With a handful of houses, a couple of shops and some crumbling Kruschev-era flats, the village of Lyubovnets, near the northern side of Sevastopol's bay, is not much to look at.

A disturbing video put out by Save The Children has shown what Syria's civil war and refugee crisis would look like if it was set in the West.

Four World War II mines have been discovered on the seabed during a Navy exercise in Auckland's Hauraki Gulf this week.

A former fighter pilot whose bold march against the Russian soldiers occupying his airbase was one of the most stunning acts of resistance in this phoney war.

Unable to intervene militarily and with no direct economic levers to pull, the West believes it is successfully pressing Russia in the Ukraine crisis.

An Auckland woman born in Ukraine says residents in her home country are ready to take up arms against Russian occupiers.

Parliament unanimously backed a motion from Foreign Minister Murray McCully expressing "deep concern" about the situation in the Ukraine.

Prime Minister John Key says New Zealand athletes should complete in the Sochi Winter Paralympics despite Russia's intervention in Ukraine.

If things continue to deteriorate, NZ's chief envoy in Moscow could be recalled. Ultimately, the Russian ambassador could be expelled, writes John Armstrong.

They stood together with their arms linked: a priest, a former soldier, two housewives and a teacher.

President Viktor Yanukovych has defiantly refused a chorus of calls from global leaders and opposition parties.

What's happening in Syria today is an abomination, one that the world is watching coldly from a distance, writes Professor Stephen Hawking.

It seems wrong, and decidedly odd, that the Government should be cancelling the passports of New Zealanders who have gone to fight in the Syrian civil war.

Kiwis who travel to Syria to fight with rebel forces against the Assad regime are being misinformed by recruiters over social media, a Syrian living in Auckland says.

Aid workers braved mortar and small arms fire to evacuate Syrian civilians from a besieged area of the city of Homs.

Prime Minister says Kiwis returning from Syria deemed to have been `radicalised' will be monitored.

Soaring defence budgets in China and Russia mean that global military spending is growing for the first time in five years, according to forecasts.

Al-Qaeda has disavowed its offshoot in Syria, seeking to distance itself from a group too extreme even for the organisation founded by Osama bin Laden.

Britain should not have gone to war in 1914 and the decision to do so was the "biggest error in modern history", according to historian Niall Ferguson.

Syrian negotiators have reached their first deal in peace talks in Geneva, an agreement to allow women and children to escape the siege of rebel-held districts of the city of Homs.

At least 40 Aboriginal soldiers fought at Gallipoli - but you wouldn't know it.

Newly published documents from World War I reveal an often overlooked side of the conflict - the stories of thousands of men who pleaded not to go and fight.

The United States Army is considering replacing thousands of soldiers with robots as it adjusts to sweeping troop cuts.

The United States and Gulf countries have been secretly backing rebel efforts to destroy al-Qaeda's most extreme wing in Syria, diplomats and rebels involved in the plan say.

The Syrian regime of President Bashar al-Assad has funded and co-operated with al-Qaeda in a complex double game even as the terrorists fight Damascus.