Several hundred Russian troops reportedly rushed to a special medical facility in Belarus after digging in radioactive soil in a forest near the infamous nuclear plant.

A Soyuz spacecraft carrying an American astronaut and two Russian cosmonauts landed in Kazakhstan March 30, an ordinary end of a mission in extraordinary times.

Languages rise and fall with history, in nations and university language departments alike. In 1980, when Roman Koropeckyj stepped into his classroom at Harvard to teach Polish, he was “gobsmacked” by the dozens of students awaiting him. The Polish trade unionists of the Solidarity movement, who were defying Soviet oppression on the opposite side of the planet, had inspired Americans to learn.

It’s always wiser to treat an adversary as a canny fox, not a crazy fool. 

Russia is not going to supply natural gas to European countries without paying for Russian gas supplies. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said this in an interview with PBS , European Truth reports. "I don't know what will happen when they turn down this opportunity. So as soon as we have a final decision, we'll see what can be done. But, of course, we're not going to do charity work and send gas to Western Europe for free," he said.

International groups say Russian soldiers are threatening, detaining and even torturing Ukrainian journalists in occupied areas. One news editor says troops are holding her 75-year-old father hostage.

There’s no hiding the cracks that have formed on Russian airwaves over the war in Ukraine any longer.

Russia wants to split Ukraine into two, as happened with North and South Korea, Ukraine's military intelligence chief said on Sunday, vowing "total" guerrilla warfare to prevent a carve up of the country.

"Today they are trying to cancel a whole thousand-year culture - our people," Mr Putin says, adding: "They are banning Russian writers and books."

The Russian government blocked access to Google News in Russia late on Wednesday, citing “unreliable information” about the war in Ukraine, according to state media outlet Interfax.

Anatoly Chubais left his role of his own accord, the Kremlin said Wednesday, making him the first senior Russian official to quit since the invasion of Ukraine.

The twentieth century’s two world wars are an endless source of precedents and analogies. The lead-up to World War II produced the Munich analogy, an allusion to the 1938 British and French decision to permit Nazi Germany to annex part of Czechoslovakia. “Munich” has become shorthand for “appeasement.” The aftermath of the war produced the Nuremberg analogy, a reference to the public trials of the surviving leaders of the utterly defeated Nazi regime. “Nuremberg” now stands for “unconditional surrender.”

"Moscow 2042," by Vladimir Voinovich, envisioned a future in which Russia was ruled by an ex-KGB agent who eerily resembles the current Russian president.

Using a network of banks, law firms and advisers in multiple countries, Roman Abramovich invested billions in American hedge funds.

Russia has been the target of extensive economic sanctions in the weeks since its invasion of Ukraine, but Moscow’s space program has been largely unaffected until now. The European Space Agency (ESA) has decided to postpone the ExoMars mission, a joint effort with Russia that was supposed to launch this year. Instead, the ESA will undertake a study to determine how it can launch ExoMars without Russia.

The French carmaker Renault has resumed manufacturing in its plants in Moscow, bucking the trend of many other large global companies that have cut ties with Russia over its war on Ukraine.

Concerns in the U.S. over the wellbeing of Brittney Griner are growing as Russia extends the pre-trial detention of the WNBA star.

Like the price of crude oil, gold prices have been on a wild ride since Russia began its invasion of Ukraine. And like oil, Russia holds some of the world's largest reserves of gold — some 2,300 tons of it, worth nearly $140 billion.

The UN secretary-general said nuclear war is "back within the realm of possibility" following Russia's warning it was putting its nuclear forces on alert amid its war in Ukraine that threatens to draw NATO into direct combat with Russia.

Ordinarily apolitical hip-hop stars are defying the Kremlin’s crackdown to speak out against the invasion of Ukraine