South Africa shooting leaves 12 dead, including young child: Police
South Africa, grappling with entrenched crime and corruption, has one of the world’s highest murder rates. By News Agencies Published On 6 Dec 20256 Dec 2025 Click here to share on social media share2 Share Gunmen have killed at least 12 people, including a three-year-old boy, in a mass shooting at a bar near the South African city of Pretoria, according to police. Athlenda Mathe, spokesperson for the South African Police Service (SAPS), confirmed on Saturday that a total of 25 people were shot in the bar in Saulsville township, 18km (11 miles) west of Pretoria, adding that 14 had been taken to hospital. Recommended Stories list of 3 itemsend of list Police said three minors were among the dead in the shooting, including the three-year-old, a 12-year-old boy and a 16-year-old girl. The shooting occurred in what Mathe described as an “illegal shebeen” – or bar – within a hostel at about 4:30am (02:30 GMT), with three gunmen indiscriminately firing at a group of men who were drinking. Police were not alerted until about 6am (04:00 GMT). They said a manhunt had been launched and that the motive was as yet unknown. South Africa, the continent’s most industrialised nation, is grappling with entrenched crime and corruption driven by organised networks. The country has one of the world’s highest murder rates, spurred by robberies and gang violence, with some 63 people killed each day between April and September, according to police data. “We are having a serious challenge when it comes to these illegal and unlicensed liquor premises,” Mathe said, adding that they are where most mass shootings occur. “Innocent people also get caught up in the crossfire,” she told public broadcaster SABC. In October, two teenagers were killed and five wounded in a gang‑related shooting in Johannesburg, the country’s financial capital. Advertisement In another incident in May, gunmen killed eight customers at a tavern in the southeastern city of Durban. Last year, 18 relatives were shot dead at a rural homestead in the country’s Eastern Cape province. Many people in South Africa own licensed firearms for personal protection, but there are many more illegal guns in circulation. Adblock test (Why?)
Syria’s al-Sharaa promises peace and unity in face of Israeli aggression
Doha, Qatar – Syria’s President Ahmed al-Sharaa accused Israel of heightening regional tensions and fabricating external threats to divert attention from the “horrifying massacres” it has committed in Gaza. Speaking to CNN’s Christiane Amanpour on Saturday during the Newsmaker Interview at the Doha Forum, al-Sharaa said Israeli leaders “often exports crises to other countries” as they increasingly invoke security pretexts to expand military action. Recommended Stories list of 3 itemsend of list “They justify everything, using their security concerns, and they take October 7 and extrapolate it to everything that is happening around them,” he said. “Israel has become a country that is in a fight against ghosts.” Since the the Bashar al-Assad regime fell in December 2024, Israel has carried out frequent air strikes across Syria, killing hundreds of people, while also conducting ground operations in the south. Last month, Israeli forces killed at least 13 people in the Damascus countryside town of Beit Jinn. In addition, it has advanced deeper into Syrian territory and established numerous checkpoints, while illegally detaining Syrian citizens and holding them inside Israel. Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa, right, speaks during the opening day of the Doha Forum [AFP] Al-Sharaa said his administration had worked to de-escalate tensions with Israel since he assumed office, emphasising that “we sent positive messages regarding regional peace and stability”. “We’ve said very frankly that Syria will be a country of stability, and we are not concerned with being a country that exports conflict, including to Israel,” he said. Advertisement “However, in return, Israel has met us with extreme violence, and Syria has suffered massive violations of our airspace.” ‘Syria attacked by Israel, not the opposite’ Al-Sharaa said Israel must withdraw to where they were before the fall of al-Assad, and preserve the 1974 Disengagement Accord. The accord established a ceasefire following the October 1973 Yom Kippur war, creating a United Nations-monitored buffer zone on the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. “This agreement has held on for over 50 years,” al-Sharaa said, cautioning that efforts to replace it with new arrangements, such as a buffer or demilitarised zone, could push the region “into a serious and dangerous place”. “Who will protect that