Russian President Vladimir Putin appointed Alexander Darchiev, a veteran diplomat known in the past for public denunciations of the West, as ambassador to the United States on Thursday to lead a rapprochement that has stunned Ukraine and European countries.

Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) said on Friday it had foiled an attempt by Ukraine's military intelligence service to assasinate Tikhon Shevkunov, a senior priest in Russia's Orthodox Church.

Russian and U.S. teams held six hours of talks in Turkey on Thursday to try to restore normal functioning of their embassies, and Vladimir Putin said initial contacts with Donald Trump's new administration had inspired hope.

President Trump is looking for more than just a mineral deal with Ukraine. Trump wants Ukrainian President Zelenskyy to change his attitude toward peace talks and to have a willingness to make concessions to Russia,

Ukraine tries to reinforce troops in Russia's Kursk region as Putin's forces retake ground amid Trump's aid and intel pause.

The speaker of Russia's lower house of parliament, Vyacheslav Volodin, said on Friday that Britain would have to return Moscow money that London had decided to illegally gift to Ukraine to fund Kyiv's military.

Wednesday on the RealClearPolitics podcast, Andrew Walworth chats with James Robbins from the Institute of World Politics about how the Trump administration seeks to remake U.S. relations with Russia.

Russian President Vladimir Putin told the FSB security service on Thursday that initial contacts with the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump gave grounds for hope. Putin said in televised comments that Russia and the United States were ready to establish cooperation but some Western elites would seek to undermine the dialogue between them.

The war in Ukraine will be a focal point of the meeting between the US president and UK prime minister in Washington later.

Trudeau also called out Trump for appeasing Russian President Vladimir Putin while launching a trade war against Canada.