Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Friday that there is no obstacle preventing Turkey and Syria from restoring diplomatic ties that were cut off at the start of the Syrian civil war more than a decade ago.

Russia’s defense minister ordered officials to prepare a “response” to U.S. drone flights over the Black Sea, the ministry said Friday, in an apparent warning that Moscow may take forceful action to ward off the American reconnaissance aircraft.

The first Army tanks and vehicles that could one day supply an entire armored brigade as a bulwark against Russian aggression along NATO’s eastern flank have arrived at a new storage facility in Poland.

An Air Force veteran and former Defense Department civilian employee was sentenced this week to a year and eight months in prison for punching a U.S. soldier in South Korea so hard that prosecutors say he could have killed him.

Bulgarian President Rumen Radev has turned down a government proposal to lead the country’s delegation to NATO’s July summit in Washington D.C. His press office said Thursday that among the reasons behind the refusal is that he was not consulted while it worked out the official position of the country and its commitments regarding the war in Ukraine.

Belarus’ authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko has reshuffled his top officials in what observers see as part of maneuvering ahead of the 2025 presidential election. Lukashenko, who has ruled the country of 9.5 million with an iron hand for three decades and declared his intention to seek a seventh term next year, on Thursday replaced his chief of staff along with the country’s foreign minister and several other senior officials.

Language barriers melted away amid barks and tail wags, as military and police teams of handlers and their dogs showcased their skills in Germany this week.

Serbian police have banned a festival that promotes cultural exchange with Kosovo in a sign of growing nationalism and government pressure on liberal voices in the Balkan country. A police statement cited security concerns as the reason to ban the Mirdita, dobar dan event that was due to start later on Thursday in Belgrade with a theater show from Kosovo.

Ukraine’s president is calling on European Union leaders to make good on promises to provide military equipment to his war-ravaged country. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy made the call at an EU summit in Brussels on Thursday, just days after the bloc launched membership talks with Ukraine.

A Navy amphibious group has entered the Mediterranean Sea ahead of the imminent exit of a carrier strike group that spent much of the year engaged in naval combat at a pace unseen since World War II.

The US and its allies must prepare for a struggle with Russia that will endure for years regardless of how the war in Ukraine turns out, Lt. Gen. Steven Basham said.

An experimental Howitzer system was secretly delivered to Ukraine’s army to be used against invading Russian forces, according to an American defense contractor.

Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich went on trial behind closed doors in the Russian city of Yekaterinburg on Wednesday, 15 months after his arrest on espionage charges that he, his employer and the U.S. government vehemently deny.

A prominent Ukrainian officer has been fired in his position as Joint Forces’ commander after being accused of incompetence and blamed for thousands of apparently avoidable casualties. The firing of Lt. Gen. Yuriy Sodol is the latest in a series of leadership changes in Ukraine’s military as the country faces its third year of full-scale Russian invasion.

The US Army’s garrison in Wiesbaden, which has had a major expansion over the past two years, has a new commander.

Fifteen months after Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich was arrested in the Russian city of Yekaterinburg on espionage charges, he returns there for his trial starting Wednesday behind closed doors.

Russia is guilty of torturing, beating and numerous other human rights violations of Ukrainian nationals since it occupied Crimea in 2014, the European Court of Human Rights has ruled.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is expected to visit Russia for the first time since the start of the Kremlin’s war on Ukraine, a trip that follows his return to office for a third term and underscores the strong ties between the two countries.

Brazilian police official Valdecy Urquiza has won a crucial vote of confidence toward becoming the next head of Interpol and its first non-Western chief after the organization’s executive committee selected him as its preferred candidate.