zone? Israel often says that they are afraid of coming under attack from southern Syria, so who will be protecting this buffer zone or this demilitarised zone, if the Syrian army or the Syrian forces are going to be there?” he asked. On Tuesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said a deal with Syria was within reach, but that he expected Syrian government forces to create a demilitarised buffer zone extending from the capital, Damascus, to Jabal al-Sheikh in the Israeli-occupied Syrian Golan Heights. “It is Syria that is being attacked by Israel and not the opposite,” he said. “Therefore, who has more right to claim a buffer zone and a pullout?” Unity in Syria On the question of unity, al-Sharaa said there was progress and ongoing challenges. “I believe Syria is living through its best days. We are talking about a country that’s aware, that’s conscious,” he said, while stressing that no country can achieve total “unanimity”. “This doesn’t occur even in advanced countries that are living through relative stability.”According to al-Sharaa, people in Syria “simply did not know each other well” due to issues inherited from the al-Assad regime. “We actually resorted to pardoning a large number of people and a large number of factions so that we can build a sustainable, safe and secure future for the Syrian people,” he added. Moreover, he rejected the notion the uprising against al-Assad was a “Sunni revolution”. “All the components of Syrian society were part of the revolution,” he said. “Even the Alawites had to pay the price of them being used by the former regime. So I do not agree with the definition or with saying that all the Alawites were supporting the regime. Some of them were living in fear.” Syria witnessed an outbreak of sectarian violence earlier this year, including in the coastal areas in March, where hundreds of people from the Alawite religious minority were killed, with members of the new government’s security forces among the perpetrators. Advertisement Fighting also broke out between government forces and their allies with Bedouin tribes in Suwayda in July, in which more than 1,400 people, mainly civilians, were killed. “We know that there are some crimes that were perpetrated … this is a negative thing,” he said. “I insist … that we do not accept what happened. But I say that Syria is a state of law, and the law rules in Syria, and the law is the only way to preserve everybody’s rights.” Many rights groups are concerned that women will be particularly at risk under the new government led by the former al-Qaeda operative, as al-Sharaa’s Hayat al-Tahrir group severely restricted women’s freedoms, including public participation and dress code, during their rule over Idlib in northwest Syria. On what the role of women looks like in Syria today, al-Sharaa said they were “empowered” under his rule. “Their rights are protected and guaranteed, and we constantly strive to ensure that women are fully participating in our government and our parliament as well,” he added. “I believe you should not fear for Syrian women, fear for Syrian men,” Sharaa joked. Elections to be held within five years Al-Sharaa stressed that Syria’s path forward lies in strengthening institutions rather than consolidating individual power, and that he was committed to conducting elections after the ongoing transition period ends. “Syria is not a tribe. Syria is a country, a country with rich ideas … I do not believe we are ready right now to undertake parliamentary elections,” he said. Nevertheless, al-Sharaa said parliamentary elections will take place within five years of when the temporary Constitutional Declaration was signed back in March, giving him the mandate to lead Syria through a five-year transition period. “The principle of people choosing their leaders is a basic principle … it is even part of our religion
World Cup 2026: Re-disappearing Mexico’s disappeared
The city of Guadalajara in Mexico is scheduled to host four World Cup matches next year, and labourers are working around the clock to revamp infrastructure in time for the tournament. On account of frenzied construction, the city’s roads are presently a bona fide mess, constituting a perpetual headache for those who must transit them. But Guadalajara has a much bigger problem than traffic. The metropolis is the capital of the western state of Jalisco, which happens to possess the highest number of disappeared people in all of Mexico. The official tally of Jalisco’s disappeared is close to 16,000, out of a total of more than 130,000 countrywide. However, the frequent reluctance of family members to report missing persons for fear of retribution means the true toll is undoubtedly higher. Now, with the