The facade of the apartment building was blown off, the remains sagging to one side. Working together, the military police, the emergency services, the fire department and the explosives team cordoned off the scene, swept for other explosives, disarmed one, and searched for those still alive in the rubble with sniffer dogs, while removing the […]
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When government leaders in Saxony learned that Rheinmetall, Germany’s most prominent arms manufacturer, was considering building a new munitions factory in the former East German state, they saw visions of economic boom. It was a chance, they thought, to capitalize on the city’s storied airfield — home to the Red Baron in World War I, […]
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After ethnic Serbian gunmen stormed the small village of Banjska in Kosovo last week and fought a deadly battle with Kosovar forces, Serbia deployed thousands of military forces along Kosovo’s border, and the White House denounced the move as “destabilizing.” The violence raised fears that this troubled Balkan region could be plunged into a wider […]
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Surrounded by rooms filled with stacks of cluster munitions and half-made thermobaric bombs, a soldier from Ukraine’s 92nd Mechanized Brigade recently worked on the final part of a deadly supply chain that stretches from China’s factories to a basement five miles from the front lines of the war with Russia. This is where Ukrainian soldiers […]
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The White House called for the drawdown of Serbian military forces along Kosovo’s border on Friday, a directive meant to bring renewed attention to a longtime territorial conflict that Western officials fear is again at risk of boiling over. John F. Kirby, a spokesman for the Biden administration, denounced a Sept. 24 attack at a […]
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On the day Azerbaijan’s military sliced through the defenses of an ethnic Armenian redoubt last week, American soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division had just finished a training mission in nearby Armenia, a longtime ally of Russia that has been trying to reduce its near-total dependence on Moscow for its security. The Americans unfurled a […]
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More than a year after her mother died, Alla Kotliarova buried her for the third — and she hopes final — time. There was no priest, no tearful neighbors, no ceremonial procession to the cemetery sitting among thin pine trees at the end of town. But there was at least some measure of closure for […]
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At the same time, a competent Republican Party could make a strong case that the Biden approach itself has hamstrung Ukraine — by providing stepped-up aid slowly, often after weeks and months of Ukrainian pleading. Ukraine would likely be in a substantially better position if it had received F-16s, Abrams tanks and ATACMS missiles sooner, […]
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There was some question about how much stock should be placed in the videos released by Russia. Moscow has a well-established history of trying to sweep miliary embarrassments under the rug, most notably during this war when the flagship of its Black Sea Fleet was sunk. Even when its plans appear to work out, the […]
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The killing of an enemy admiral in a missile strike would be a coup for any military, but the celebration in Ukraine over the death of Russia’s Black Sea fleet commander may turn out to be short-lived. A day after announcing that the admiral was among 34 officers killed in a strike deep behind enemy […]
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The video may seem too simple, too understated to mark a serious international incident in the South China Sea: a quick clip of a diver using a knife to cut a section of rope underwater. But that diver was with the Philippine Coast Guard, and the rope was part of a sea barrier placed by […]
Read More The video may seem too simple, too understated to mark a serious international incident in the South China Sea: a quick clip of a diver using a knife to cut a section of rope underwater. But that diver was with the Philippine Coast Guard, and the rope was part of a sea barrier placed by […]
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Ukraine’s military claimed on Monday that it had killed the commander of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet in a strike on Crimea — a blow that, if confirmed, would be among the most damaging suffered by the Russian Navy since the sinking of the fleet’s flagship last year. Citing “new information about the losses of the […]
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The first American-made Abrams tanks have been delivered to Ukraine, two U.S. defense officials said, arriving months ahead of initial estimates and in time to be used in Kyiv’s counteroffensive against Russian forces. More M1 Abrams tanks will be sent in the coming months, the officials said, noting that those that were shipped into Ukraine […]
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Barely a year after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Finland cast aside decades of military nonalignment and self-reliance and joined the NATO alliance. That happened with breathtaking speed, as these matters go, but gaining membership may have been the easy part. Now comes the complicated process of integrating itself into the alliance and its requirement of […]
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This transcript was created using speech recognition software. While it has been reviewed by human transcribers, it may contain errors. Please review the episode audio before quoting from this transcript and email transcripts@nytimes.com with any questions. I’m Tom Friedman, and I’m the Foreign Affairs columnist for The New York Times. I just returned from Kyiv, […]
