Belarus’ authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko is all but certain to extend his more than three decades in power in Sunday’s election that is rejected by the opposition as a farce after years of sweeping repressions.

Vladimir Putin is poised to sweep to another six-year term in this week’s presidential election, even though Russians are dying in Ukraine in a war that is grinding through its third year and his country is more isolated than ever.

When Tucker Carlson asked Vladimir Putin about his reasons for invading Ukraine two years ago, Putin gave him a lecture on Russian history.

Abortion has had a complicated history in the Soviet Union and Russia.

Lefortovo prison, where American journalist Evan Gershkovich has been jailed on espionage charges, has been a terrifying symbol of repression since Soviet times.

Chinaese leader Xi Jinping just concluded a three-day visit with Russian President Vladimir Putin, a warm affair in which the two men praised each other and spoke of a profound friendship.

With its brutality, technological accomplishments and rigid ideology, the Soviet Union loomed over the world like an immortal colossus.

Germany’s parliament has approved a resolution recognizing as genocide Ukraine’s 1930s “Holodomor” — a famine believed to have killed more than 3 million Ukrainians under the repressive rule of Soviet leader Josef Stalin.

Pope Francis is linking the suffering of Ukrainians now to the 1930s “genocide" by starvation that the country experienced under Josef Stalin.

Before Mikhail Gorbachev, the Soviet Union seemed an immovable superpower in perpetual antagonism to the United States.

Mikhail Gorbachev, the last leader of the Soviet Union, has died at 91.

Russia's annexation of of Ukraine’s Black Sea peninsula in 2014 evoked tragic memories for Crimean Tatars.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a law allowing him to potentially hold power until 2036, a move that formalizes constitutional changes endorsed in last year’s popular vote.

Today is Thursday, Nov. 12, the 317th day of 2020. On Nov. 12, 1975, Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas retired because of failing health, ending a record 36-year term. In 1942, the World War II naval Battle of Guadalcanal began. In 1948, former Japanese premier Hideki Tojo and several other World War II Japanese leaders were sentenced to death by a war crimes tribunal. In 1977, the city of New Orleans elected its first Black mayor, Ernest “Dutch” Morial, the winner of a runoff.