CNN – Europe/Mideast/Africa

By Carlotta Dotto and CNN Staff Graphics by Natalie Croker and Marco Chacon Photo illustration by Gabrielle Smith “How to leave Russia?” Google searches for this term in Russian hit a 10-year high inside the country within a week of the invasion of Ukraine on February 24. From Moscow to the Siberian oil capital of

By Aditi Sangal, Adrienne Vogt, Meg Wagner, Melissa Macaya, Maureen Chowdhury, Travis Caldwell, Seán Federico O’Murchú, Lianne Kolirin and Sana Noor Haq, CNN The-CNN-Wire™ & © 2022 Cable News Network, Inc., a WarnerMedia Company. All rights reserved.

By Jessie Yeung, CNN Eight United Nations peacekeepers died in a helicopter crash Tuesday in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) amid rebel fighting in the region, the UN peacekeeping mission confirmed. The helicopter was on a reconnaissance mission when it went down over the province of North Kivu, where there have been clashes

CNN Editorial Research Here’s some background information about the life of Volodymyr Zelensky, the president of Ukraine. Personal: Birth date: January 25, 1978 Birth place: Kryvyi Rih, Ukraine Birth name: Volodymyr Oleksandrovych Zelensky Father: Oleksandr Zelensky, computer science professor Mother: Rimma Zelenska, engineer Marriage: Olena (Kiyashko) Zelenska (2003-present) Children: Oleksandra and Kyrylo Education: Kyiv National

By Nathan Hodge, Daria Markina, Tim Lister, Niamh Kennedy and Lindsay Isaac, CNN Russia said it would “drastically reduce” its military assault on the Ukrainian cities of Kyiv and Chernihiv after talks took place between representatives of the two nations on Tuesday that appeared to show signs of progress towards an off ramp to the

CNN Editorial Research Here’s a look at the Arab League, an organization of Middle Eastern and African countries and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). Facts Ahmed Aboul Gheit of Egypt is the current secretary-general of the Arab League. There are also four observer states: Eritrea, India, Brazil and Venezuela. The Arab League’s purpose, from the

By Maureen Chowdhury, Adrienne Vogt, Aditi Sangal, Mike Hayes, Jason Kurtz, Meg Wagner, Melissa Macaya, Travis Caldwell, Seán Federico O’Murchú, Jack Guy and Hafsa Khalil, CNN The-CNN-Wire™ & © 2022 Cable News Network, Inc., a WarnerMedia Company. All rights reserved.

By Eliza Mackintosh and Yuliia Presniakova, CNN Lviv, Ukraine — When there was a knock on Yulia Olkhovska’s front door at 5:30 a.m., she knew who would be waiting for her in the pre-dawn darkness outside. But she was still terrified. Ever since Russia invaded Ukraine, rolling tanks into several small cities in the country’s

By Aditi Sangal, Travis Caldwell, Helen Regan, Amy Woodyatt, Maureen Chowdhury, Jason Kurtz and Kathryn Snowdon, CNN The-CNN-Wire™ & © 2022 Cable News Network, Inc., a WarnerMedia Company. All rights reserved.

By Nathan Hodge, CNN and Julia Presniakova in Lviv Ukrainian forces “continue to maintain circular defense” in the besieged Ukrainian city of Mariupol, the Ukrainian general staff said early Tuesday, even as Russian forces consolidated control around the southeastern port city. On Monday, the mayor of Mariupol said that evacuation corridors had come largely under

By Katie Hunt, CNN Russian scientists are finding themselves isolated as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine enters its second month. The country’s Mars rover project with the European Space Agency is on hold. Russian institutions have been suspended from CERN, the world’s largest particle physics lab, in Switzerland. A prestigious math conference has been moved from

CNN Editorial Research Here is a look at the European Union. About the European Union The European Union is an international organization made up of 27 European countries. It governs common economic, political, social and security policies of its member states. According to the EU website, the objectives of the European Union are to establish

By Elliot Gotkine, Hadas Gold and Mostafa Salem, CNN, and Reuters ISIS operatives killed two people and injured six in a shooting attack Sunday in the Israeli city of Hadera, some 31 miles north of Tel Aviv, Israeli officials said. The attack — the second of its kind in a week — coincided with a

By Rebecca Wright and Olha Konovalova, CNN Beekeeper Dmitry Mulyar was tending to his hives outside his home in eastern Kyiv when the Russian shelling hit on Thursday morning. His elder brother Andriy Mulyar, who roasts coffee for a living, was standing next to him when it happened. “A shell hit, from the — so-called

By Jessie Yeung, Adam Renton, Lauren Said-Moorhouse, Barry Neild, Adrienne Vogt, Joe Ruiz and Ray Sanchez, CNN The-CNN-Wire™ & © 2022 Cable News Network, Inc., a WarnerMedia Company. All rights reserved.

