Russian President Vladimir Putin is making a state visit to Tajikistan, a three-day trip that includes a series of meetings with leaders of other nations that once were part of the Soviet Union.

Russia has hosted a delegation of Afghanistan’s ruling Taliban government and warned against any foreign military presence in the country.

Tens of thousands of choir singers performed in the rain at Estonia's Song Festival Grounds in Tallinn.

Two women who fled North Korea have been telling the United Nations about the plight of people still living in the country and urging the world body to hold North Korea’s leader accountable for gross human rights violations.

Human Rights Watch says at least 100 civilians in Burkina Faso were killed by government forces near the town of Solenzo in the western Boucle du Mouhoun region in an attack in March.

Protesters have gathered in the Slovak capital to to demonstrate against populist Prime Minister Robert Fico’s latest trip to Russia.

Hardly any other country marks the end of World War II with the same fanfare and fervor as Russia, for which the victory over Nazi Germany 80 years ago remains a source of immense pride and a defining moment of history.

A Soviet-era spacecraft meant to land on Venus in the 1970s is expected to soon plunge uncontrolled back to Earth.

Russia’s Supreme Court has lifted a ban on Afghanistan’s Taliban, who were designated as a terrorist group more than two decades ago.

Former KGB officer Oleg Gordievsky has died aged 86 in England.

The 4 Nations Face-Off has already delivered an instant classic international hockey game with the fight-filled preliminary round matchup between the United States and Canada last week in Montreal.

The FBI says it's discovered 2,400 records related to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy as federal agencies work to comply with President Donald Trump's executive order to release thousands of classified files.

Nearly 3 1/2 decades after leaving the Soviet Union, the Baltic countries of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania this weekend will flip a switch to end electricity-grid connections to neighboring Russia and Belarus.

The lower house of Russia's parliament has given initial approval to a long-discussed bill that would clear the way for Moscow to remove the Taliban’s designation as a terrorist group.

A bill has been introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives to award Congressional Gold Medals to the 1980 “Miracle on Ice" Olympic hockey team.

A top U_S_ government codebreaker who decrypted secret Soviet communications during the Cold War concluded that Ethel Rosenberg knew about her husband’s activities but “did not engage in the work herself."

President Joe Biden has spoken with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

In a powerful tribute to the hundreds of Ukrainian athletes who have perished since the Russian invasion of their homeland, the Union of Ukrainians of France led a peaceful march of several hundred people in Paris on Saturday.

The United States is strongly favored to win the most overall medals when the Paris Olympics open in a month.

From its earliest days, the Soviet Union’s intelligence services — whether known as the Cheka or the names of any of its successor agencies like the KGB — kept the government in power by pursuing its opponents no matter where they lived.

When Tucker Carlson asked Vladimir Putin about his reasons for invading Ukraine two years ago, Putin gave him a lecture on Russian history.

A century after the death of Vladimir Lenin, the founder of the Soviet Union is largely an afterthought in modern Russia.

Russians commemorated the victims of Soviet state terror on Sunday, while the Russian government continues its crackdown on dissent in the country.

Watch “The Russian Five” documentary on ClickOnDetroit.

Watch “The Russian Five” documentary on ClickOnDetroit.

Watch a special live presentation of “The Russian Five” on Wednesday night, streaming only on Local 4+

Watch a special live presentation of “The Russian Five” on Wednesday night, streaming only on Local 4+

Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has compared Hungary’s membership in the European Union to more than four decades of Soviet occupation.

A rocket carrying a lunar landing craft has blasted off on Russia’s first moon mission in nearly 50 years, racing to land on Earth’s satellite ahead of an Indian spacecraft.

The towering Mother Ukraine statue in Kyiv — one of the nation’s most recognizable landmarks — has lost its hammer-and-sickle as officials replaced the Soviet-era emblem with the country’s trident coat of arms.

One of the architects of the covert U.S. strategy against the Soviets in Afghanistan has published a new memoir.

