Natasha Lebedeva

1 month ago | nbcnews.com | Keir Simmons |Gabe Joselow |Natasha Lebedeva |Victor Sema

By , , , and KORENEVO, Russia — The carcass of a burned-out American military Humvee lies outside a hotel in this front-line town. This is where Ukraine’s forces were halted amid heavy fighting in August last year, locals tell NBC News. Since then, Russia's fight back bore fruit. The destroyed vehicle is a drop in the ocean of the $66.5 billion in military aid that the U.S. has provided to Kyiv for its war effort.

1 month ago | nbcnews.com | Keir Simmons |Courtney Kube |Natasha Lebedeva

President Donald Trump’s special envoy for Ukraine and Russia was excluded from high-level talks on ending the war after the Kremlin said it didn't want him there, a U.S. administration official and a Russian official tell NBC News.  Retired Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg was conspicuously absent from two recent summits in Saudi Arabia — one with Russian officials and the other with Ukrainians — even though the talks come under his remit.

1 month ago | nbcnews.com | Keir Simmons |Natasha Lebedeva |Matthew Bodner

By , and RYLSK, Russia — Air raid sirens are greeted with a shrug in the small town of Rylsk in Russia’s southwestern Kursk oblast, where residents carry on with their day unconcerned as loud speakers warn, “Attention, missile danger, proceed to shelter.”Nearby, soldiers stand around smoking cigarettes or jump from vehicles to pick up packages from the Ozon store, a Russian equivalent of Amazon, in the thousand-year-old town.

1 month ago | nbcnews.com | Keir Simmons |Natasha Lebedeva

By and MOSCOW — From where President Vladimir Putin is sitting, it looks like Russia is now winning a yearslong struggle with the United States and the West. And the result may be more war. President Donald Trump’s announcement overnight that the United States would immediately halt military aid to Ukraine was welcomed by the Kremlin on Tuesday, and his decision appears to vindicate Putin’s visceral dislike of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

2 months ago | nbcnews.com | Keir Simmons |Natasha Lebedeva

By and RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — He’s an investment banker with a distinctly American pedigree, having studied at Harvard and Stanford before going on to work at Goldman Sachs and McKinsey. But as U.S. and Russian negotiators work to secure a ceasefire in Ukraine, Kirill Dmitriev will be trying his best to secure the best deal for one man: President Vladimir Putin.