign ministries said Sergei Lavrov and Hakan Fidan discussed the situation in…

Officials in Kyiv have denied Russian claims that Ukrainian troops in the flashpoint town of Soledar have been surrounded by advancing Russian forces. “The town [Soledar] is not under the control of the Russian Federation,” Serhiy Cherevatyi, a spokesman for the Ukrainian military’s Eastern Command, said in televised remarks on Jan. 11. “There are fierce…

The Kremlin has rejected U.S. President Joe Biden’s condition for holding bilateral talks—namely, the full withdrawal from Ukrainian territories incorporated by Russia two months ago. “President Putin was, is, and will be open to contacts for talks,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Dec. 2. “Certainly, the preferred path for securing our interest is…

Following last week’s Russian withdrawal from the city of Kherson, Kyiv has accused Moscow’s forces and their local allies of having committed numerous “war crimes” before their departure. Pro-Russian officials, for their part, claim that Ukrainian forces, which entered Kherson over the weekend, were committing “extrajudicial reprisals” against pro-Russian residents of the city. On Nov….

I’m in Kastamonu, five hours northeast of the Turkish capital of Ankara. It’s a town that has yet to figure out the business of tourism. The business hotel where I’m staying is cheap and comfortable, but not slick. I hand a postcard to the boy at the desk, hoping he can mail it for me….