World Cup fast approaching, Mexican authorities are also working overtime to sanitise Guadalajara’s image. For months, local officials have been threatening to remove the portraits and signs from the towering “roundabout of the disappeared” in the centre of the city, effectively re-disappearing them. I recently spent five days in Guadalajara and paid a visit to the roundabout, a few kilometres’ walk from my accommodation. The closer I got to the site, the more posters proliferated across electrical poles and sidewalk planters featuring the faces and identifying information of the disappeared. Some of these posters also appeared plastered in larger form onto the monument itself. There was, for example, 32-year-old Elda Adriana Valdez Montoya, last seen in Guadalajara on August 10, 2020. And 19-year-old Jordy Alejandro Cardenas Flores, last seen on May 19, 2022, in the nearby city of Tlaquepaque. There was 16-year-old Cristofer Aaron Leobardo Ramirez Camarena, last seen in the Jalisco municipality of Tlajomulco de Zuniga on April 21, 2024. And 67-year-old Martha Leticia Diaz Lopez, last seen in Guadalajara on June 27, 2025. Advertisement In the case of Cardenas Flores, the poster specified that the young man had been “taken” on May 19 by agents from the state prosecutor’s office, from which appointment he never returned. While there is a tendency to blame Mexico’s astronomical disappearance rates on violent drug cartels, including the notorious Jalisco New Generation Cartel, the government is thoroughly implicated in the phenomenon, as well – whether by direct action, collaboration with criminal outfits, or simply in terms of safeguarding the panorama of near-total impunity that permits such crimes to flourish. It bears underscoring, too, that the vast majority of disappearances took place following the launch in 2006 of Mexico’s so-called “war on drugs”, which not only failed to resolve the drug issue but also set the stage for more than 460,000 homicides in the country. The war effort was backed by – who else? – the United States, which rarely misses out on an opportunity for blood-soaked hemispheric meddling. But heaven forbid World Cup spectators be subjected to such a morbid reality – although it is becoming rather difficult to cover up the discovery of mass clandestine graves and hundreds of bags containing human remains in the vicinity of the Guadalajara football stadium. While in Guadalajara, I spoke with Maribel Cedeno, a representative of the Guerreros Buscadores de Jalisco (Warrior Searchers of Jalisco), one of various collectives dedicated to the search for the missing in the face of willful government inaction. Her brother, Jose Gil Cedeno Rosales, was disappeared on September 21, 2021, in Tlajomulco de Zuniga. As Cedeno commented to me, “absolutely nothing has changed” during the presidency of Claudia Sheinbaum, who assumed office last year after promising a more sympathetic approach to the issue of Mexico’s disappeared. Once in power, Sheinbaum apparently forgot her own pledge, effectively condemning countless Mexicans whose loved ones are missing to a state of continuous psychological torment. Remarking on the expansive measures the government is pursuing to provide security for the World Cup, Cedeno demanded: “But where is our security? Where is the security for our family members, or for those of us whose lives are at risk because we are searching for the missing?” They are good questions. And yet they are not ones that are keeping the authorities up at night. In March, the Guerreros Buscadores de Jalisco discovered a clandestine crematorium on a ranch outside the town of Teuchitlan, an hour from Guadalajara, which was reportedly utilised by the Jalisco New Generation Cartel as a recruitment and training centre in addition to an extermination site. Advertisement Curiously, Mexican authorities had seized the ranch months earlier, but hadn’t managed to notice any of the human bone fragments or the hundreds of shoes littering the place. On my final day in Guadalajara, I took an Uber out to the ranch, which appeared on the Uber app as “Campo de adiestramiento y exterminio” – training and extermination camp. Thinking better of it, I put the Teuchitlan town centre as my destination, and while en route proposed to the driver that I pay him in cash to swing by the ranch, as well. He made the sign of the cross, but agreed. A gregarious middle-aged man from eastern Jalisco, the driver had spent 11 years as an undocumented worker in California and Oregon; his son was studying engineering at a university in Michigan. He had personally known several people, including two sisters, who had been disappeared from his hometown, and lamented that the only time the Mexican authorities seemed inspired to seek justice for homicides was when the victims themselves had been members of the security forces. And although a die-hard football fan, the driver said he could not justify the state’s decision to pour massive quantities of money into a World Cup spectacle that would not remotely benefit the average Mexican. In Teuchitlan, we took a brief stroll around the town’s colourful central plaza and bought a few beers, then programmed our destination to “Campo de adiestramiento y exterminio”, which led us down a dusty and isolated road patrolled by an ominous black vehicle. When we found the camp blocked by the Mexican
