Germany's defense minister said on Monday the European Union must modernize its military defense and security to match NATO's drive to beef up its own security forces in the wake of a major Russian build-up.

• November 7, 2016

Serbia and Russia began joint military exercises on Serbian territory on Thursday in a move likely to reinforce increased east-west tensions just as a five-day NATO drill in neighboring Montenegro draws to a close.

• November 3, 2016

Russia on Wednesday told anti-government rebels holed up in Syria's Aleppo to leave by Friday evening, signaling it would extend a moratorium on air strikes against targets inside the city.

• November 2, 2016

Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said on Tuesday a Western failure to rein in violent Islamists in Syria had indefinitely delayed the resumption of peace talks.

• November 1, 2016

Kurdish YPG militia fighters will be included as a part of the force to isolate the Islamic State-held Syrian city of Raqqa, the top U.S. military commander in Iraq said on Wednesday.

• October 26, 2016

Russia is sharply upgrading the firepower of its Baltic Fleet by adding warships armed with long-range cruise missiles to counter NATO's build-up in the region, Russian media reported on Wednesday.

• October 26, 2016

Russia said on Tuesday it would extend a moratorium on air strikes on Syria's Aleppo into a ninth day, but a monitor and a civil defense official said that rebel-held parts of the divided city had been struck in recent days.

• October 25, 2016

An elite unit of the Iraqi army paused its week-long advance on Mosul as it approached the city's eastern edge on Tuesday, waiting for other U.S.-backed forces to close in on Islamic State's last major urban stronghold in Iraq.

• October 25, 2016