It is a strategy built around a contradiction. Russia’s attacks on Europe aim to make war feel closer, without starting it. To provoke, without forcing a response. To alarm, without causing a real change in behavior.

L IFE IS NEWLY, intensely, disrupted in Kyiv. Wailing sirens and screeching apps that warn of incoming strikes are common sounds all over. Explosions at petrol and railway stations, shopping malls, offices and apartment blocks are a constant backdrop. Some reports suggest there is a new exodus of families from the capital to safer parts west.

For the Kremlin, the election of 450 deputies to the lower house of parliament, the Duma, is important. This is the first parliamentary election here since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Russians are braced for what may follow for the military and economy after a parliamentary election that the Kremlin sees as a means of legitimizing its policies.

The president's comments to reporters in Ireland come as the average price of diesel in the U.S. climbed above $6 a gallon.

Chief national security correspondent Jennifer Griffin joins ‘The Faulkner Focus’ to discuss the growing threat of orbital warfare after the U.S. confirmed it has deployed weapons in orbit. She examines the security implications as concerns over China and Russia’s space capabilities continue to mount.

Ukrainian forces struck two Russian S-400 launchers in the Vygonychi district of Russia's Bryansk Oblast, Ukraine's General Staff claimed on Sept. 17. The strikes took place overnight on Sept. 16-17,

In May, Russia's state-controlled polling agency VTsIOM (Russian Public Opinion Research Center) changed its methodology after Putin’s approval rating dropped to 65.5 percent, a slump of 12.2 percentage points since December and the lowest level since the start of the war.