Russia-Ukraine war: List of key events, day 1,381
These are the key developments from day 1,381 of Russia’s war on Ukraine. Published On 6 Dec 20256 Dec 2025 Click here to share on social media share2 Share Here’s where things stand on Saturday, December 6: Fighting A Russian drone attack killed two men, aged 52 and 67, in the Ukrainian city of Izyum as they were unloading firewood from a truck, according to local officials. Russian forces also killed a 12-year-old boy in an attack on the Vasylkivska community in Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk region, and wounded more than a dozen Ukrainians in attacks on the Kherson, Donetsk and Sumy regions, local officials said. Ukraine’s national grid operator, Ukrenergo, announced that electricity restrictions would be in place nationwide from Saturday due to “previous Russian massive missile and drone attacks on energy facilities”, in a post on Telegram. Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov said that a Ukrainian drone hit and damaged a building in Grozny, the capital of Russia’s southern Chechnya region, and promised to retaliate. The attack caused no casualties, he said. A Ukrainian drone attack on Russia’s Belgorod region wounded the mayor of the village of Berezovka, according to officials, while Ukrainian assaults on energy facilities in Russian-occupied Luhansk caused electricity outages. Ukraine’s HUR military intelligence agency claimed attacks on military targets in Russian-occupied Crimea, including a Su-24 tactical bomber, while the Ukrainian military said it launched drone assaults on Russia’s Temryuk seaport in Krasnodar Krai and the Syzran Oil Refinery in Samara region overnight on Friday. The Russian Ministry of Defence said it downed 41 Ukrainian drones overnight on Friday, according to the TASS news agency. Russian investigators charged a Ukrainian Armed Forces commander with terrorism, in absentia, over the death of journalist and Russian Channel One military correspondent Anna Prokofieva in March this year, TASS reported. Politics and diplomacy Advertisement United States President Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff held “productive” talks with Ukraine’s senior negotiator Rustem Umerov in Miami, Florida, on Thursday, a White House official said on Friday. “Progress was made,” the White House official said, according to the Reuters news agency. “They will reconvene later today after briefing their respective leaders.” The meetings in Florida came after Witkoff met Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow earlier this week, in what Yury Ushakov, the Kremlin’s top foreign policy adviser, described on Friday as “truly friendly” discussions. Ushakov also said that Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, is working “frantically” to resolve the war between Russia and Ukraine in his role as a US negotiator, TASS reported. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said they held “very constructive” talks with Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever on Friday over a European Union plan to use Russian frozen assets to fund Ukraine, which Belgium has so far refused to endorse. The Save Ukraine NGO said it has returned 18 Ukrainian children, aged two to 17, from Russian-occupied territories in Ukraine’s Kherson region over the last week. International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutors said on Friday that arrest warrants for Putin and five other Russians accused of war crimes in Ukraine will stay in place even if a blanket amnesty is approved during US-led peace talks. Putin said that Moscow is ready to provide “uninterrupted shipments” of fuel to India, as he met with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in New Delhi on Friday, despite US sanctions. Bulgaria’s maritime authorities, border police and navy are attempting to recover sanctioned Russian tanker Kairos, which was hit in the Black Sea last week by a Ukrainian drone in Turkiye’s exclusive economic zone, leading to its crew being rescued after it caught fire. Adblock test (Why?)
