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He averaged 25.6 points, 10.3 assists and 10.1 rebounds, whilst also scoring 25 triple-doubles throughout the regular season as the Oklahoma City Thunder finished fourth in the Western Conference. The exclamation point was that Russell managed to achieve such a feat while playing alongside Paul George and Carmelo Anthony, both of whom are known for the impact they provide to the game. When they both arrived in 2017, they made clear the team leader was Westbrook and were equally excited about joining forces with him too....

The seven-time All-Star, who exercised his player option ($36.5 million) for the 2022-23 campaign, played a central role in the Nets’ dysfunctional season, which ended in a first-round sweep against the Celtics. Despite his immense talent, there hasn’t been much of a market for Irving outside of one interested team: the Lakers. Los Angeles is also coming off a disappointing season and clearly needs to make roster upgrades in order to re-emerge as a championship contender....

On Wednesday night, the explosive Thunder guard made his return to the court following surgery to repair a facial fracture he suffered in Friday’s 115-112 loss to the Trail Blazers. And boy, did he return. Remember, this is the same guy who appeared to have a massive dent in his face Friday night. Russell Westbrook is probably not from this planet.

The Seattle natives, who built a poster-making empire back in the day with star athletes such as Bo Jackson, Kirk Gibson and Brian Bosworth, used their retro pop-culture style in putting a face-painted Wilson in camo, a la Rambo, with the words, “Armed and Dangeruss.” MORE: Russell Wilson and Ciara images | NFL training camp: Questions, answers by team The Wilson posters — $20 a pop — benefit the Seahawks star’s “Why Not Your?...

Alexander Darchiyev, director of the North America department at the Russian Foreign Ministry, suggested that the era beset by hair-trigger tensions over the threat of nuclear war was what Moscow and Washington, D.C. should aspire to as the war Moscow started in Ukraine rages on. “We are open to honest and mutually respectful dialogue to the extent that the United States is ready for this,” he told Interfax. “Perhaps it would be worth recalling the well-forgotten principle that worked during the Cold War —peaceful coexistence,” he said, and the “values ​​and ideals that divide us…should not be imposed on each other....

The Russian Cup final was played not only on Victory Day — when Russia marks the Soviet defeat of Nazi Germany — but on part of the site of the Battle of Stalingrad, the costly and crushing Soviet victory which marked a turning point in World War II. At halftime of the game between FC Tosno and Avangard Kursk, there was a ceremony to honor surviving World War II veterans....

Peskov, as well as Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, have previously said only conventional weapons would be used in Ukraine, although Russian state television, which reflects Kremlin thinking, has repeatedly talked up the prospect of a nuclear war. But on Thursday, Peskov evaded a question about the prospect of a nuclear war, telling RIA Novosti: “I believe that the media should be professional enough not to ask such questions, and those who are being interviewed should be wise enough not to answer such questions....

Russia’s 3rd Army was established in June and it consists mostly of volunteer units of soldiers who were offered signing-on bonuses and salaries much higher than the Russian average. Based in Mulino in the Nizhny Novgorod region east of Moscow, the 15,000-strong 3rd Army Corps was the first major formation that was newly formed to make up for Russian troop losses. But on Tuesday, the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine painted a picture of a drunken unit beset by equipment difficulties....

The estimate, released on Monday by the defense ministry and later published by Ukrainska Pravda, places Russian casualties at 62,870 in addition to tens of thousands of destroyed military vehicles and equipment. Published on day 230 of the conflict, the new numbers come as Ukrainian leaders have vowed to maintain their resolve after Russia launched missile strikes on cities across Ukraine. The number of Russian troop losses has risen by 370 since Sunday, according to the estimate....

Earlier in October Ukrainian intelligence officials said the Wagner Group had started recruiting convicts with diseases including HIV and Hepatitis C. They added that Russia’s private army were marking these soldiers with bracelets on their hands. Referencing the reports in its Sunday, October 30 update on the Ukraine war, the U.K. Ministry of Defence said the Wagner Group appears to have changed the way it recruits soldiers. It read: “On 27 October 2022, Russian mogul Yevgeny Prigozhin posted online, apparently admitting allegations that his private military company, the Wagner Group, had altered its standards and was recruiting Russian convicts suffering from serious diseases including HIV and Hepatitis C....

