Russia on Wednesday accused the Saudi-backed Syrian opposition of employing blackmail by suspending its participation in peace talks in Geneva.

• April 20, 2016

Russian and NATO envoys are unlikely to ease the worst tensions since the Cold War very much when they meet on Wednesday in their highest-level talks on security in almost two years.

• April 19, 2016

Iran showed off parts of its new Russian S-300 missile defense system during National Army Day on Sunday, where President Hassan Rouhani said the country's armed forces were no threat to neighboring countries.

• April 17, 2016

China's South China Sea fleets have conducted training drills with upgraded methods that resemble actual combat conditions to increase the fleets' combat effectiveness, according to an article published by the PLA Daily on Sunday.

• April 17, 2016

Iranian Major General Qassem Soleimani has flouted an international travel ban and flown to Moscow for talks with Russia's military and political leadership on Syria and deliveries of Russian missiles, sources said on Friday.

• April 15, 2016

Fighting between pro-Russian separatists and Ukrainian government troops has increased sharply in eastern Ukraine in defiance of calls to observe a year-old peace agreement, the head of an international monitoring mission said on Friday.

• April 15, 2016

Syria's chief government negotiator sought on Friday to steer a new round of peace talks away from the political transition that U.N. mediators hope to promote, as increased fighting near Aleppo threatened to undermine a shaky truce.

• April 15, 2016

Russia's Federal Security Service and tax inspectors on Thursday searched the offices of Mikhail Prokhorov, a tycoon whose newspaper has published revelations about people close to Vladimir Putin, four sources close to his businesses said.

• April 14, 2016