All eyes were on Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin as they met for the first time in more than six years, the Russian president visiting the US for high-stakes talks that could reshape the war in Ukraine.

The two leaders greeted each other with a handshake after stepping off their planes at the Elmendorf-Richardson military base in Anchorage, Alaska – and a smiling Trump even applauded Putin as he approached him on a red carpet that had been laid out.

It is exactly the moment Putin has craved, writes Moscow correspondent Ivor Bennett. The Russian leader has been welcomed on to US soil as an equal for a meeting of great powers.

Trump-Putin summit – latest updates

The red carpet, the handshake, the flypast – only North Korea would give an indicted war criminal a greeting like this.

It marks the end of his isolation from the West in the most spectacular fashion.

Instead of sanctions, Trump has rewarded the Russian president with the equivalent of a state visit.

The pariah looks more like a partner.

US correspondent James Matthews, reporting from the ground in Alaska, describes the meeting on the tarmac as “extraordinary”.

There was the red carpet and more for a man with blood on his hands, he writes. Putin – aggressor, pariah and wanted for war crimes.

Quite the CV for a man who was applauded on to the airbase by his host, the US president.

It couldn’t have looked more cordial – a superpower moment with a smile and a shake between the men who hold peace in their hands.

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If that wasn’t enough, there followed a military flypast to dress the spectacle.

A smiling Putin seemed duly impressed, but what it says about the power dynamic in the relationship will trouble onlookers in Ukraine – and one moment they may have found particularly galling.

Posing for photographs with Trump before waiting media, Putin was asked: “Will you stop killing civilians?”

To which he smiled, and gave it a deaf ear

Ukraine says there will be no let-up in its punishing long-range drone attacks on Russia until Moscow agrees to peace.

The warning comes ahead of Vladimir Putin meeting Donald Trump in Alaska.

Ukraine war latest: Trump prepares for summit with Putin

It was made in a rare interview with one of the key commanders of Ukraine’s drone forces.

We met in an undisclosed location in woods outside Kyiv. Brigadier General Yuriy Shchygol is a wanted man.

There is a quiet, understated but steely resolve about this man hunted by Russia. His eyes are piercing and he speaks with precision and determination.

His drone units have done billions of dollars of damage to Russia’s economy and their range and potency is increasing exponentially.

“Operations”, he said euphemistically, “will develop if Russia refuses a just peace and stays on Ukrainian territory”.

“Initially, we had a few drones a month, capable of striking targets 100 to 250 kilometres away. Today, we have drones capable of flying 3,000 to 4,000 kilometres, and that’s not the limit, it’s constrained only by fuel supply, which can be increased”.

His teams had just carried off one of their most complicated and most devastating strikes yet. A massive fire was raging in an oil refinery in Volgograd, or Stalingrad as it was once called.

“If the refinery is completely destroyed, it will be one of the largest operations conducted,” Brigadier General Shchygol said. “There have been other major targets too, in Saratov and Akhtubinsk. Those refineries are now either non-operational or functioning at only 5% of capacity.”

Oil is potentially Vladimir Putin’s Achilles heel. So much of his economy and war effort is dependent on it. Donald Trump could cripple Russia tomorrow if he sanctioned it but so has appeared reluctant to do so, a source of constant frustration for the Ukrainians.

Military activity on both sides has increased as diplomacy has picked up pace.

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In another long-range attack, Ukraine says it hit the port of Olya in Russia’s Astrakhan region, striking a ship loaded with drone parts and ammunition sent from Iran.

But on the ground, Russian forces have made a surprise advance of more than 15km into Ukrainian territory.

Ukraine says the intrusion can be contained, but it adds to fears about its ability to hold back the Russians along the 1000-mile frontline.

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Russia launches almost nightly drone attacks on Ukraine’s cities, killing civilians and striking residential targets.

General Yuriy says Ukraine picks targets that hurt Russia’s war effort, and it is constantly honing its capability.

“Each operation”, he says, “uses multiple types of drones simultaneously, some fly higher, others lower. That is our technical edge.”

How satisfying, I asked, was it to watch so much enemy infrastructure go up in smoke? He answered with detached professionalism.

“It does not bring me pleasure, war can never be a source of enjoyment. Each of us has tasks we could fulfil in peacetime. But this is war; it doesn’t bring satisfaction. However, it benefits the state and harms our enemy.”

