Former Soviet Union

85 years later: Babyn Yar and the fight against deliberate erasure - opinion

On September 29 and 30, 1941, German forces, aided by local collaborators, murdered 33,771 Jews at Babyn Yar. In just two days, the lives of children, parents, and grandparents were cut short.

 Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy takes part in a commemoration ceremony for the victims of Babyn Yar (Babiy Yar), one of the biggest single massacres of Jews during the Nazi Holocaust, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in Kyiv Ukraine September 29, 2022.
The New York Times logo is seen on the building's facade in New York City on January 22, 2026.

Israel’s global news coverage vastly disproportionate and unusually persistent, analysis finds

More attention must be paid to people who want to leave Israel, and more must be done to help them change their minds and decide to stay, says the writer.

Israel needs to stop losing its people and start giving them reasons to stay - opinion

A partisan bunker is seen in Rūdninkai Forest.

Lithuania's Jewish partisan bunkers caught between Holocaust memory and military expansion


Kyrgyzstan launches national stablecoin in partnership with Binance

A5A7, a stablecoin backed by the Russian rouble and based in Kyrgyzstan, has been placed under sanctions by Western governments who say it is used to facilitate avoidance of sanctions on Russia.

Representations of Binance coin cryptocurrency is seen in this illustration taken September 10, 2025

Polar bears take over abandoned research station in Russian Arctic

Scientists left the research station, which is in an abandoned village, soon after the Soviet Union's collapse over three decades ago.

A polar bear reacts at the abandoned Soviet-era research station on Kolyuchin Island in the Chukchi Sea, in Russia's far northeast, September 14, 2025, in this still image taken from a drone video.

Moldovans vote in high-stakes parliamentary election, authorities warn of Russian interference

Power in the former Soviet republic has swung for decades between pro-European and pro-Russian groups.

A woman votes as members of a local electoral commission visit her home during Moldova's parliamentary elections in the town of Durlesti, Moldova September 28, 2025.

In Moldova, Jewish life is fueled by descendants of those who fled - and refugees from Ukraine

Moldova’s Jews are aging, with many people leaving and few babies being born. The country currently has two functioning Jewish schools and seven synagogues.

Chisinau, the capital city of Moldova.

Transnistria’s Jews find themselves caught in a Soviet time warp as Ukraine war rages next door

In Novokatovsk, Israeli farmer Or Cohen and his family face poverty and war on the Ukrainian border. Their story reveals the challenges of life in Transnistria, where Jewish life is slowly fading.

Israeli-born Or Cohen stands with his Ukrainian wife, Anya, and their 3-year-old son Adam, in the backyard of their farmhouse in Novokatovsk, a Transnistrian village right on the border with Ukraine, June 2025.

Her Jewish grandfather’s shame inspired a prize-winning novel

Sasha Vasilyuk's debut novel, “Your Presence Is Mandatory,” won the $100,000 prize for a story inspired by her father’s father, a Jewish soldier in the Red Army.

Sasha Vasilyuk’s novel, "Your Presence Is Mandatory," was inspired by the story of her grand­fa­ther, right, a Sovi­et World War II sol­dier who nev­er talked about the war.

After decades of conflict, Armenia-Azerbaijan peace plan gives Caucasus Jews new hope

Jews in both countries could benefit after countries signed documents to end 35-year-long hostilities which have defined relations between the two nations.

Armenian girls study Jewish religious texts under the direction of Rabbi Gershon Meir Burshtein in Yerevan.

Olim from former Soviet Union harmed by systemic failures despite high retention rate

Alex Reif: "It is a national waste that Israel is losing immigrants who wish to integrate due to basic failures in absorption."

 Ukrainian refugees are seen arriving in Israel as part of Operation Israeli Guarantee, on March 6, 2022.

At least 50 feared dead as Soviet-era passenger plane crashes in Russia's far east

The burning fuselage of the plane, which was from the Soviet era and was nearly 50 years old, was spotted on the ground by a helicopter, and rescue crews were rushing to the scene.

(illustrative) A Russian An-24 airplane.

'The Illegals': Soviet infiltration, observation, and subversion into the West - review

Shortly after the 1917 October Revolution, Meir Abramovich Trilisser, the forerunner of the KGB, introduced the “illegals” as a weapon into an anti-Communist West

 ELENA VAVILOVA, photographed in the 1980s, was a colonel in the KGB First Chief Directorate Foreign Intelligence Service until 2010.