Russia | Pakistan

United States President Donald Trump on Sunday said he would defend Poland and the Baltic states in case of an escalation from Russia, following Moscow’s incursion into Estonia’s airspace. Asked whether he would help defend the EU members if Russia intensifies hostilities, Trump told reporters: “Yeah, I would. I would.” Estonia has requested an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council on Monday following Friday’s incursion. Three Russian MiG-31 fighters violated Estonian airspace over the Gulf of Finland, triggering complaints of a dangerous new provocation from the European Union and Nato, but a denial from Moscow. Italian F-35 fighters attached to Nato’s air defence support mission in the Baltic states, along with Swedish and Finnish aircraft, were scrambled to intercept the Russian jets and warn them off. Asked whether he had been briefed on the situation in Estonia, Trump answered in the affirmative and added: “We don’t like it.” His statement came about two weeks after some 17 Russian drones violated...

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said he would meet US counterpart Donald Trump on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly next week as Russia intensified attacks across his country. Russia carried out one of its largest aerial attacks overnight, firing 40 missiles and some 580 drones at Ukraine in a barrage that killed at least three people and wounded dozens, Zelensky said on Saturday. Zelensky said he would hold “a meeting with the President of the United States”, adding he would discuss security guarantees for Ukraine and sanctions on Russia during the talks with Trump. Ukraine has insisted on Western-backed security guarantees to prevent future Russian attacks. Russian President Vladimir Putin has meanwhile warned that any Western troops in Ukraine would be unacceptable and legitimate targets. A US-led push for a quick end to the war has stalled and Russia effectively ruled out a meeting between Putin and Zelensky — something that Kyiv says is the only way towards peace. “We expect san...

Russia fired its biggest-ever aerial barrage at Ukraine early on Sunday, killing four people and setting government offices in Kyiv ablaze, an attack Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky warned would prolong the war. Flames could be seen rising from the roof of the sprawling government complex that houses Ukraine’s cabinet of ministers in the heart of the city — the first time it has been hit during the three-and-a-half-year conflict. Drone strikes also damaged several high-rise buildings in the Ukrainian capital, according to emergency services. Russia has shown no sign of halting its onslaught despite efforts by the United States to broker a peace deal, and Kyiv residents have become hardened to the daily rhythm of strikes and alerts. “This is already routine for us, unfortunately,” Olga, a 30-year-old resident of a damaged building, told AFP after the latest strikes. An AFP reporter saw helicopters dropping buckets of water over the government building’s roof, as emergency services rushed to the scene. E...

United States President Donald Trump on Friday said India and Russia seem to have been “lost” to China after their leaders met with Chinese President Xi Jinping this week, highlighting his split from New Delhi and Moscow as Beijing pushes a new world order. “Looks like we’ve lost India and Russia to deepest, darkest China. May they have a long and prosperous future together!” Trump wrote in a social media post accompanying a photo of the three other world leaders together at Xi’s summit in China. Asked about Trump’s post, the Indian foreign ministry spokesperson told reporters in New Delhi that he had no comment. Representatives for Beijing and Moscow could not be immediately reached for comment on Trump’s post on his Truth Social platform. Xi hosted more than 20 leaders of non-Western countries for the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) in the Chinese port city of Tianjin, including Russian President Vladimir Putin and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Putin and Modi were seen holding hands at the su...

China defended on Thursday its decision to invite the leaders of Russia and North Korea to World War II commemorations, which President Donald Trump accused them of using to conspire against the United States. Trump wrote a testy Truth Social post addressing his Chinese counterpart after North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and Russia’s Vladimir Putin flanked Xi Jinping at a massive parade in Beijing showcasing Chinese military hardware. “Give my warmest regards to Vladimir Putin, and Kim Jong Un, as you conspire against The United States of America,” Trump wrote. Asked about Trump’s post, Beijing’s foreign ministry said on Thursday “foreign guests” had been invited to commemorate 80 years since the end of World War II. “It is to work together with peace-loving countries and peoples to remember history, cherish the memory of the martyrs, cherish peace, and create the future,” spokesman Guo Jiakun told reporters. “China’s development of diplomatic relations with any country is never directed against any third party...

ISLAMABAD - Prime Minster Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif Tuesday emphasized that Pakistan attached immense importance to its relations with Russia and said that it was heartening to note that both countries had almost similarity of approaches on various global platforms.

Russia on Friday ruled out an immediate meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, as diplomatic tension with him escalated and US mediation efforts appeared to stall. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said “no meeting” between President Vladimir Putin and Zelensky was planned, as Nato chief Mark Rutte visited Kyiv, largely to discuss security guarantees for Ukraine. United States President Donald Trump had raised expectations for a swift summit between the Russian and Ukrainian presidents by saying earlier in the week they had agreed to meet, but on Friday compared the two men to “oil and vinegar”. “They don’t get along too well, for obvious reasons,” he told reporters in Washington. Lavrov also poured cold water on hopes for direct Putin-Zelensky talks to resolve the conflict, now in its fourth year, by questioning the Ukrainian president’s legitimacy and repeating the Kremlin’s maximalist claims. “There is no meeting planned,” Lavrov said in an interview with NBC’s ‘Meet the Press with Krist...

