Last August, a middle-aged Russian woman with her face covered walked onto Red Square in Moscow and, in the shadow of the Kremlin, scattered handfuls of coloured rubber balls on the cobblestones below ...

In the early weeks of the war, prison authorities told top guards there would be no restrictions against violence.

Russia's opening gambit ahead of expected peace talks has been laid out in the media, says our Moscow correspondent Ivor Bennett. "There has been a lot of talk about potential meetings and contact ...