Afghan, Pakistani forces exchange heavy fire as tensions flare
Relations have soured between former allies Afghanistan and Pakistan since the Taliban returned to power in 2021. By News Agencies Published On 6 Dec 20256 Dec 2025 Click here to share on social media share2 Share Afghanistan and Pakistan’s forces have exchanged heavy fire along their border as tensions between the South Asian neighbours escalate after peace talks in Saudi Arabia failed to produce a breakthrough. Officials from both sides said the skirmishes broke out late on Friday night, with the two countries accusing one another of opening fire first. Recommended Stories list of 3 itemsend of list In a post on X, the spokesman for Afghanistan’s Taliban government, Zabihullah Mujahid, said Pakistani forces had “launched attacks towards” the Spin Boldak district in the Kandahar province, prompting Afghan forces to respond. A spokesman for Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said it was the Afghan forces who carried out “unprovoked firing” along the Chaman border. “Pakistan remains fully alert and committed to ensuring its territorial integrity and the safety of our citizens,” spokesman Mosharraf Zaidi said in a statement. Unfortunately, this evening the Pakistani side once again launched attacks towards Afghanistan in the Spin Boldak district of Kandahar, prompting the Islamic Emirate forces to respond. — Zabihullah (..ذبـــــیح الله م ) (@Zabehulah_M33) December 5, 2025 Residents on the Afghan side of the border told the AFP news agency that the exchange of fire broke out around 10:30pm local time (18:00 GMT) and lasted about two hours. Ali Mohammad Haqmal, head of Kandahar’s information department, told AFP that Pakistan forces attacked with “light and heavy artillery” and that mortar fire had struck civilian homes. “The clashes have ended, both sides agreed to stop,” he added. Advertisement There were no immediate reports of casualties from either side. Strained ties Relations have soured between Afghanistan and Pakistan since the Taliban returned to power in 2021, largely due to Islamabad’s accusations that Kabul is providing sanctuary to several armed groups, including the Pakistan Taliban (TTP). The TTP has waged a sustained campaign against the Pakistani state since 2007 and is often described as the ideological twin of the Afghan Taliban. Most recently, on Wednesday, a roadside bombing in Pakistan near the Afghan border claimed by the TTP killed three Pakistani police officers. Pakistan also accuses Afghanistan of sheltering the Balochistan Liberation Army and a local ISIL/ISIS affiliate known as the ISKP – even though the ISKP is a sworn enemy of the Afghan Taliban. The Afghan Taliban denies the charges, saying it cannot be held responsible for security inside Pakistan, and has accused Islamabad of intentionally spreading misinformation and provoking border tensions. A week of deadly fighting on their shared border erupted in October, triggered after Islamabad demanded that Kabul rein in the fighters stepping up attacks in Pakistan. About 70 people were killed on both sides of the border and hundreds more wounded before Afghan and Pakistani officials signed a ceasefire agreement in Qatar’s capital Doha on October 19. That agreement, however, has been followed by a series of unsuccessful talks hosted by Qatar, Turkiye and Saudi Arabia aimed at cementing a longer-term truce. The latest round of talks, held in Saudi Arabia last weekend, failed to produce a breakthrough, although both sides agreed to continue their fragile ceasefire. Despite the truce, Kabul has accused its neighbour of carrying out repeated air strikes in Afghanistan’s eastern provinces over recent weeks. One attack reportedly carried out by the Pakistani military on a house in Afghanistan’s southeastern Khost province in late November reportedly killed nine children and a woman. Pakistan denied that it carried out any such attack. Adblock test (Why?)
