Russian military forces have been spotted in both major rebel-held cities in eastern Ukraine, an official said, prompting Ukraine to declare it now has to fight the Russian army, not just the separatists.

A Russian official has complained that EU Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso breached confidentiality when he quoted President Vladimir Putin as saying that Moscow could take over Kiev in two weeks if it wished.

Ukraine’s incoming president spoke briefly with Russian president Vladimir Putin after world leaders gathered at D-Day commemoration ceremonies in Normandy.

National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden left the transit zone of a Moscow airport yesterday and officially entered Russia after authorities granted him asylum for a year, a move that suggests the Kremlin isn’t shying away from further conflict with the US.

National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden has been granted asylum in Russia for one year and left the transit zone of Moscow airport, his lawyer says.

The United States is considering a no-fly zone in Syria, potentially its first direct intervention into the two-year-old civil war, Western diplomats said, after the White House said Syria had crossed a “red line” by using nerve gas.

In the latest sign of tensions between the US and Russia over Iraq, Moscow’s foreign ministry today claimed American air strikes had targeted the residential Baghdad neighbourhood where its embassy is located.

The US is ousting 51 Russian diplomats in retaliation for the planting of a suspected spy at the FBI.