Afghanistan’s Taliban authorities marked the fourth anniversary of their takeover on Friday, buoyed by Russia’s first official recognition of their government, a step they hope other countries will follow. Parades were planned in several cities, including in central Kabul, where helicopters were set to drop flowers and the white-and-black flags of the Taliban’s “Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan” fluttered across the city to mark their capture of the capital on August 15, 2021. Taliban members gathered on Thursday night at a square near the shuttered US embassy — seat of their enemy during their 20-year insurgency — waving flags and setting off fireworks, an AFP journalist said. The military parade held last year with much fanfare at the Bagram airbase, once the linchpin for US-led operations, was cancelled this year, without public explanation. The Taliban government remains largely isolated on the global stage over restrictions imposed under their interpretation of Islamic law, targeting women in particular. V...

Russia urged caution on Monday after United States President Donald Trump said he would deploy two nuclear submarines following an online row with former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev. Trump said he had ordered the deployment in response to what he alleged were highly provocative comments by Medvedev, saying the submarines would be positioned in “appropriate regions”. Trump did not say whether he meant nuclear-powered or nuclear-armed submarines. He also did not elaborate on the locations, which are kept secret by the US military. “Russia is very attentive to the topic of nuclear non-proliferation. And we believe that everyone should be very, very cautious with nuclear rhetoric,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters, including from AFP, on Monday. The row between Medvedev and Trump erupted against the backdrop of the US leader’s ultimatum for Russia to end its military offensive in Ukraine or face fresh economic sanctions, including on its remaining trading partners. Medvedev — one of Russia’s m...

A top aide to United States President Donald Trump on Sunday accused India of effectively financing Russia’s war in Ukraine by purchasing oil from Moscow, after the US leader escalated pressure on New Delhi to stop buying Russian oil. “What he (Trump) said very clearly is that it is not acceptable for India to continue financing this war by purchasing the oil from Russia,” said Stephen Miller, deputy chief of staff at the White House and one of Trump’s most influential aides. Miller’s criticism was some of the strongest yet by the Trump administration about one of the United States’ major partners in the Indo-Pacific. “People will be shocked to learn that India is basically tied with China in purchasing Russian oil. That’s an astonishing fact,” Miller said on Fox News programme ‘Sunday Morning Futures’. The Indian Embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Indian government sources told Reuters on Saturday that New Delhi will keep purchasing oil from Moscow despite US threats....

Russia’s Ministry for Emergency Services lifted a tsunami warning for the Kamchatka Peninsula on Sunday after a 7.0-magnitude earthquake hit the nearby Kuril Islands. The ministry had said earlier on the Telegram messaging app that expected wave heights were low, but warned people to move away from the shore. The Pacific Tsunami Warning System, which gauged the quake at 7.0, said, however, there was no tsunami warning after the quake. The US Geological Survey also said the earthquake was at a magnitude of 7. Overnight, the Krasheninnikov Volcano in Kamchatka erupted for the first time in 600 years, Russia’s RIA state news agency and scientists reported on Sunday. Both incidents could be connected to the huge earthquake that rocked Russia’s Far East last week, which triggered tsunami warnings as far away as French Polynesia and Chile, and was followed by an eruption of Klyuchevskoy, the most active volcano on the Kamchatka Peninsula. The Kuril Islands stretch from the southern tip of the Kamchatka Peninsula. R...

United States President Donald Trump said on Tuesday that the US would start imposing tariffs and other measures on Russia “10 days from today” if Moscow showed no progress toward ending its more than three-year-long war in Ukraine. Trump first announced on Monday that he was shortening the initial 50-day deadline he set a month ago for action from Moscow, and mentioned a new deadline of 10 to 12 days. On Tuesday, he told reporters he had not heard a response from Russia. Speaking aboard Air Force One, Trump said he was not worried about the potential impact of Russian sanctions on the oil market or prices, vowing to boost domestic oil production to offset any impact. “I don’t know if it’s going to affect Russia, because [Russian President Vladimir Putin] wants to, obviously, probably keep the war going,” Trump said. “But we’re going to put on tariffs and the various things that you put on.” The US president, who has in the past spoken about having a good relationship with Putin, has grown increasingly frustr...

A magnitude 8.8 earthquake struck off Russia’s Far Eastern Kamchatka Peninsula on Wednesday, the strongest in the region since 1952, damaging buildings and generating a tsunami of up to 4 metres that prompted warnings and evacuations in Hawaii, Japan and across the Pacific Ocean. Several people were injured in the remote Russian region, while much of Japan’s eastern seaboard — devastated by a powerful earthquake and tsunami in 2011 — was ordered to evacuate as Tsunami waves hit the Pacific coast of the country. Meanwhile, Hawaii recorded tsunami waves measuring up to 5ft, according to the Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre. However, no waves of consequence have hit Hawaii yet. What we know so far: 8.8-magnitude quake hit Russia’s Kamchatka peninsula at 8:24am local time (4am PKT) Several people injured, no casualties reported Tsunami warnings issued in Japan, Mexico, Hawaii, Ecuador, China, Chile, Costa Rica Tsunami waves up to 1.7m hit Japan, Hawaii, California; 3-4m recorded in parts of Kamchatka Russian mayor ...