Whatever happens in Alaska, General Yuriy and his teams will continue pioneering drone warfare, hitting Vladimir Putin’s economy where it hurts most.

India’s Prime Minister has warned Pakistan it will not succumb to, or tolerate, nuclear blackmail.

In Narendra Modi’s 12th consecutive speech from the ramparts of Delhi’s iconic Red Fort, he addressed the nation celebrating its 79th Independence Day from colonial Britain.

He laid emphasis on ‘Atmanirbhar’, or self-reliance, in defending India by increasing and developing a more powerful weapons system for security.

Mr Modi said: “India has decided, we will not tolerate nuclear blackmail. We have established a new normal. Now we will not distinguish between terrorists and those who nurture and support terrorists. Both are enemies of humanity”

This comes on the back of the conflict in May after the killing of 26 people by terrorists in Pahalgam, Kashmir. In retaliation, India launched attacks on terrorist infrastructure across the border.

Pakistan retaliated, which quickly escalated into both countries launching a series of missiles, armed drones and heavy gunfire on each other.

After four days of fighting, a ceasefire was agreed to between the two nuclear-armed neighbours that have fought wars and many skirmishes over decades.

US President Donald Trump intervened saying: “I know the leaders of Pakistan and India. I know [them] very well. And they’re in the midst of a trade deal, and yet they’re talking about nuclear weapons… this is crazy.

“I’m not doing a trade deal with you if you’re going to have war, and that’s a war that spreads to other countries, you’ll get nuclear dust. When they start using nuclear weapons, that stuff blows all over the place and really bad things happen.”

Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif immediately thanked the American president for the ceasefire and bringing about peace and stability in the region, also recommending him for the Nobel Peace Prize as a genuine peacemaker and his commitment to conflict resolution.

Mr Modi’s government is yet to acknowledge President Trump’s intervention and maintains that the Pakistani military initiated the ceasefire process and India agreed to halt military action.

In parliament, India’s Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar said: “There was no leader… nobody in the world that asked India to stop its operations. This is something the prime minister also said. There was no linkage of trade in any of these conversations and there was no talk between the prime minister and President Trump.”

Mr Modi’s speech is an audit of the year gone by and his future plans of strengthening the economy and of self-reliance in the face of very high tariffs imposed by President Trump for buying discounted Russian oil.

He spoke of bringing in structural reforms, welfare schemes for farmers, women’s empowerment, employment, technology, clean energy and the green industry, but also raised concerns about rising obesity levels.

India has the fourth largest economy in the world and is expected to be the third largest before Mr Modi’s current term ends in 2029.

Although when it comes to GDP per capita income, which serves as an indicator of individual prosperity, India is ranked 144 out of 196 countries.

The big economy illusion of GDP size has little to do with the well-being and fortune of its people, something the government refuses to acknowledge.

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In its 2024 report, Paris-based World Inequality Lab said the inequality in India now is worse than under British rule. The research stated that 1% of the wealthiest Indians hold 40% of its wealth and enjoy a quarter of the nation’s income.

Comparing the ‘British Raj’ to the ‘Billionaire Raj’, the study said there are now 271 billionaires in the country and 94 new ones were added the previous year. The rise of top-end inequality in India has been particularly pronounced in terms of wealth concentration in the Modi years between 2014-15 and 2022-23.

With over 1.46 billion people, India is the most populous country, making up 17.8% of the global population.

More than half the country is under 30, and it has one of the lowest old-age dependency ratios, enabling productivity, higher savings and investment.

A key challenge for the government is to match employment with its growing young population. It’s even more critical as artificial intelligence (AI) is increasingly used in production and services, eating into jobs.

Last week, President Trump levied an additional 25% tariff on India for buying Russian oil, taking the total tariff level to over 50% and hitting Indian manufacturing and trade.

“I don’t care what India does with Russia. They can take their dead economies down together,” the president said.

Since the Ukraine war, India has been buying discounted Russian crude and its imports have risen from 3% in 2021 to about 35% to 40% in 2024.

Defending its stance, India says it does so for its energy security and to protect millions of its citizens from rising costs.

It’s a national day of celebration with patriotic fervour all around, but also a grim reminder of the tragedy of partition – the trauma of which still haunts its people.