The U.S. military will have two aircraft carriers in the Mediterranean Sea this month ahead of a NATO summit in Warsaw, as Washington seeks to balance Russia's military activities and accelerate its fight against Islamic State militants.

• June 8, 2016

Russia is building an army base near its border with Ukraine, the latest in a chain of new military sites along what the Kremlin sees as its frontline in a growing confrontation with NATO.

• June 8, 2016

A year after Turkey's pro-Kurdish opposition entered parliament as a party for the first time, to great fanfare about a maturing of Turkish democracy, its embattled leader is struggling to save it from banishment to the political wilderness.

• June 8, 2016

Russia is building an army base near its border with Ukraine, the latest in a chain of new military sites along what the Kremlin sees as its frontline in a growing confrontation with NATO.

• June 7, 2016

Syrian government troops backed by Russian air power moved to within 25 km (15 miles) of an Islamic State-held town in Raqqa province on Tuesday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said, as state media reported air strikes against the jihadists in the area.

• June 7, 2016

President Bashar al-Assad vowed on Tuesday to fight on in what he called Syria's war against terrorism, showing no sign of compromise in his first major address since peace talks broke down in April.

• June 7, 2016

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told his Finnish counterpart the Kremlin would take unspecified measures to respond to increased NATO activity in the Baltic region, making clear he was vexed by Helsinki's hosting of alliance drills.

• June 6, 2016

Nearly 50 air strikes hit rebel-held areas in and around the Syrian city of Aleppo on Sunday in some of the heaviest recent raids by Russian and Syrian government aircraft, residents and a monitoring group said.

• June 6, 2016