India considers Russia a time-tested ally from the Cold War era with key cooperation in defense, oil, nuclear energy and space exploration.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken says Armenia and Azerbaijan have made “tangible progress” in four days of U.S.-hosted peace talks between the two former Soviet republics that have repeatedly clashed over the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh.

Sixteen Alaska Native men are being honored for rescuing the crew of a U.S. Navy plane shot down over the Bering Strait by Soviet fighter jets nearly 70 years ago.

Lefortovo prison, where American journalist Evan Gershkovich has been jailed on espionage charges, has been a terrifying symbol of repression since Soviet times.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has attended commemorations of the 80th anniversary of the Soviet victory over Nazi forces in the battle of Stalingrad.

The children’s choir from the Lutheran church in the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard traveled three hours each way by boat to mark Orthodox Christmas with the 40 children in Barentsburg, a village owned by Russia’s Arctic mining company in the remote Norwegian territory.

Ukraine is accelerating efforts to erase Soviet and Russian influence from its public spaces by pulling down monuments and renaming hundreds of streets to honor its own artists, poets, soldiers and independence leaders.

Virtually everyone involved agrees that the powerful U.N. Security Council needs to expand and include more voices.

Mikhail Gorbachev was enduringly popular in Germany for enabling the country’s reunification after four decades of post-World War II division — and setting the scene for the peaceful collapse of communism that made it possible.

The funeral and burial plans for Mikhail Gorbachev will sum up the crosscurrents of his legacy.

The Soviet Union seemed an immovable superpower in perpetual antagonism to the United States Before Mikhail Gorbachev came along.

Call it a slice of life.

The Kremlin treaded carefully Wednesday reacting to Mikhail Gorbachev’s death, praising his prominent role in reshaping 20th-century history, but noting his “romantic” view of the West.

Before Mikhail Gorbachev, the Soviet Union seemed an immovable superpower in perpetual antagonism to the United States.

Mikhail Gorbachev, the last leader of the Soviet Union, has died at 91.

Russian President Vladimir Putin appears to be moving to replenish the depleted ranks of the Russian military by ordering a 13% increase in the country’s troop strength by Jan. 1.

Poland has started demolishing a memorial to Soviet Red Army soldiers.

Two months after the Berlin Wall fell, another powerful symbol opened its doors in the middle of Moscow: a gleaming new McDonald’s.

Leonid Kravchuk, who led Ukraine to independence during the collapse of the Soviet Union and served as its first president, has died at age 88.

President Joe Biden will announce Friday that along with the European Union and the Group of Seven countries, the U.S. will move to revoke “most favored nation” trade status for Russia over its invasion of Ukraine.

To Estonians, Latvians and Lithuanians — particularly those old enough to have lived under Soviet control — Russia’s belligerence toward Ukraine has some worried that they could be the Kremlin's next target.

It was January of 1992, Russia’s first winter of democracy after the collapse of the Soviet system. I and my photographer, Chuck Musgrove, were walking across the historic stones of Red Square in Moscow.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres says the world is probably a more dangerous place now than during the Cold War.

Tensions continue to mount on the Russia-Ukraine border as an estimated 100,000 Russian troops are being staged for what some believe could be an imminent invasion. Every Ukrainian American has a different story of why mothers, grandmothers, fathers, and grandfathers left a land they loved.

The former head of Kazakhstan's counterintelligence and anti-terror agency has been arrested on charges of attempting to overthrow the government.

People strolling across Moscow’s snowy Red Square on the evening of Dec. 25, 1991 witnessed one of the 20th century’s most pivotal moments.

A Russian military buildup has raised fears in Ukraine and the West that Moscow could invade its neighbor.

When the leaders of the Soviet Union’s three Slavic republics met at a secluded hunting lodge near the Polish border on Dec. 8, 1991, they delivered a death blow to the USSR.

Moldova’s pro-Western president has been joined in the capital Chisinau by her counterparts from Romania, Poland, and Ukraine to celebrate the country’s three decades of independence from Soviet rule.

On Aug. 19, 1991, a group of top Communist Party hard-liners declared they had removed Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev from power and declared a state of emergency in the country.

