Former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo tells RFE/RL that Vladimir Putin has shown no willingness to end the war in Ukraine and warns of growing cooperation between Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea. He also discusses prospects for peace and the risks of negotiating with Moscow.

Intermediaries on Iranian Telegram channels are offering newborns for up to $1,100 under the guise of charity, with some promising to falsify birth records and others arranging placements with Iranian families abroad, despite a ban on the sale of babies.

Amid the swirl of efforts to end to the Ukraine war and normalize US-Russian ties, one idea under consideration: lifting sanctions on a massive Russian investment fund, whose chief is the Kremlin’s main go-between with White House negotiators. What is the Russian Direct Investment Fund anyway?

Moldovan President Maia Sandu has called a national security meeting after a major cyberattack exposed personal data linked to some 750,000 people. Authorities are investigating possible foreign involvement in the attack, which may have been aided by artificial intelligence.

A Russian drone struck a railway station in Dnipro, killing at least 14 people and injuring others, Ukrainian officials said. The attack hit a platform where a passenger train bound for Zaporizhzhya was standing.

Serbian voters dealt Moscow a blow, while rising tensions with Kyiv cast a shadow over expected trilateral talks to end Russia’s war in Ukraine. Doubts about the Kremlin’s intentions and deep divisions over territory in the Donbas cloud prospects for progress.

A Russian attack on Ukraine's eastern city of Dnipro killed at least 14 people and injured more than 10 others, according to Ukrainian officials, as a fragile cease-fire around Russian-occupied Oleshky entered its third day on October 29.

A US-brokered cease-fire went into effect on October 27 to let aid arrive in the Russian-occupied suburb of Oleshky and allow civilians to leave. On the opposite side of the Dnieper River, in the Ukrainian-held city of Kherson, locals said the pause in fighting produced a rare sense of normalcy.