Russia is pulling out all the stops for celebrations marking the 70th anniversary of the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany with 16,000 troops marching in a Red Square parade.
Russian President Vladimir Putin grew up with tales of how his father battled the Nazis as a Red Army soldier and his mother lived through the punishing siege of Leningrad.
Law student Mikhail Kosyrev used to have a negative view of Stalin but his attitude has drastically changed in recent years, he said, insisting the wartime tyrant meant well.
Chinese President Xi Jinping will visit Russia this week to attend World War II anniversary celebrations, with Kazakhstan and Belarus also on his itinerary.
Western powers are getting set to counter an expertly crafted Russian disinformation campaign over Ukraine which has left them wrong-footed too many times for comfort.
The UN Security Council was unable to agree on a Russian-drafted statement demanding an immediate ceasefire or at least humanitarian pauses in the fighting in Yemen.
Russia will try again to make contact with an unmanned cargo ship after communications were lost following the spacecraft's launch toward the International Space Station.
Kazakhstan has once again ruled out the possibility of adopting a single currency for the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU), despite the propositions of the President of Russia Vladimir Putin.
The so-called 'right to be forgotten', which allows individuals to have information, videos or photographs that infringe on their privacy deleted from Internet records, was discussed by Kazakhstan's Majilis.
Ukraine will press European leaders for peacekeepers to patrol its war-torn east and will angle for more international financial support at two days of high-level talks starting.