The world held its breath 30 years ago when a group of top Communist officials ousted Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and flooded Moscow with tanks.

Soviet gymnast Larisa Latynina is filled with a mixed sense of wonder and trepidation when she watches the gravity-defying and often treacherous routines of Simone Biles as the American set out to break her Olympic gold-medal record.

The leader of Belarus’ embattled opposition hopes the United States and Europe will impose new sanctions on money-making government enterprises that will lead to the collapse of President Alexander Lukashenko’s regime and a peaceful transition that pro-democracy supporters are preparing for because “it can happen very fast.”.

The Russian prime minister on Monday visited the Pacific islands claimed by Japan and said the government is considering setting up a special economic zone there.

Belarus has retaliated to the European Union sanctions by halting cooperation on stemming illegal migration and denying entry to EU officials.

Belarus’ authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko has warned that his country will not try to stem a flow of migrants to the European Union in response to new EU sanctions.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is marking the 80th anniversary of the Nazi attack on the Soviet Union by hailing the country’s World War II heroes and calling for efforts to strengthen European security.

With Presidents Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin heading to town, Geneva is returning to the international spotlight as a leading hub for diplomacy and multilateralism, things that were largely shunned by the Trump administration.

Lithuania is marking the start of a mass deportation 80 years ago by the Soviet Union that was occupying the Baltic nation.

Rezo Gabriadze, a legendary Georgian theater director and film screenwriter who has won broad fame across the former Soviet Union for movies he wrote, has died.

Animal spaceflights paved the way for the first human astronauts, and today, creatures big and small continue to space travel, advancing our knowledge of how the zero-gravity environment impacts all beings and aiding research down on Earth.

Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first human in space 60 years ago.

Kabulov was in Pakistan, a key regional player in efforts to find a peaceful end to Afghanistan's protracted war. Few details came out of the meeting except that Afghanistan and getting to a peace deal dominated talks. Zamir Kabulov, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s special envoy for Afghanistan, was in Pakistan on Friday for talks with officials. AdWashington and Kabul have been pressing for a cease-fire while the Taliban say they will negotiate it as part of peace talks with the Afghan government. Few details came out of Kabulov's meetings except a statement saying that Afghanistan and efforts to reach a peace deal dominated the discussions.

“For its part, Russia is prepared to add fuel to the flames to encourage these trends," the report states. The Russian government did not offer an immediate reaction to the intelligence report from Estonia, a former Soviet republic. It also has accused the West of trying to discredit the Russia-produced COVID-19 vaccine, Sputnik V.Russia is actively promoting Sputnik V in several European nations, including Serbia. Though focusing largely on events in Russia or in neighboring nations such as Belarus and Ukraine, the report also discussed developments in China. AdChina’s “leadership has a clear objective of making the world dependent on Chinese technology,” the document states.

(AP Photo/Barry Thumma, File)WASHINGTON – Time was running out when Secretary of State George P. Shultz returned home in April 1988 after flying 16,000 miles in a failed mission to persuade Arabs and Israelis to negotiate their differences. AdA lifelong Republican, Shultz negotiated the first-ever treaty with the Soviet Union to reduce the size of their ground-based nuclear arsenals. The president would not yield, and Reagan and Shultz returned to the United States disappointed but determined to pursue an accord. Although Shultz objected, Reagan went ahead with the deal and millions of dollars from Iran went to right-wing Contra guerrillas in Nicaragua. But only a few years later, Reagan and Shultz, considered Israel’s best friends, had opened the door to Palestinian legitimacy and possibly a Palestinian state on land held by Israel.

Blake, a former British intelligence officer who worked as a double agent for the Soviet Union, has died in Russia. Russias Foreign Intelligence Service announced his death on Saturday, Dec. 26, 2020 without giving any circumstances of his death. (AP Photo/Boris Yurchenko, File)MOSCOW – George Blake, a former British intelligence officer who worked as a double agent for the Soviet Union and passed some of the most coveted Western secrets to Moscow, has died in Russia. Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service, known as SVR, announced his death Saturday in a statement, which didn't give any details. In the Soviet Union, Blake maintained contacts with other British double agents.

