Ukrainian government troops pressed attacks Tuesday in the two largest cities held by pro-Russian rebels in eastern Ukraine, while Kiev also pursued diplomatic efforts to resolve the conflict that has killed more than 2,000 and displaced another 300,000.

Russia and Ukraine said yesterday their presidents would meet together with top European Union officials in Belarus’s capital of Minsk on August 26 to discuss their confrontation over Ukraine which has plunged relations to an all-time low. The meeting will put Russia’s President Vladimir Putin and Ukraine’s Petro Poroshenko in …

As the U.S. military strikes the Islamic State group in Iraq, Syrian President Bashar Assad’s forces have significantly stepped up their own campaign against militant strongholds in Syria, carrying out dozens of airstrikes against the group’s headquarters in the past two days. While the government in Damascus has long turned …