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Russia Pressures Belarus in Bid to Open New Front in Ukraine War

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With Moscow’s prospects faltering on the battlefield, the Kremlin is trying to nudge its closest ally off the sidelines By Thomas Grove and Daria Matviichuk June 23, 2026 3:18 pm ET The Wall Street Journal original article contains links and a map. Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko and Russian President Vladimir Putin in Kazakhstan this year in a photo released by Russian state media. Alexander Kazakov/ SPUTNIK/ EPA/ Shutterstock Quick Summary -- Russia is pressuring Belarus to strengthen the countries’ military union, potentially opening a new front in the Ukraine war. -- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky threatened to strike drone ground stations in Belarus if Belarus doesn’t dismantle them. -- Russia and Belarus held joint nuclear exercises last month, transporting nuclear warheads to Belarusian ballistic-missile positions. WARSAW— Russia’s closest ally, Belarus, has emerged as a potential new front in the Kremlin’s confrontation with the West, as Moscow seeks to str...
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Ukrainian Women Plead for News of Disabled Relatives Held by Russia

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Four years after Ukraine was invaded, many of the people who lived in institutional settings remain unaccounted for. From left, Oksana Oliinyk, Hanna Zamyshliaieva and Larysa Branytska at a news conference on Tuesday in Kyiv. Credit... Sasha Maslov for The New York Times By Carlotta Gall Reporting from Kyiv, Ukraine The New York Times , June 23, 2026, 4:22 p.m. ET For four years, Hanna Zamyshliaieva has agonized over the fate of her severely disabled son, who disappeared in southern Ukraine soon after the Russian invasion. On Tuesday, she and two other women whose loved ones are among hundreds of Ukrainians missing from residential schools and other institutions made clear that they are not giving up.  “I am here to fight for the return of my child,” said Ms. Zamyshliaieva. “I don’t know where my son is, what’s going on with him, what condition he is in and if he’s still alive.” Ms. Zamyshliaieva, joined by another mother and a grandmother, had come to Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital, ...
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Ukraine’s drones are eroding Putin’s vision for Crimea

Russian-installed authorities in Crimea have halted fuel distribution in vacation season as Ukraine isolates the peninsula. June 23, 2026 at 6:35 a.m. 7 min A gas station in Saki, Crimea, on Monday, closed amid a fuel crisis. (Alexey Pavlishak/Reuters) By Mary Ilyushina, David L. Stern and Natalia Abbakumova A middle-aged couple from Moscow and their teenage son began their summer vacation to the Black Sea beaches of Crimea this month by filling five-gallon gasoline canisters and stocking up on food — as if headed to a war zone. Because in many ways they were. Idealized as a land of Soviet-era youth camps and resorts, Crimea — the Ukrainian peninsula that Russia invaded and annexed illegally in 2014 — has become President Vladimir Putin’s prized possession, a symbol of his vision of Russia restored to superpower heights and a key logistics hub for his military operations across southeast Ukraine. Well into the fifth year of the war, however, that vision seems increasingly tenuous. [ j...
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