Ukrainian drones targeted St Petersburg on Sunday, Russian authorities said, forcing the airport to close for five hours as Russian President Vladimir Putin marked the country’s Navy Day in the city, despite the earlier cancellation of its naval parade due to security concerns. St Petersburg usually holds a large-scale, televised navy parade on Navy Day, which features a flotilla of warships and military vessels sailing down the Neva River and is attended by Putin. Last year, Russia suspected a Ukrainian plan to attack the city’s parade, according to state television. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov confirmed on Sunday that this year’s parade had been cancelled for security reasons, following first reports of its cancellation in early July. Putin arrived at the city’s historic naval headquarters on Sunday by a patrol speed boat, from where he followed drills involving more than 150 vessels and 15,000 military personnel in the Pacific and Arctic Oceans and Baltic and Caspian Seas. “Today we are marking this ho...

A passenger plane carrying nearly 50 people crashed in a remote area of Russia’s far eastern Amur region on Thursday, killing all on board, authorities said. The plane, a Soviet-made twin-propeller Antonov-24, went down in remote, thickly forested terrain, leaving a column of smoke pouring from the crash site and no signs of survivors, according to state media and videos published by investigators. The Angara Airlines flight was headed to the town of Tynda from the city of Blagoveshchensk when it disappeared from radar at around 1pm local time (0400 GMT). A rescue helicopter later spotted the burning fuselage of the plane on a forested mountain slope about 15 kilometres south of Tynda’s airport. Videos published by Russian investigators showed smoke rising from the crash site and what appeared to be fragments of the plane strewn across the forest floor. A search and rescue team arrived only hours after the crash at the remote, hard-to-reach site and found no evidence of survivors, according to the state news ...

U.S. President Donald Trump accused former President Barack Obama of “treason” on Tuesday, accusing him, without providing evidence, of leading an effort to falsely tie him to Russia and undermine his 2016 presidential campaign. A spokesperson for Obama denounced Trump’s claims, saying “these bizarre allegations are ridiculous and a weak attempt at distraction.” While Trump has frequently […]

A series of powerful earthquakes struck off the coast of Russia’s far east on Sunday, triggering a tsunami alert, the US Geological Survey said. Earlier 5.0-magnitude and 6.7-magnitude earthquakes did not initially trigger a tsunami alert, but were followed by a 7.4-magnitude quake at 0849 GMT (1:49pm PKT), prompting the USGS to warn that “hazardous tsunami waves are forecast for some coasts”. The USGS said it expected waves of between 30 centimetres and one metre (up to 3.3 feet) on Russian coasts, and less than 30cm (one foot) in Japan and the US state of Hawaii. The epicentre of the quakes was in the Pacific Ocean, around 150 kilometres east of the city of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, it said. The initial earthquakes were followed by several aftershocks, including another 6.7-magnitude quake, said USGS. Russia’s emergency situations ministry wrote on Telegram that it expected waves of up to 60cm in the Commander Islands in the southwestern part of the Bering Sea, and waves of 15 to 40cm in the Kamchatka penin...

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Saturday that Kyiv has sent Moscow an offer to hold another round of peace talks next week, and that he wanted to speed up negotiations for a ceasefire. Ukraine and Russia have held two rounds of talks in Istanbul over the past five months. They have agreed to swap […]

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un offered Moscow his full support for its war in Ukraine during talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, Pyongyang state media said on Sunday. Lavrov’s visit to North Korea was the latest in a series of high-profile trips by top Moscow officials as both countries deepen military and political ties amid Russia’s offensive against Kyiv. Pyongyang sent thousands of troops to Russia’s Kursk region to oust Ukrainian forces and has also provided the Russian army with artillery shells and missiles. Moscow said Lavrov’s talks with Kim were held in a “warm comradely atmosphere”. Lavrov expressed “sincere gratitude to Pyongyang” for its role in Kursk and support of Russia’s operation, the Russian foreign ministry said in a statement. Moscow also said the two sides “agreed” that the West was to blame for “the growing tension” on the Korean peninsula. The ministry earlier posted a video on Telegram of the two men shaking hands and greeting each other with a hug. It said the talks w...

Pakistan and Russia signed an agreement on Friday to revive and expand the Pakistan Steel Mills project in Karachi — originally built in 1973 with soviet assistance — signalling both countries’ commitment to their “long-standing” industrial partnership. In May, Pakistan and Russia had agreed to revive PSM, which ceased its operations in 2015, according to a press release by the Press Information Department (PID). In 2024, following the official closure of the mill, Sindh sought Russia’s assistance in restoring the ageing infrastructure, which had been incurring losses for decades. The agreement to revive the defunct entity was signed at the Pakistan Embassy in Moscow by Secretary Industries and Production, Saif Anjum and General Director of Industries Engineering LLC of Russia, Vadim Velichko, according to a press release issued by the Ministry of Industries and Production. “Reviving PSM with Russia’s support reflects our shared history and commitment to a stronger industrial future,” said Special Assistant t...