By Nic Robertson, Eyad Kourdi and Mostafa Salem, CNN Smoke was seen rising after a Houthi-claimed attack on an Aramco oil storage facility in Jeddah, a senior official in Saudi Arabia said Friday, as Formula 1 fans headed to the country’s second-largest city ahead of this weekend’s Grand Prix. There have been no casualties so

By Andrew Carey, Olga Voitovych and Celine Alkhaldi, CNN About 300 people are believed to have died in a Russian attack on a theater in Mariupol nine days ago, the city council has said, citing eyewitness reports. The March 16 bombing of Mariupol’s Drama Theater, where Ukrainian officials say up to 1,300 had sought refuge,

By Jessie Yeung, Adam Renton, Sana Noor Haq, Adrienne Vogt, Melissa Macaya, Ed Upright, George Ramsay, Aditi Sangal and Meg Wagner, CNN The-CNN-Wire™ & © 2022 Cable News Network, Inc., a WarnerMedia Company. All rights reserved.

By Andrew Carey, Tim Lister, Celine Alkhaldi, Olga Voitovych and Gianluca Mezzofiore, CNN Ukrainian armed forces on Friday identified a large Russian landing ship that they said they destroyed at the port of Berdyansk in southern Ukraine the day before. The port, which had recently been occupied by Russian forces with several Russian warships in

By Helen Regan, Seán Federico O’Murchú, George Ramsay, Sana Noor Haq, Adrienne Vogt, Melissa Macaya, Maureen Chowdhury, Meg Wagner and Jason Kurtz, CNN The-CNN-Wire™ & © 2022 Cable News Network, Inc., a WarnerMedia Company. All rights reserved.

By Eliza Mackintosh, CNN Lviv, Ukraine (CNN) — The first warm, sunny days of spring in the southern Mykolaiv region are ushering in a grim new reality: the smell of the dead. As the frost melts and ground thaws, the bodies of Russian soldiers strewn across the landscape are becoming a problem. In his nightly

By Andrew Carey, Kostan Nechyporenko and Jack Guy, CNN Russian forces have looted and destroyed a laboratory near the abandoned Chernobyl nuclear power plant that was used to monitor radioactive waste, the Ukrainian government said Wednesday. The site of the world’s worst nuclear disaster fell into Russian hands in the first week of Russia’s invasion,

By Vasco Cotovio, Frederik Pleitgen and Byron Blunt, CNN The roar of a fighter jet engine forces Andriy into silence. As he waits for the aircraft to take off, the Ukrainian fighter pilot’s flight mask covers half his face, hiding his identity, but his squinting eyes still reveal a jovial smile. “Yes, that’s ours,” he

By Stephanie Busari, CNN Nelson Mandela was once asked why he still had relationships with, among others, Fidel Castro and Yasser Arafat, the Cuban and Palestinian leaders who had been branded terrorists by Western powers. The revered South African statesman replied that it was a mistake “to think that their enemies should be our enemies.”

By Isabelle Jani-Friend, CNN Deepti Gurdasani has spent the past two years debunking Covid-19 myths and misinformation on TV and online. Her work as a clinical epidemiologist means she’s well-placed to talk about coronavirus. But she also has a deeply personal understanding of the pandemic’s dangers. Gurdasani is one of 3.7 million people in England

By Angela Dewan, CNN It’s been a month since Russian troops invaded Ukraine, and despite making some rapid early gains, their advancement on some key cities, including the capital of Kyiv, has slowed. While there’s a growing picture that Russia’s assault on Ukraine has not gone to plan, the country continues to use its air

By Helen Regan, Seán Federico O’Murchú, George Ramsay, Hafsa Khalil, Adrienne Vogt and Meg Wagner, CNN The-CNN-Wire™ & © 2022 Cable News Network, Inc., a WarnerMedia Company. All rights reserved.

By Natasha Bertrand, Vasco Cotovio, Jennifer Hansler and Jim Sciutto, CNN The US and NATO believe that Belarus could “soon” join Russia in its war against Ukraine, US and NATO officials tell CNN, and that the country is already taking steps to do so. It is increasingly “likely” that Belarus will enter the conflict, a

By Stephanie Halasz and George Ramsay, CNN Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny has been sentenced to nine years in a maximum-security jail, according to Russian state-owned news agency Tass. A prominent Kremlin critic, Navalny was convicted on fraud charges by Moscow’s Lefortovo court over allegations that he stole from his Anti-Corruption Foundation. Navalny, 45, is

By AnneClaire Stapleton, Ivan Watson, Khrystyna Bondarenko and Tom Booth, CNN Dmytro and Tania Shvets spent the first 23 days of the war hiding in their cellar in Mariupol with their 7-year-old daughter, Vlada, and their parents. The family managed to escape the besieged Ukrainian city on Thursday, but their parents stayed behind. Having fled

By Travis Caldwell, Seán Federico O’Murchú, Sana Noor Haq, Lauren Said-Moorhouse, Kathryn Snowdon and Adrienne Vogt, CNN The-CNN-Wire™ & © 2022 Cable News Network, Inc., a WarnerMedia Company. All rights reserved.

