Russia should not impose unjustified regulations on freedom of expression and privacy on the Internet, Human Rights Watch said today. A restrictive new law requires Russian bloggers with significant followings to register with the authorities and comply with the same regulations as media outlets.

Recently, CCTV aired a special program about Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to Europe. The program was even given a grandiose title: “A Bridge Between China and Europe.” China’s media continues to play up the success of Xi’s first visit to Europe.

When, fifteen years ago, Vladimir Putin was appointed Prime Minister under the ailing Boris Yeltsin, few would have thought that he was to become one of Russia’s longest-serving political leaders in living memory.

Even as the crisis inUkraine continues to defy easy resolution, President Obama and his national security team are looking beyond the immediate conflict to forge a new long-term approach to Russiathat applies an updated version of the Cold War strategy of containment.

Poland’s foreign minister, Radoslaw “Radek” Sikorski, has been intimately involved in the Ukraine crisis, including in the negotiation of an agreement in February that then-Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych walked away from, further fueling the Maidan protest.

The United States plans to carry out small ground-force exercises in Poland and Estonia in an attempt to reassure NATO’s Eastern European members worried aboutRussia’s military operations in and nearUkraine, Western officials said Friday.

The United States, Russia, Ukraine and the European Union reached an agreement here on Thursday evening that calls for armed pro-Russian bands to give up the government buildings they have seized in eastern Ukraine and outlines other steps to de-escalate the crisis.