Australia sanctions Afghan Taliban officials over women’s rights abuses
Canberra said the Taliban officials are guilty of oppressing women and girls, as well as ‘undermining good governance’. The Australian government has imposed financial sanctions and travel bans on four officials in Afghanistan’s Taliban government, citing the deteriorating human rights situation in the country, particularly for women and girls. Australia’s Foreign Minister Penny Wong said in a statement on Saturday that Canberra had established a “world-first” autonomous sanctions framework for Afghanistan, which would allow it to “directly impose its own sanctions and travel bans to increase pressure on the Taliban”. Recommended Stories list of 3 itemsend of list The new framework also introduces an arms embargo, Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade said, as well as prohibitions on “providing related services and activities to Afghanistan”. The department named the sanctioned Taliban officials as Minister for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice Muhammad Khalid Hanafi; Minister of Higher Education Neda Mohammad Nadeem; Minister of Justice Abdul-Hakim Sharei; and Chief Justice Abdul Hakim Haqqani. The Australian Government has established a world-first autonomous sanctions framework for Afghanistan, as part of our ongoing efforts to hold the Taliban to account. In effect from today, we have also announced the first listings under the new framework. — Senator Penny Wong (@SenatorWong) December 5, 2025 Wong said the officials had been sanctioned due to their involvement “in the oppression of women and girls and in undermining good governance or the rule of law”. “This includes restricting access to education, employment, freedom of movement and the ability to participate in public life,” she said. Advertisement Canberra said its new framework “builds on” the 140 individuals and entities it already sanctions as part of the United Nations Security Council’s Taliban framework. Afghanistan’s Taliban government is yet to publicly respond to Canberra’s latest measures. In July, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant for Chief Justice Haqqani, alongside the Taliban’s supreme leader, Haibatullah Akhunzada, for alleged crimes against humanity for persecuting women and girls. Announcing the sanctions, the ICC said the Taliban has “severely deprived” girls and women of the rights to education, privacy, family life and the freedoms of movement, expression, thought, conscience and religion. Since returning to power following the withdrawal of United States and NATO troops – of which Australia was a part – from Afghanistan in August 2021, the Taliban has enacted severe restrictions on the rights and freedoms of women and girls, including the right to work and study. The Taliban has rejected accusations of violating women’s rights, claiming they are respected “within the framework of Islamic law”. In December 2022, Afghanistan’s Ministry of Higher Education banned female students from the country’s universities until further notice, in a move widely condemned by the international community. Last year, the UN said the Taliban government had “deliberately deprived” at least 1.4 million girls of their right to an education during its time in power, totally about 80 percent of school-age girls. Afghans have also been plunged further into poverty since the Taliban takeover, fuelled in part by the ban on female participation in the workplace, with vast swaths of the country’s population now heavily reliant on humanitarian aid to survive. In her statement, Wong said the Australian government “remains deeply concerned at the deteriorating situation” in the country, continuing that a “humanitarian permit” had been carved out in the new sanctions framework, allowing the continued provision of aid. “Our thoughts are with those suffering under the Taliban’s oppression, as well as the Afghan community in Australia,” she said. Adblock test (Why?)
Another devastating Israeli strike on Lebanon captured on video
NewsFeed Video captured an Israeli strike destroying a building in southern Lebanon, just one day after Israeli and Lebanese civilian officials held their first direct talks in decades. The village of al-Majadel is one of at least four communities hit on Thursday. Published On 4 Dec 20254 Dec 2025 Click here to share on social media share2 Share Adblock test (Why?)
Trump news live: Congo, Rwanda leaders visit White House in push for peace
blinking-dotLive updatesLive updates, US President Donald Trump will meet the leaders of Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo in Washington to sign new deals aimed at stabilising a war-scarred region and attracting Western mining investment. Published On 4 Dec 20254 Dec 2025 Click here to share on social media share2 Share Adblock test (Why?)
Stalled Moscow talks collide with Zelenskyy’s corruption crisis
[unable to retrieve full-text content] Stalled Moscow talks with the US and Vladimir Putin offered little relief to Ukrainians reeling from years of war.
Putin visits India amid Ukraine peace push: What’s on the agenda?
