The US-Russia summit lets Putin get back to the top table of international diplomacy and thumb his nose at critics. Here’s what else he stands to gain.

P resident Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin are slated to meet for a highly anticipated one-on-one in Alaska on Friday, Aug. 15 in a rare bilateral meeting on American soil at a time of heightened tensions.

Despite a troop shortage, Ukraine's military said it had retaken two villages in the eastern region of Sumy on Monday, part of a small reversal in more than a year of slow, attritional Russian gains in the southeast.