Russian Foreign Minister Maria Zakharova on Friday blasted the $28.9 billion budget proposed for the Pentagon’s nuclear modernization program, along with the additional $15.6 billion earmarked for the Department of Energy National Nuclear Security Administration’s efforts to revamp the U.S. nuclear warhead arsenal. Among the weapons being developed and deployed is the W76-2, a nuclear warhead with lower yields that Zakharova and others contend could make them a more readily-available option in the event of a conflict....

The vessel involved, described only as a deep-sea research submersible of the Northern Fleet that was measuring underwater terrain in Russian waters, and the location of the incident remain unclear. Local media has speculated on some of the details as Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu to conduct a full investigation. But as the public eagerly awaited to hear more about what happened, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters Wednesday not to expect much....

Video shows a large fire after the apparent explosion linked to a gas pipeline in separatist area of Luhansk in Donetsk. The preliminary reports come from Russian media. A second explosion was heard in the region minutes later. This incident comes after U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned of more “false flag” attacks from Russia to lay a pretext for war with Ukraine. “As of this moment, I’m convinced he’s made the decision,” Biden said during a press conference Friday afternoon from the White House....

The Main Intelligence Directorate of Ukraine’s Defense Ministry wrote in a new report Thursday that residents of Transnistria are refusing to sign contracts with the Russian army despite promises of “high cash payments, social packages, and likely housing.” The report also said that there had been an increase in the number of desertion cases among what it described as the “operational group of Russian troops in Transnistria.” “And due to the limited number of military contingents, the Russians cannot attract the necessary resources to search for and return the missing,” it added....

Navalny, an anti-corruption opposition leader and critic of President Vladmir Putin, accused the government of poisoning him with a chemical nerve agent after he collapsed on a flight over Siberia in August. Navalny was taken to recover at a hospital in Germany, where officials concluded that he had been poisoned by a type of Novichok nerve agent known to be used by Russian agents. The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, along with laboratories in France and Sweden, have also assessed this to be true....

“Members of the Russian State Duma (lower house of parliament) are indignant at this idea – to ban our team from taking part in the Olympic Games. Tomorrow we will discuss that issue at our session and will obviously pass a corresponding resolution,” he told journalists. Earlier, Spiegel Online cited participants in the International Olympic Committee (IOC)) summit to be held on June 21 as saying that the meeting is likely to raise the issue of imposing sanctions on the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) and suspension of Russian sports federations from the Olympic Games to be held between August 5-21 in Rio, reports Tass....

Russian forces have increasingly targeted Ukraine’s power grid with missile attacks, as Moscow’s politicians previously told Russian state media television that they supported shuttering Ukraine’s energy, resulting in the starvation and freezing of Ukrainians. The missiles have been shown exploding near energy facilities, damaging the infrastructure. On Wednesday, Kyiv was subject to an attack that killed six, injured 30 and destroyed critical infrastructure. The attacks damaged Kyiv’s power supply, and many residents and organizations were left without power....

Drops in pressure were first detected Monday by the operators of the Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 pipelines, funded and constructed by the Russian government, which have been at the center of the geopolitical storm fueled by Russia’s war in Ukraine. While neither pipeline was in operation at the time of the incidents, they contained gas under pressure within them, and they come at a time of heightened tensions after Russia held illegitimate “referendums” on its annexation of regions in eastern Ukraine....

The wedding is mounted in traditional Punjabi style, but underneath the formal fanfare simmer dysfunctional-family tensions, deep dark secrets, “upstairs downstairs” intrigues and illicit affairs. On the very eve of the nuptials, the bride drives off for a fling with her married lover. The wedding planner falls in love with the family servant, and the bride’s bright, troubled cousin (Shefali Shetty) brings a painful family secret to the surface, forcing the patriarch (Naseerud-din Shah) to face a difficult choice between family honor and personal morality....