CNN – Europe/Mideast/Africa

By Delia Gallagher, CNN Russian President Vladimir Putin has given several explanations for his country’s war on Ukraine, and some are more plausible than others. They include stopping NATO’s advance towards Russia’s borders, protecting fellow Russians from “genocide” or the baseless claim of “de-Nazifying” Ukraine. The top-ranking priest in the Russian Orthodox Church, meanwhile, has

By Tamara Qiblawi, CNN On the surface, the western Ukrainian city of Lviv does not look like a city on the edge of a war zone. The streets are bustling with people. Austro-Hungarian architecture recently painted in pale hues stretches for miles. The trams still run on time and most of the shops that first

By Denise Hruby, CNN In the first moments of respite since fleeing her home, Lilya Solodovnik watches her pigtailed 6-year-old, Lena, rocking on a blue plastic pony. Their home city of Kharkiv has been pummeled by Russian forces, and her friends and family are now hiding in bomb shelters. Solodovnik, and dozens of other women

By Alex Stambaugh, Tim Lister and Olga Voitovych, CNN A pregnant woman who was injured when a maternity hospital in the Ukrainian city of Mariupol was bombed on Wednesday has died, along with her newborn baby, a surgeon who was treating her confirmed on Monday. The surgeon, Timur Marin, told Ukrainian television from Mariupol: “While

By Paul P. Murphy, CNN The first clear satellite image has emerged of Snake Island, where Ukrainian defenders famously responded to the threat of Russian invasion with the words: “Russian warship, go f*** yourself.” The image, taken on Sunday by Maxar Technologies, shows damage to some buildings from Russian military strikes, as well as a

By Tim Lister, Mohammed Tawfeeq, Olga Voitovych, Simone McCarthy and Tara John, CNN Russia expanded its offensive to western Ukraine on Sunday, firing missiles near the city of Lviv and hitting a large military base close to the Polish border, reportedly killing dozens of people and drawing the war closer to the borders of a

By Jennifer Hauser, Simone McCarthy, Jomana Karadsheh and Muwafaq Mohammed, CNN A dozen ballistic missiles struck Iraq’s northern Kurdish regional capital Erbil early Sunday morning, local officials said. The missiles were launched from the “east outside Iraq’s borders” towards a new United States consulate building and residential areas, according to a statement from the Kurdistan