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      What We Know About ISIS-K, the Group That Claimed Responsibility for the Moscow Attack

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      The group that claimed credit for the deadly terrorist attack in Moscow on Friday is the Islamic State affiliate in Afghanistan called Islamic State Khorasan Province, or ISIS-K.ISIS-K was founded in 2015 by disaffected members of the Pakistani Taliban, who then embraced a more violent version of Islam. The group saw its ranks cut roughly in half, to about 1,500 to 2,000 fighters, by 2021 from a combination of American airstrikes and Afghan commando raids that killed many of its leaders.The group got a dramatic second wind soon after the Taliban toppled the Afghan government that year. During the U.S. military withdrawal from the country, ISIS-K carried out a suicide bombing at the international airport in Kabul in August 2021 that killed 13 U.S. troops and as many as 170 civilians.The attack raised ISIS-K’s international profile, positioning it as a major threat to the Taliban’s ability to govern.Since then, the Taliban have been fighting pitched battles against ISIS-K in Afghanistan. So far, the Taliban’s security services have prevented the group from seizing territory or recruiting large numbers of former Taliban fighters bored in peacetime — among the worst-case scenarios laid out after Afghanistan’s Western-backed government collapsed.President Biden and his top commanders have said the United States would carry out “over-the-horizon” strikes from a base in the Persian Gulf against ISIS and Qaeda insurgents who threaten the United States and its interests overseas.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Jake Sullivan Makes Covert Trip to Ukraine

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      Jake Sullivan met with President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine and his senior officials as additional U.S. aid continued to languish in the House.President Biden’s top national security official made a secret trip to Kyiv on Wednesday, as Ukrainian soldiers holding off Russian troops are running out of munitions and U.S. aid remains stalled in congressional gridlock.Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser, met with President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine and his senior officials “to reaffirm the United States’ unwavering commitment to Ukraine in its self-defense against Russia’s brutal invasion,” said a national security spokeswoman, Adrienne Watson. “He stressed the urgent need for the U.S. House of Representatives to pass the national security supplemental to meet Ukraine’s critical battlefield needs.”The covert trip showed the rising sense of urgency in the White House to pressure Congress to pass billions of dollars of aid for Ukraine, a financial package that the Biden administration says the country needs to defend itself against Russia.The White House has tried, so far unsuccessfully, to push House Republicans to support a $60 billion emergency spending plan for weapons for Ukraine and to bolster armament production in the United States.With that funding held back and future U.S. aid in limbo, the administration last week sent Ukraine a $300 million package that included air defense interceptors, artillery rounds, armor systems and an older version of the Army’s longer-range missile systems known as ATACMS. But that package is most likely going to hold off Russia for only a matter of weeks, U.S. officials have said.“Ukrainian troops have fought bravely, are fighting bravely throughout this war,” Mr. Sullivan said when the package was announced, “but they are now forced to ration their ammunition under pressure on multiple fronts.”Mr. Sullivan’s visit came one day after Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III met with other backers of Ukraine in Germany to strategize on how to maintain military support for Kyiv.“Ukraine’s battle remains one of the great causes of our time,” Mr. Austin said. More

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      Elecciones en Rusia: qué dicen los resultados del respaldo a Putin

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      Muchos rusos dicen que apoyan a su presidente, pero no está claro cuáles serían sus preferencias si existieran otras alternativas.El Kremlin escenificó la votación presidencial rusa durante el fin de semana para enviar un solo mensaje dentro y fuera del país: que el apoyo al presidente Vladimir Putin es abrumador e inquebrantable, a pesar o incluso a causa de su guerra contra Ucrania.Desde el momento en que los resultados preliminares aparecieron por primera vez en la televisión estatal a última hora del domingo, las autoridades no dejaron lugar a interpretaciones erróneas. Putin, dijeron, obtuvo más del 87 por ciento de los votos, su competidor más cercano solo el 4 por ciento. Tenía toda la pinta de ser un plebiscito autoritario estilo Potemkin.Es posible que el Kremlin se haya sentido más confiado orquestando un margen de victoria tan amplio porque el índice de aprobación de Putin ha subido durante la guerra en las encuestas independientes, debido a un efecto bandera o de apoyo en tiempos de crisis, y al optimismo sobre la economía rusa. El Centro Levada, una encuestadora independiente, informó el mes pasado de que el 86 por ciento de los rusos aprobaban a Putin, su índice más alto en más de siete años.Pero aunque las cifras puedan sugerir un apoyo inquebrantable a Putin y a su programa en toda Rusia, la situación es más compleja de lo que transmiten los números. El líder de un grupo de investigación de la oposición en Moscú ha argumentado que el apoyo a Putin es en realidad mucho más frágil de lo que sugieren las simples cifras de aprobación.“Las cifras que aparecen en las encuestas de Rusia no significan lo que la gente cree que significan”, afirmó Aleksei Minyailo, activista de la oposición residente en Moscú y cofundador de un proyecto de investigación llamado Chronicles, que ha estado encuestando a rusos en los últimos meses. “Porque Rusia no es una democracia electoral, sino una dictadura en tiempos de guerra”.Una televisión en Moscú muestra los resultados electorales para Putin el domingo, último día de las elecciones.Maxim Shemetov/ReutersWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Putin Wins Russian Presidential Election