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The Chinese military base on Mischief Reef, off the Philippine island of Palawan, loomed in front of our boat, obvious even in the predawn dark. Radar domes, used for military surveillance, floated like nimbus clouds. Lights pointed to a runway made for fighter jets, backed by warehouses perfect for surface-to-air missiles. More than 900 miles […]
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A group of Ukrainian Army soldiers pierced by Russian grenades and mortar shells arrived at a hospital recently in need of surgery. It would have been a familiar scene from the bloody war grinding on in Ukraine, except for two crucial differences: Most of the wounded soldiers were American, and so was the hospital — […]
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Ukraine will retake the fiercely contested eastern city of Bakhmut from Russia by the end of the year, President Volodymyr Zelensky predicted during his visit to Washington, an assertion that shows the gulf between Kyiv and American war planners who believe that Ukraine should be focusing more on the south. Mr. Zelensky, at a meeting […]
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For weeks, Ukrainian forces have been probing Russian defenses in the southeast, looking for an opening to push their armored vehicles behind the main Russian line. But artillery fire and Russian counterattacks had been too intense to allow Ukrainian armor to pass. This week, though, Ukrainian armored vehicles advanced past Russia’s main anti-tank defenses at […]
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This transcript was created using speech recognition software. While it has been reviewed by human transcribers, it may contain errors. Please review the episode audio before quoting from this transcript and email transcripts@nytimes.com with any questions. I’m Tom Friedman, and I’m the Foreign Affairs columnist for The New York Times. I just returned from Kyiv, […]
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Endorsing yet another cease-fire in the conflict that embroils two of Moscow’s closest partners — Armenia and Azerbaijan — President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia “noted with satisfaction” on Wednesday that the Russian peacekeepers he sent to the region to enforce an earlier, failed truce had helped quell the renewed fighting. Not mentioned in the […]
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President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine plans to make his second wartime visit to Washington on Thursday, meeting with President Biden and congressional lawmakers as he tries to preserve his country’s most critical source of funding and weapons. Mr. Biden will be looking to get a “battlefield perspective” on the war from Mr. Zelensky, said John […]
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While he took an unrelenting stance against Russia’s brutal war and warned against appeasing Moscow, he drew a more measured line on China, repeating his commitment to “push back on aggression and intimidation” by Beijing while seeking ways to work together and denying that he was trying to contain the Asian giant. “We seek to […]
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Volodymyr Zelensky will visit Washington this week to give thanks to the United States for its generosity — while asking for $24 billion more, which is what the Biden administration is seeking from Congress in additional military and humanitarian aid to Ukraine. That will bring the total amount of American aid to $135 billion, which […]
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Azerbaijan said on Tuesday that it had begun a military operation against an Armenian enclave inside its territory, raising fears of a sharp escalation in a conflict that has already resulted in two wars since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Decades of violence and geopolitical rivalry underpin the dispute between the two former Soviet […]
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American and Saudi officials are discussing terms of a mutual defense treaty that would resemble the robust military pacts that the United States has with its close allies Japan and South Korea, a central component in President Biden’s high-stakes diplomacy to get Saudi Arabia to normalize relations with Israel, according to U.S. officials. Under such […]
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Azerbaijan said on Tuesday that it had launched a military operation against an Armenian enclave inside its territory, raising fears of a new armed conflict in a fragile region in which the interests of Russia, Turkey and Western countries are increasingly colliding. The Azerbaijani Defense Ministry said in a statement that its forces had launched […]
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Two weeks after replacing its defense minister, Ukraine dismissed all six of its deputy ministers on Monday, deepening the housecleaning at a ministry that had drawn criticism for corruption in procurement as the military budget ballooned during the war. The shake-up in President Volodymyr Zelensky’s wartime leadership team came as he headed to the United […]
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A hero’s welcome awaited President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine on his first trip to the United States after Russia’s full-scale invasion, which came on the heels of two back-to-back military advances that showcased Ukrainian momentum to the West. Mr. Zelensky spoke to a joint session of Congress last December, highlighting the successes and appealing for […]
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The News China sent a record number of military aircraft toward the self-governed island democracy of Taiwan, prompting the island’s defense ministry on Monday to warn against what it called “destructive” harassment. The previous daily record of Chinese military flights near Taiwan was 91 planes, on April 10. Taiwan said it tracked 103 People’s Liberation […]
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