By Helen Regan, Travis Caldwell, Amy Woodyatt, George Ramsay and Hafsa Khalil, CNN The-CNN-Wire™ & © 2022 Cable News Network, Inc., a WarnerMedia Company. All rights reserved.

By Eliza Mackintosh and Oleksandra Ochman, CNN Lviv, Ukraine (CNN) — When Serhii woke up to news reports that a bomb had flattened Mariupol’s Drama Theater, where hundreds of people had been sheltering, he couldn’t breathe. His wife and their two daughters were inside. A day before the attack, the 56-year-old editor, who lives in

By Nadeen Ebrahim, CNN Just days after her release from detention in Iran, Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe took to the microphones to remind the world that the end of her almost six-year ordeal shouldn’t be marked as a mission accomplished. “I believe that the meaning of freedom is never going to be complete as to such time

By George Ramsay, CNN At least 10 million people have been forced to flee their homes in Ukraine following Russia’s invasion less than a month ago, the head of the United Nations’ refugee agency said Sunday. That figure accounts for almost a quarter of the country’s population, which was calculated at 44 million by the

By Jack Guy, CNN Civilian casualties continue to mount as a result of Russian attacks on Ukraine, and the besieged city of Mariupol has refused to surrender despite constant bombardment. Here are the key developments from the weekend. Ukrainian officials reject Russian request to surrender Mariupol Russian forces continued their assault on the southeastern city

By Nick Paton Walsh, Brice Laine, Maryna Marukhnych and Natalie Gallón, CNN This is the final bus out of the last position Ukraine holds on the road to Kherson — the first and only major city Russia has taken. Villagers have standing room only, while the elderly have been rushed into a van. “Grandpa, we are here,” shouts the daughter of one local, Viktor, from the bus doorway, as

By Vasco Cotovio, Fred Pleitgen and Byron Blunt, CNN The sound of rockets launching in the distance breaks the silence of an otherwise quiet morning in Kyiv. “That’s us, we’re attacking Russian positions close to Hostomel,” a Ukrainian soldier says, as the shots fire in a synchronized rhythm. In this particular instance, the rockets the

By Martin Goillandeau, CNN Six people were killed after a car crashed into a crowd of people who had gathered to attend a local carnival on Sunday morning in Strépy-Bracquegnies, near La Louvière, Belgium. Abnother 10 people were sent to nearby hospitals with life-threatening injuries and 27 were “slightly injured,” Deputy Crown Prosecutor Damien Verheyen

By Khrystyna Bondarenko, Ivan Watson, AnneClaire Stapleton, Tom Booth and Alaa Elassar, CNN Residents of the Ukrainian city of Mariupol are being taken to Russia against their will by Russian forces, the Mariupol City Council said Saturday. “Over the past week, several thousand Mariupol residents have been taken to Russian territory,” the city said in

By Dakin Andone, CNN In the parking lot of a refugee reception center just inside Poland, Ukrainian women spoke last week with a bus driver as aid worker Chris Skopec stood nearby. “It looks like I’m going to Germany,” one of the war refugees told Skopec as she laughed hysterically. “How ridiculous is that?” Then,

By Jonny Hallam and Barbara Starr, CNN Four US service members were killed when the aircraft they were traveling in crashed during NATO training exercises in Norway, the country’s Prime Minister said Saturday. “It is with great sadness we have received the message that four American soldiers died in a plane crash last night,” Jonas

By Jessie Yeung, Adam Renton, Luke McGee, Jeevan Ravindran, Joe Ruiz, Adrienne Vogt and Emma Tucker, CNN The-CNN-Wire™ & © 2022 Cable News Network, Inc., a WarnerMedia Company. All rights reserved.

By Jomana Karadsheh, Eyad Kourdi and Kareem Khadder, CNN Abdel Kafi al-Hamdo cannot get Ukraine out of his mind. The 36-year-old Syrian spends his days following the news, tweeting messages of solidarity and teaching his five-year-old daughter Lamar how to draw the Ukrainian flag. He says few can understand what Ukrainians are going through as