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      A rubber-stamp presidential election with no real competition allows Vladimir Putin to claim strong public support for his domestic dominance and the invasion of Ukraine.President Vladimir V. Putin on Sunday extended his rule over Russia until 2030, using a heavily stage-managed presidential election with no real competition to portray overwhelming public support for his domestic dominance and his invasion of Ukraine.Some Russians tried to turn the undemocratic vote into a protest, forming long lines at polling stations at a predetermined time — noon — to register their discontent. At the same time, Ukraine sought to cast its own vote of sorts by firing a volley of exploding drones at Moscow and other targets.But the Kremlin brushed those challenges aside and released results after the polls closed claiming that Mr. Putin had won 87 percent of the vote — an even higher number than in the four previous elections he participated in.Afterward, Mr. Putin took a lengthy, televised victory lap, including a swaggering, after-midnight news conference at which he commented on the death of the imprisoned opposition leader Aleksei A. Navalny for the first time, referring to it as an “unfortunate incident.”Mr. Putin is now set to use his new six-year term to further cement his control of Russian politics and to press on with the war in Ukraine. If he sees the term through to its end, he will become the longest-serving Russian leader since Catherine the Great in the 1700s.Western governments were quick to condemn the election as undemocratic. Adrienne Watson, a spokeswoman for President Biden’s National Security Council, said “the elections were obviously not free nor fair.” We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Putin Breaks Silence on Navalny’s Death, Calling It an ‘Unfortunate Incident’

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      President Vladimir V. Putin described the death of the imprisoned opposition leader Aleksei A. Navalny as an “unfortunate incident” and claimed he had been ready to release him in exchange for Russian prisoners held in the West.Mr. Putin, in a news conference after Russia’s presidential election, said that “some people” had told him before Mr. Navalny’s death “that there was an idea to exchange Mr. Navalny for some people held in correctional facilities in Western countries.”“I said, ‘I agree,’” Mr. Putin said. “Just with one condition: ‘We’ll trade him but make sure that he doesn’t come back, let him stay over there.’”He added: “But this happens. That’s life.”The comments, in response to a question from NBC News, were Mr. Putin’s first about Mr. Navalny’s death at a penal colony in the Arctic— and a rare moment, if not the first, when the Russian president uttered Mr. Navalny’s name in public.Aides to Mr. Navalny asserted after his death that he had been on the verge of being freed in a prisoner exchange. A Western official told The New York Times at the time that “early discussions” on the possibility of such a swap had been underway when Russian authorities reported Mr. Navalny dead on Feb. 16.The Western official said that the discussions had involved swapping Mr. Navalny along with two Americans imprisoned in Russia — Evan Gershkovich, a reporter for The Wall Street Journal, and Paul Whelan, a corporate security executive and former Marine — in exchange for Vadim Krasikov. Currently imprisoned in Germany, Mr. Krasikov was convicted of killing a former Chechen separatist fighter in Berlin in 2019.“This is a sad event,” Mr. Putin said about Mr. Navalny’s death. “But we’ve had other cases when people have passed away in correctional facilities. And what, hasn’t this happened in the United States, too?”While Mr. Navalny was alive, Mr. Putin’s distaste for him was such that he never said his name in public, according to the Kremlin’s archive of Mr. Putin’s interviews and speeches.Mr. Navalny nearly died in 2020 after being poisoned by a military-grade nerve agent while on a trip to Siberia. Western officials described the poisoning as an assassination attempt by the Russian state. More

