The dacha — a Russian summer home that can be anything from a shack to an oligarch's faux chateau — is both an escape from the city and a state of mind that permeates the country's life and culture.

The recently expanded law says that freelance journalists, YouTube bloggers and practically anyone else who receives money from abroad and voices a political opinion can be considered a foreign agent.

John Kerry, the former secretary of state and now President Biden's special envoy for climate, is the highest-ranking U.S. official to visit Moscow since Biden took office.

U.S. climate envoy John Kerry is in Moscow, making him the highest-ranking Biden administration official thus far to visit the Russian capital.

Russia's cyberwarfare activity was a focus of President Biden's meeting with President Vladimir Putin last month. Analysts say it is the great leveler when it comes to Russia-U.S. competition.

Russia forcibly annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014. The international community does not recognize Russian sovereignty over the peninsula.

Catherine Serou, a 34-year-old U.S. citizen, is found dead a few days after she was feared abducted. A suspect in her killing, a man in his early 40s with past convictions, has been arrested.

Catherine Serou, a U.S. citizen studying in Russia, has been missing since she got into a car with a stranger earlier this week.

President Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin held their much-anticipated summit in Geneva. They talked for about three hours. What are the outcomes of that meeting for both countries?

After weeks of planning, the summit between Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Joe Biden has ended. The two leaders' meeting lasted four hours.

Nearly a year after Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko's crackdown, "None of us doubt that we will prevail," an activist tells NPR. Others sound worried. "Every day is a little scarier," says one.

The June 16 Geneva summit between President Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin is a chance for the two leaders to map out how they will manage a difficult relationship. Here's what to know.

NPR's Mary Louise Kelly talks with NPR White House and Moscow correspondents Ayesha Rascoe and Lucian Kim about what to expect when Presidents Biden and Putin meet for the Geneva summit later in June.

The move comes a day after Belarus ordered a Ryanair flight to make an emergency landing in Minsk due to reports of a bomb aboard, in a ruse to apprehend an opposition activist.

More details have emerged about how the Belarusian regime seized an opposition activist, Roman Protasevich, from a commercial airline flight.

There is international outrage over the actions of the regime in Belarus, which diverted an international passenger flight on Sunday in order to seize an opposition activist who was on board.

The authorities in Belarus forced a passenger flight to land in the capital of Minsk and then detained an opposition leader who was one of the passengers on board.

There is almost no news alternative to government propaganda on Russian television — save for one channel known as TV Rain. But it only streams on the Web after cable dropped.

Officials say a 19-year-old former student at a school in the Russian city of Kazan opened fire there Tuesday, killing at least seven students, a teacher and a school worker.

Russian officials report thousands of new COVID-19 cases and hundreds of deaths everyday, but that's not reflected on the streets of Moscow, where people act as if the pandemic is over.