A Chinese lunar capsule returned to Earth on Thursday with the first fresh samples of rock and debris from the moon in more than 40 years. “As our nation's mostly complex and technically groundbreaking space mission, Chang'e 5 has achieved multiple technical breakthroughs ... and represents a landmark achievement," it said. Chinese leader Xi Jinping, in a statement read out at the Beijing Aerospace Control Center, called it a major achievement that marked a great step forward for China's space industry. The moon has been a particular focus of the Chinese space program, which says it plans to land humans there and possibly construct a permanent base. Amid concerns over the Chinese space program’s secrecy and close military connections, the U.S. forbids cooperation between NASA and the CNSA unless Congress gives its approval.

Germany has agreed to provide more than a half billion euros to aid Holocaust survivors struggling under the burdens of the coronavirus pandemic, the organization that negotiates compensation with the German government said Wednesday. (AP Photo/CAF pap, file)BERLIN – Germany has agreed to provide more than a half billion euros to aid Holocaust survivors struggling under the burdens of the coronavirus pandemic, the organization that negotiates compensation with the German government said Wednesday. Each of those survivors will receive two payments of 1,200 euros ($1,400) over the next two years, for an overall commitment of approximately 564 million euros ($662 million) to some of the poorest survivors alive today. The funds come on top of an emergency $4.3 million the Claims Conference distributed in the spring to agencies providing care for survivors. In addition to the coronavirus-related funds, Germany agreed in the recently concluded round of annual negotiations to increase funding for social welfare services for survivors by 30.5 million euros ($36 million), to a total of 554.5 million ($651 million) for 2021, the Claims Conference said.

LAUSANNE Nina Bocharova, an Olympic gold medal-winning gymnast in the first Soviet Union team sent to a games, has died. The Ukraine-born Bocharova died in Rome on Monday, the International Gymnastics Federation said Thursday. Bocharova was the Soviet all-around national champion in 1949 and 51 then part of a dominant team at the 1952 Helsinki Olympics, the governing body said. She won gold medals in the team event and individual balance beam, plus silvers in the all-around behind teammate Maria Gorokhovskaya and team event for portable apparatus. With womens artistic gymnastics still in its infancy, Bocharova exuded strength and grace, the FIG added.

FILE - In this Tuesday, May 7, 2019 file photo, Russian military vehicles roll down Red Square Red Square during a rehearsal for the Victory Day military parade in Moscow, Russia. The Victory Day parade normally is held on May 9, the nation's most important secular holiday. While the parade is politically important for the Kremlin, Putin's persistence in holding it despite the risks of contagion also reflects his strong personal preoccupation with World War II. World War II began when Germany invaded Poland on Sept. 1, 1939, a week after the pact was signed. On Sept. 17, the Soviet Red Army rolled into Poland from the east.

(Alexei Nikolsky, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP)MOSCOW Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday marked the date of the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union by meeting with veterans and visiting a new military church. Putin laid a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at the Kremlin wall and greeted World War II veterans. He also visited the newly built main cathedral of the Russian military on Moscow's western outskirts. Victory Day, marking the Nazi defeat in World War II, is Russia's most important secular holiday, celebrated on May 9. This year, the Red Square military parade marking it was postponed because of the coronavirus pandemic and will be held Wednesday.

Zaryn accused Putin of pushing a false narrative about history in order to undermine the West and weaken the bonds among allies. The Soviet Union signed a nonaggression pact with Nazi Germany shortly before the war began in 1939, known as the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact. Two years later, Germany turned on Stalin and invaded the Soviet Union, bringing the Soviets into the war on the side of the Allies. In his article, Putin reiterated his contention that the Soviet Union was forced into signing the non-aggression agreement with Germany after Western powers cold-shouldered creating a military alliance. The Soviet Union did its utmost to use every chance of creating an anti-Hitler coalition.

Hockey might not be the most popular sport in the America, but it did produce the greatest sporting moment in this country’s history, according to many.