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      Long Lines of Russian Voters Signal Discontent With Vladimir Putin’s Rule

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      Many appeared to be heeding a call by the opposition to express frustration by showing up en masse at midday. “We don’t have any other options,” said one woman.Long lines of voters formed outside polling stations in major Russian cities during the presidential election on Sunday, in what opposition figures portrayed as a striking protest against a rubber-stamp process that is certain to keep Vladimir V. Putin in power.Before he died last month, the Russian opposition leader Aleksei A. Navalny had called on supporters to go to polling stations at midday on Sunday, the last day of the three-day vote, to express dissatisfaction with Mr. Putin, who is set to win his fifth presidential term in a vote that lacks real competition.Mr. Navalny’s team, which is continuing his work, and other opposition movements reiterated calls for the protest in the weeks leading up to the vote. Simply appearing at the polling station, for an initiative known as Noon Against Putin, they said, was the only safe way to express discontent in a country that has drastically escalated repression since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine two years ago.The opposition leaders said showing solidarity with like-minded citizens by mere presence was more important than what the voters chose to do with their ballots, because the election lacked real choice.“This is our protest — we don’t have any other options,” said Lena, 61, who came to a polling station in central Moscow before noon with the intention of spoiling her ballot. “All of us decent people are hostages here.” Like other voters interviewed, she declined to provide her last name, for fear of reprisal.Alissa, 25, said she came because she is against the war. “It is so important to see people who think like you, who don’t agree with what is happening,” she said.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Rebellious Russians Attack From Ukraine, Reinforcing Ukrainian Drone Strikes

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      The surprise attacks, timed to Russia’s election, are meant to undermine the sense of stability in Russia and divert the country’s military resources from Ukraine.Gathered in a Ukrainian farmhouse, soldiers checked their kits: rifles, machine guns, grenade launchers, spare batteries for radios, red and white flashlights, all that would be needed for a stealthy and daring night assault across the border into Russia.The soldiers are Russians who have turned against the government of their country’s president, Vladimir V. Putin, and are now fighting for the Ukrainian side by making incursions back into Russia.Their goal has been to break through a first line of Russian defenses, hoping to open a path for another unit to drive deeper into Russia with tanks and armored personnel carriers.“We will jump in their trench and hold it,” one of the soldiers, who declined to be identified for security reasons, explained. “Either we take them out, or they take us out.”By both Ukrainian and Russian accounts, fierce fighting has raged along Russia’s southern border for five days in the most sweeping ground attacks into Russia since its military invaded Ukraine two years ago.Three Russian exile groups, which were openly backed by Ukraine’s military intelligence agency, say the assaults are timed to undermine the sense of stability that underlies Mr. Putin’s quest for a fifth term, in which three days of voting wrap up on Sunday.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      16 Killed in Russian Missile Strike on Odesa, Ukraine Says

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      Two missiles hit the same spot, Ukrainian authorities said, killing some rescuers who had responded to the first attack.A Russian missile attack on Odesa killed at least 16 people and injured 55 others, Ukrainian authorities said on Friday, the latest in a series of deadly air assaults on the southern Ukrainian port city.Ukraine’s state emergency services said a first missile hit several houses late in the morning, prompting rescuers to rush to the scene. A second missile then landed on the same site, causing many fatalities, including at least one paramedic and a rescue worker. The reports could not be independently verified.Oleh Kiper, the governor of the Odesa region, posted photos on social media showing rescue workers evacuating one of their colleagues on a stretcher and trying to put out a fire near a destroyed building. A photo released by the Odesa City Council showed what appeared to be a rescuer lying on the grass, his lifeless body covered by a foil blanket.Ukrainian authorities said the attacks destroyed a three-story building, damaged 10 houses and a gas pipeline, and started a fire that spread to an area of about 1,300 square feet.It was the third deadly assault on Odesa in two weeks, with a total of at least 33 people killed. It came as Russians began voting in a presidential election that President Vladimir V. Putin was all but certain to win, and while his country’s war in Ukraine had entered its third year and showed no sign of abating.Emergency workers helping an injured man away from the scene.Victor Sajenko/Associated PressWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More