Moscow | Pakistan

Ukraine on Thursday launched its largest drone attack on Moscow in years, sparking fires, hitting a major oil refinery and forcing evacuations at the country’s largest airport. Russia vowed to retaliate for the attack as AFP reporters saw dramatic scenes of black smoke billowing over the capital’s southern skyline and drops of black rain mixed with soot falling from the sky. At least 17 people were wounded in the strikes, which also set a shopping centre and apartment building ablaze, authorities said. The attack came as Russian President Vladimir Putin hosted Southeast Asian leaders at a summit in the central city of Kazan, about 700 kilometres east of Moscow. @dawn.today Scores of Ukrainian drones bore down on Moscow on Thursday (June 18), hitting the Russian capital's oil refinery for the second time this week in what Kyiv cast as a demonstration of its growing capabilities that should force Russia to accept a peace deal. A video posted on social media showed a moment of explosion at the refinery in the de...

Russia said on Monday that an oil tanker carrying 100,000 metric tons of crude oil had arrived in Cuba and that Moscow would stand by its friends by working on further supplies despite a US blockade of the island. The US cut off Venezuela’s oil exports to Cuba after toppling deposed Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro on January 3, and US President Donald Trump threatened to slap punishing tariffs on any other country that sent crude to Cuba. But Trump on Sunday signalled he was reversing course and expressed sympathy for the Cuban people’s need for energy. The Anatoly Kolodkin was waiting to offload at the port of Matanzas, Russia’s transport ministry said. The Kremlin said it had raised the issue of the tanker during talks with the US but that Russia felt it had a duty to support “friends” in Cuba. “This issue was indeed raised in advance during contacts with our American partners,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters. Cuba has not received an oil tanker in three months, according to President Mi...

A car bomb killed a senior Russian general in southern Moscow on Monday morning, the latest high-profile army figure to be blown up in a blast that came just hours after Russian and Ukrainian delegates held separate talks in Miami on a plan to end the war. Kyiv has not commented on the incident, but Russian investigators said they were probing whether the blast was “linked” to “Ukrainian special forces”. The attack was similar to other assassinations of generals and pro-war figures that have either been claimed, or are widely believed to have been orchestrated, by Ukraine. Lieutenant General Fanil Sarvarov, 56, head of the Russian General Staff’s training department, was killed when the bomb, which had been placed under his parked car, detonated in a residential quarter of southern Moscow. AFP reporters at the scene saw a mangled white Kia SUV, its doors and back window blown out. The frame was twisted and charred from the blast. The scene had been cordoned off by security forces, and investigators were sifti...

ISLAMABAD - Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar will represent Pakistan at the upcoming meeting of the Council of Heads of Government (CHG) of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), scheduled for 17–18 November 2025 in Moscow.

Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar arrived in Russian capital Moscow on Monday to attend the Council of Heads of Government (CHG) meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO). FM Dar was received by the Russian Deputy FM Mikhail Galuzin, Deputy Director of State Protocol Aleksander Prusov, Deputy Director of Second Asia Department of Russian Foreign Ministry Alexei Surovtsev and Pakistan Embassy officers. The Foreign Office (FO) said he would lead the Pakistani delegation at the summit, being held on November 17-18, at the invitation of Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Vladmirovich Mishustin. “The CHG will be attended by the heads of government of Belarus, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, the vice president of Iran, and the foreign ministers of Pakistan and India,” the statement said. Further, in addition to SCO member states, the heads of the governments of Mongolia, Bahrain, Egypt, Qatar, Kuwait and Turkmenistan will also be attending the meeting al...

Deputy Prime Minister Muhammad Ishaq Dar has left for Russia to attend the SCO Council of Heads of Government meeting commencing in Moscow today.

Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Senator Muhammad Ishaq Dar will lead Pakistan’s delegation to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) Council of Heads of Government (CHG) meeting in Moscow on November 17-18, 2025.

Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa told Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday he would honour all past deals struck between his country and Moscow, a pledge suggesting Moscow’s two main military bases in Syria are safe. Sharaa, who once headed the Syrian branch of al Qaeda and who toppled predecessor Bashar al-Assad, a close Russian ally, late last year, was speaking at the start of Kremlin talks with Putin, his first visit to Russia since coming to power. “There are bilateral relations and shared interests that bind us with Russia, and we respect all agreements made with it. We are working on redefining the nature of relations with Russia,” Sharaa, who was speaking in Arabic, told Putin. Putin told him that Moscow was ready to do all it could to act on what he called “many interesting and useful beginnings” that had already been discussed between the two sides when it came to renewing relations. The Kremlin chief also congratulated Sharaa on the fact that parliamentary elections were held earlier this ...

US President Donald Trump said Tuesday that Ukraine should not target Moscow, after the Kremlin charged that a new US plan to supply weapons to Kyiv along with sanctions threats against Russia would delay peace efforts.US President Donald Trump said Tuesday that Ukraine should not target Moscow, after the Kremlin charged that a new US […]

Russia’s Deputy Prime Minister Alexei Overchuk on Thursday said Pakistan and Russia were “natural allies”, stressing that Russian President Vladimir Putin views Islamabad as an important strategic partner in the areas of economy and energy, the Foreign Office said in a statement. In recent years, Russia and Pakistan have engaged in strengthening bilateral ties with each other. On June 3, Russian Foreign Min­ister Sergey Lavrov, in a meeting with Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Foreign Affairs Syed Tariq Fatemi, reaffirmed Russia’s desire to expand cooperation with Pakistan. Moscow’s growing engagement with Islamabad — including defe­nce deals, energy cooperation and regular joint military exercises — reflects a strategic shift to diversify partnerships across the region. In a high-level meeting with Ambassador Fatemi and the prime minister’s aide on Industries and Production, Haroon Akhtar Khan, in Moscow, the Russian DPM reaffirmed his country’s commitment towards deepening bilateral cooperation w...

A Belarusian man on Wednesday was arrested for allegedly picking up a one-year-old Afghan boy and throwing him to the ground in the arrivals hall at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport, inflicting spinal and cranial injuries, Britain’s The Daily Mirror newspaper reported. According to the newspaper, 31-year-old construction worker Vladimir Vitkov was arrested and confessed to “trying to murder” the child, who had arrived in Russia with his family after fleeing Iran due to its 12-day war with Israel. “Yazdan, aged 18 months, is now fighting for his life with serious skull fractures and spinal injuries,” The Mirror read, adding that Vitkov was on board the same flight as the child and his mother. Both The Mirror and British newspaper The Daily Mail reported that the boy suffered skull fractures and spinal injuries, with the latter reporting that the boy was “in a coma”. Graphic CCTV showed Vitkov picking up the boy before “hurling him to the ground of Moscow airport’s arrivals hall”. “The attacker — described as a ‘m...