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When Russians finally began to outnumber Ukrainians in Pokrovsk in recent weeks, the city lay in ruins and bodies lined the streets.
The brutal fight for the Ukrainian city points to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s ultimate aims in the war—and explains why President Trump’s peace efforts have, so far, failed.
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Thomas Grove
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Mohammed Shia al-Sudani is running for re-election Tuesday after managing to keep his country out of the region’s recent conflicts.
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Michael Amon
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The U.S. appears to be preparing to attack my country. That’s a sentence nobody wants to write. For us Venezuelans, though, it’s especially bitter. For years, we looked to the U.S. to support our fledgling democracy movement against an authoritarian government happy to rewrite history to suit its political convenience. Now, in a bizarre twist of fate, our country faces an attack by an authoritarian American government that is happy to rewrite our history to suit its own political convenience.
Though President Trump has said in recent days that he doubts the U.S. will go to war with Venezuela, the American military buildup is ongoing, and The Wall Street Journal and other sources have reported on the Pentagon’s efforts to select targets in the country. Trump has said again and again that he is going after Nicolás Maduro because the dictator emptied out Venezuela’s prisons as part of a sinister plan to flood U.S. streets with drug dealers.
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[ad_2] Quico Toro[ad_1]
Leader Xi Jinping marked a step in his mission to modernize the nation’s military.
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Chun Han Wong
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A detachment of Israeli engineering troops was demolishing tunnels behind the withdrawal line in Gaza last month when Hamas militants sprang from a hidden shaft, fired an antitank missile toward their excavator and killed two soldiers.
A little over a week earlier, Israel and Hamas had agreed to a cease-fire. Israel responded to the deadly encounter with a round of airstrikes on Gaza that killed dozens of people.
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[ad_2] Dov Lieber[ad_1]
WASHINGTON—President Trump has recently expressed reservations to top aides about launching military action to oust Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, fearing that strikes might not compel the autocrat to step down, according to U.S. officials familiar with the deliberations.
The debate underscores that the administration’s Venezuela strategy remains in flux, despite a buildup of military forces in the region and public threats by Trump to launch attacks.
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[ad_2] Alexander Ward[ad_1]
Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered his top security officials to draw up plans for potential nuclear weapons testing should President Trump follow through on his suggestions that the U.S. resume testing its nuclear arsenal, in a fresh sign of the faltering relationship between the two leaders.
While the threats from each side are likely still tools for political signaling at this stage, if either Washington or Moscow pushes ahead with testing it would raise nuclear tensions to levels unseen since the peak of the Cold War.
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[ad_2] Thomas Grove[ad_1]
TEL AVIV—The body of the last dead American hostage in Gaza was returned by Hamas after more than two years, marking the close of a painful chapter for U.S. families whose relatives were taken by the militant group.
Itay Chen, 19, an Israeli-American soldier who also holds German citizenship, was killed during the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack while fighting off militants with his tank crew in southern Israel. Chen was one of around 250 hostages taken during the attack, including around a dozen U.S. nationals, according to the Hostages Families Forum, an advocacy group.
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[ad_2] Anat Peled[ad_1]
When Russian soldier Sergey Khandozhko got married the day after enlisting in October 2023, his family and friends were confused. The 40-year-old had never mentioned the bride. Nor had he spoken of marriage.
More puzzling was the 20-minute wedding ceremony without photos or exchange of rings, and only one guest. Afterward, Khandozhko’s new wife even carried on living with her ex-husband and their children, according to testimony and a court ruling reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.
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Matthew Luxmoore
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In the turquoise waters of the South China Sea, one country is challenging Beijing’s grip on one of the world’s most important maritime thoroughfares.
Over four years, Vietnam has built out a series of remote rocks, reefs and atolls to create heavily fortified artificial islands that expand its military footprint in the Spratly Islands, an archipelago where Hanoi’s claims clash not only with China’s but also with those of Taiwan, the Philippines, Malaysia and Brunei.
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Gabriele Steinhauser
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Over the past two years, Israel has systematically killed off or hobbled the leaders of its most-powerful enemies: Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran. Yet it hasn’t been able to neutralize one, whose unrelenting resistance has made him, in the eyes of supporters, the last militant leader still fighting in the Middle East.
Diminutive and soft-spoken, Abdulmalik Al-Houthi has survived relentless attacks by Israel, the U.S. and other regional powers by hiding out in caves and never appearing in public while counting on Iran’s support to help keep his rebel movement in power in Yemen. For more than a decade as commander of Houthi forces, his playbook has been to keep challenging more formidable opponents with brazen missile attacks, gambling they have more to lose than he does.
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Rory Jones
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It’s a safe bet that most Americans won’t notice if the U.S. pulls an Army brigade out of Romania, but you can bet Vladimir Putin will. Behind a reshuffling of U.S. forces abroad is a larger debate within the Trump Administration about America’s posture in the world, and senior Republicans in Congress are expressing alarm.
The U.S. Army confirmed last week that soldiers from a brigade combat team of the 101st Airborne Division will return to Kentucky “without replacement.” Romania’s defense ministry called the decision “an effect of the new priorities of the presidential administration”—that is, the Trump Pentagon. About 1,000 troops will remain in the country, and the U.S. footprint in Romania is a small share of the roughly 85,000 troops on the continent.
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[ad_2] The Editorial Board[ad_1]
The president said the U.S. could go in “guns-a-blazing” to halt the perceived targeting of Christians by Islamist militants.
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Alexandra Wexler
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A fresh obstacle to President Trump’s Gaza peace plan is taking shape: how to bring in an international security force to police the enclave without either Hamas or Israel abandoning the process.
Then there is the question of whether any country would really be willing to commit any troops to the plan if it involved facing down the militants as they attempt to consolidate their power in Gaza.
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Summer Said
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President Trump on Friday said he isn’t considering ordering military attacks in Venezuela, two weeks after suggesting ground strikes were possible.
Asked by reporters on Air Force One about reports that he is weighing airstrikes against Venezuela, Trump responded: “No, it’s not true.”
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[ad_2] Lara Seligman[ad_1]
The official resigned after an investigation was launched into her alleged role in authorizing the release of footage that appeared to show soldiers assaulting a Palestinian detainee.
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Feliz Solomon
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Sudan’s civil war is taking a jarring turn in Darfur, where an Arab-led militia is now using state-of-the-art drones and execution squads to dominate the region’s Black population.
Humanitarian groups say the violence has been escalating since the militia seized control of El Fasher, the largest city in the region. Videos shared online by the Sudan Doctors Network and other local rights groups appear to show militia members shooting unarmed civilians at point-blank range in the city on the fringes of the Sahara. In the streets, dead bodies are scattered alongside burned-out vehicles. At the only functioning hospital, the World Health Organization reported that the rebels killed all 460 people inside the main ward, including patients, caregivers and health workers.
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Nicholas Bariyo
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The Lebanese militant group is rebuilding its battered ranks and armaments, defying the terms of the cease-fire and raising the possibility of renewed conflict with Israel.
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Omar Abdel-Baqui
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BUSAN, South Korea—President Trump wrapped up his six-day swing through Asia by touting trade deals and new investments in the U.S. But as he arrives back in Washington, the gold-plated receptions abroad are giving way to a shuttered government and deepening voter anxiety about the economy.
The split screen sheds light on why Trump has turned much of his second-term attention to foreign policy.
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Alexander Ward
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