My name is Maria, and I’m addicted to war. I had my first taste of combat shortly after I turned 23, in the former Soviet republic of Georgia. From then on, war was my constant companion, friend and spiritual adviser.

DUSHANBE, Tajikistan –  Private Pavel Mikheyev will never know what hit him. Walking home throughthe town of Kurgan-Tyube, in Tajikistan, last week, the Russian soldier was caught in [...]

On the other side of the electrified barbed-wire fence is a mine field, a couple of hundred yards of brush, the Pyanj river, and Afghanistan. All along the 620-mile border, Russian soldiers peer nervously through binoculars and night scopes, from observation towers, out of trenches, and from behind artillery equipment.

Tadzhikistan’s Parliament removed the acting president by an overwhelming vote Thursday and replaced him with the country’s third leader since the collapse of the Soviet Union.