U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said on Wednesday additional sanctions against Russia are "teed up" should events in eastern Ukraine warrant them, and he suggested a decision may come soon.
In Russia, Vladimir Putin likes to portray himself as the saviour of the nation. In Europe and the United States he has come to be seen as a threat to the new world order.
European Union leaders are discussing possible further sanctions to penalize Russia over the crisis in Ukraine, European Council President Donald Tusk said on Friday.
A Moscow court late on Thursday jailed prominent Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny for 15 days for breaching a law that restricts demonstrations, barring him from a planned rally on March 1.
The former power company executive yanked up his trouser leg to show the electronic bracelet round his ankle that would alert police if he tried to make a run for it from Kiev.
Russian President Vladimir Putin told Kiev to let its soldiers surrender to pro-Russian rebels, who spurned a ceasefire in eastern Ukraine and fought their way on Tuesday into the town of Debaltseve, encircling thousands of government troops.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel agreed on concrete steps with the leaders of Russia and Ukraine to allow the OSCE to observe the situation in eastern Ukraine given the fragility of the agreed ceasefire, a German government spokesman said on Tuesday after the three leaders held a conference call.
A multinational gang of cyber criminals has stolen as much as $1 billion from as many as 100 financial institutions around the world in about two years, Russian computer security company Kaspersky Lab said on Saturday.
Assuming a ceasefire between Ukrainian forces and pro-Russian rebels in the east holds, the implementation of a special constitutional status for the region is likely to be very difficult, according to Latvia's foreign minister.
Germany's Foreign Minister warned Kiev, Moscow and separatist rebels in eastern Ukraine on Saturday of the "high price" of violating a ceasefire agreement as fighting intensified hours before its start.
Kiev, Moscow, Munich, Washington, Ottawa, Minsk and Brussels -- all in a week's work for Angela Merkel, whose tireless efforts to broker peace in Ukraine and keep Greece in the euro zone won praise even from the chancellor's fiercest critics in Germany.
The leaders of Germany, France, Russia and Ukraine have agreed a deal to end fighting in eastern Ukraine, participants at the summit talks said on Thursday.
Representatives of the contact group on the Ukraine crisis said no agreement had yet been reached on a ceasefire in talks in Minsk on Tuesday, denying a report by Russia's TASS news agency that a deal had been reached.
Rockets killed more than 10 civilians and soldiers deep in Ukrainian government-held territory on Tuesday and rebels pushed on with an assault on an army-held rail junction, setbacks that showed Kiev's position worsening on the eve of peace talks.
Russian-backed rebels' violent offensive in eastern Ukraine leaves President Barack Obama with perplexing and urgent choices, but aides say he will exercise his typical caution in deciding his next move.
The United States risks provoking a more direct intervention by Russia in the separatist conflict in Ukraine if it sends weapons to Kiev, the head of the OSCE security watchdog said on Sunday.
A Franco-German initiative to end the conflict in eastern Ukraine is based on the Minsk peace pact but will contain more details on implementation and timing of the deal, a senior U.S. State Department official said on Saturday.
Germany's Angela Merkel said on Saturday that sending arms to help Ukraine fight pro-Russian separatists would not solve the crisis there, drawing sharp rebukes from U.S. politicians who accused Berlin of turning its back on an ally in distress.
The leaders of France and Germany flew out of Moscow in the dead of night after five hours of talks with Vladimir Putin on Friday, with little to announce to end fighting in Ukraine beyond a promise to keep talking.
President Barack Obama released an updated national security strategy on Friday that committed the United States to lead on pressing world issues but reflected his cautious policy toward foreign intervention.
