At least 314 Belarusian citizens have been killed while fighting alongside Russian forces in Ukraine, according to a report published on Oct. 13 by the Ukrainian project "I Want to Live." Belarus remains one of Russia's closest allies in the war against Ukraine.

The soldier took up arms a decade ago to defend her home region, Donetsk, where Ukraine has been battling Russian-backed forces since 2014. Since Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022, the region has become synonymous with Ukraine’s fight for survival. Battlefield developments in Donetsk are considered a gauge of each side’s fortunes in the war.

Gould-Davies, a Senior Fellow for Russia and Eurasia at the International Institute for Strategic Studies who has served as the U.K. ambassador to Belarus, wrote recently that foreign-policy setbacks and economic challenges have put Russia in a bind,

Ukraine expects to have a $3.5 billion fund by next month to buy weapons from the U.S. and sustain its fight against Russia's invasion.

"If any troops appear there, especially now while fighting is ongoing, we assume that they will be legitimate targets," Putin says as the U.S. and Europe plan for a post-war Ukraine.

Many recruits were unaware they were signing Russian-language contracts they could not understand and were later forced to reimburse Smirnova from their own bank accounts.

A top Russian diplomat said on Wednesday that the impetus to find a peace deal to end the fighting in Ukraine which emerged after a summit between President Vladimir Putin and President Donald Trump in August had proven to be largely exhausted.

President Trump said Ukraine is "in a position to fight and WIN all of Ukraine back in its original form" — a shift that President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said took him by surprise.

The Najaf Criminal Court has sentenced an Iraqi man to life in prison for trafficking people to Russia to fight in the war against Ukraine.

Cuba's Foreign Ministry on Saturday said U.S. claims that its troops were fighting in Ukraine were unfounded, and released for the first time information on legal proceedings against Cubans for mercenary activity in the war in Eastern Europe.