New Delhi, India – Russian President Vladimir Putin is visiting India starting Thursday for the first time since Moscow’s war on Ukraine broke out more than four years ago, even as a renewed push by the United States to end the conflict appears to have stalled. Putin’s 30-hour speed trip also coincides with a tense turn in relations between Washington and New Delhi, with the US also punishing India with tariffs and a sanctions threat for its strong historic ties with Russia and a surge in its purchase of Russian crude during the Ukraine war. That tension has, in turn, made India’s longstanding balancing act between Russia and the West an even more delicate tightrope walk. Since gaining independence from Britain in 1947, India has tried to avoid getting locked into formal alliances with any superpower, leading the non-aligned movement during the Cold War, even though in reality it drifted closer to the Soviet Union from the 1960s. Since the end of the Cold War, it has deepened strategic and military ties with the US while trying to keep its friendship with Russia afloat. Yet, Russia’s war on Ukraine has challenged that balance – and Putin’s visit could offer signs of how Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi plans to juggle New Delhi’s competing relationships without sacrificing any of them. Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, right, shakes hands with India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi during their meeting at the Novo-Ogaryovo state residence near Moscow, Russia, July 8, 2024 [Sergei Bobylyov/Sputnik/Pool via Reuters] What’s scheduled for Putin? Putin is expected to land on Thursday evening and head for a private dinner with Modi at the prime minister’s residence in the heart of the Indian capital, New Delhi. Advertisement On the morning of Friday, December 5, Putin is scheduled to visit Rashtrapati Bhavan, the presidential palace, for a guard of honour and a meeting with India’s ceremonial head of state, Droupadi Murmu. He will then, like all visiting leaders, travel to Raj Ghat, the memorial to Mahatma Gandhi. Then, Putin and Modi will meet at Hyderabad House, a complex that hosts most leadership summits for the latest chapter of an annual India-Russia summit. After that, they are scheduled to meet business leaders, before attending a banquet thrown in Putin’s honour by Murmu, the Indian president. Earlier, the Kremlin said in a statement that Putin’s visit to India was “of great importance, providing an opportunity to comprehensively discuss the extensive agenda of Russian-Indian relations as a particularly privileged strategic partnership”. Putin will be joined by Andrei Belousov, his defence minister, and a wide-ranging delegation from business and industry, including top executives of Russian state arms exporter Rosoboronexport, and reportedly the heads of sanctioned oil firms Rosneft and Gazprom Neft. Russian President Vladimir Putin, left, and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi greet each other before their meeting in New Delhi, India, on December 6, 2021. That was Putin’s last visit to India before the trip that starts on Thursday [Manish Swarup/AP Photo] Why is the timing of the visit significant? The visit comes as India and Russia mark 25 years of a strategic partnership that began in Putin’s first year in office as his country’s head of state. But even though India and Russia like to portray their relationship as an example of a friendship that has remained steady amid shifting geopolitical currents, their ties haven’t been immune to pressures from other nations. Since 2000, New Delhi and Moscow have had in place a system of annual summits: The Indian prime minister would visit Russia one year, and the Russian president would pay a return visit to India the following year. That tradition, however, was broken in 2022, the year of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Modi was supposed to visit Russia for the summit, but the conclave was put off. In 2023, Putin skipped a visit to India for the G20 summit in New Delhi. At the time, Putin was rarely travelling abroad, largely because of an International Criminal Court (ICC) warrant against him related to the Ukraine war. India is not a member of the ICC – and so it would have been safe for Putin to attend, but Western members of the G20 made it clear that their leaders would be uncomfortable sharing the room with the Russian president. Advertisement Finally, in 2024, the annual summit resumed, with Modi visiting Russia. And now, Putin will land in New Delhi after four years. A Russian S-400 anti-missile system launcher moves along Tverskaya Street towards Red Square ahead of a Victory Day parade rehearsal in Moscow, Russia, April 29, 2025. India used S-400 systems during its May air war with Pakistan [Pavel Bednyakov/AP Photo] What’s on the agenda? Trade analysts and political experts expect Putin to push for India to buy more Russian missile systems and fighter jets, in a bid to boost defence ties and explore more areas to expand trade, including pharmaceuticals, machinery and agricultural products. The summit “offers an opportunity for both sides to reaffirm their special relationship amidst intense pressure on India from [US] President [Donald] Trump with punitive tariffs,” Praveen Donthi, a senior analyst for India at Crisis Group, a US-based think tank, told Al Jazeera. Putin, analysts said, will be seeking optical dividends from the summit. “President Putin can send a very strong message to his own people, and also to the international community, that Russia is not isolated in the world,” said Rajan Kumar, a professor of international studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi. “Russia is being welcomed by a democracy when Putin faces pressure for the war in Ukraine,” Kumar told Al Jazeera. But visuals aside, a key driver of the India-Russia relationship – oil trade – is now at risk. And that, along with the shadow of the man responsible for the disruption, will be hovering over talks, said experts. President Donald Trump greets Russia’s President Vladimir Putin at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Alaska, August 15, 2025 [Julia Demaree Nikhinson/AP Photo] Is Trump