MOSCOW — Russia marked the 80th anniversary of the World War II victory over Nazi Germany on Friday with a parade attended by Chinese President Xi Jinping, as the two countries vowed to strengthen ties and “firmly” counter U.S. influence. Amid tight security after Ukrainian drone attacks on Moscow this week, thousands of Russian troops marched on Red Square, with military units from China and 12 other countries also taking part. For Russian President Vladimir Putin, who is the subject of an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court over alleged war crimes in Ukraine, the parade was an opportunity to show that he is not isolated on the global stage. It also casts a spotlight on the post-WWII, U.S.-led international order that President Donald Trump now appears bent on dismantling, leaving Russia and China to portray themselves as its defenders. Xi signaled his support for Putin in both actions and words, arriving on Wednesday for a four-day visit shortly after the Ukrainian drone attacks disrupted flights in and out of Moscow. “China will work with Russia to shoulder the special responsibilities of major world powers,” Xi told Putin on Thursday, adding that the two countries should be “friends of steel.” In a lengthy joint statement, Xi and Putin said they would deepen military and other ties and “strengthen coordination and jointly respond firmly to the United States’ policy of ‘dual containment’ against both countries.” Xi’s visit comes as the Trump administration is seeking a 30-day “unconditional ceasefire” between Russia and Ukraine, and ahead of U.S.-China trade talks this weekend, the first since Trump imposed steep tariffs on U.S. trading partners around the world. Xi was among 29 world leaders expected to attend the commemorations, according to the Kremlin. Diplomats from other countries said the Chinese leader’s presence had factored into their decisions to come. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had warned world leaders against attending the commemorations, saying it would undermine some countries’ declared neutrality in the Ukraine war. But Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva told NBC News that Zelenskyy had asked him to deliver a message to Putin calling for a sustained ceasefire. The Ukrainian government did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Lula insisted that standing with Putin in Red Square “will not strengthen” the Russian leader. “Brazil’s position has not changed,” he said in an interview Thursday. “Brazil is critical of Ukrainian occupation and we have to find peace.” Also in attendance was Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, who said in an interview that he shared a “common opinion” with Putin and Xi. “China will definitely be with Russia. We need to get used to this,” he added. Asked about an end to the war in Ukraine, he said Putin “does not owe anyone anything.” He added that Russia was “ready not just for a ceasefire, but to conclude peace.” Moscow does not look like a city that wants peace at any cost. Ahead of the parade, hotel workers, officials and many members of the public wore the orange-and-black ribbon of St. George, a Russian military symbol that especially since Putin’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine has been associated with Russian nationalism and militarism. Streets were draped in the same colors. Huge billboards connected the World War II anniversary with Putin’s “special military operation” in Ukraine, while others welcomed world leaders individually, including those of Cuba and Venezuela. May 9 is a hallowed day for the former Soviet Union, which lost 27 million people during World War II. But the parade on Friday was haunted by the war in Ukraine, now in its fourth year. China, Russia’s biggest trading partner, has strived to portray itself as neutral in the Ukraine war while supporting Russia diplomatically and economically. “The relationship has solidified over the course of the war,” said Alexander Gabuev, director of the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center. During Xi’s visit this week, he said, “there was a very clear message that this alignment can really not be split.” Xi told Putin on Thursday that he hoped for “a fair and durable peace deal that is binding and accepted by all parties concerned.” Xi will leave Russia on Saturday, as U.S. and Chinese officials meet in Switzerland to discuss mounting tariffs between the two countries that have rattled the global economy. China agreed to the talks without any U.S. concessions, suggesting the tariffs “are having their intended effect,” said Craig Singleton, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Earlier this week, Beijing announced sweeping policy steps to bolster its economy, including interest rate cuts and measures to support employment and struggling sectors such as real estate. “These are not the actions of a confident regime,” Singleton said. “They’re the moves of a leadership racing to contain economic fallout before it metastasizes into political risk.” China said this week that the meeting was requested by the U.S. side and that while was it was open to talks, they “must be based on equality, respect and mutual benefit.” Trump suggested Thursday that U.S. tariffs on Chinese imports could go down as a result of the talks, telling reporters, “you can’t get any higher” than the current rate of 145%. But the talks are unlikely to lead to an immediate bilateral tariff reduction, the Economist Intelligence Unit financial forecasting service said in a note Thursday. “The two countries will continue to disagree over their preferred tariff rates and what concessions need to be made to allow for de-escalation,” it said. “Nonetheless, the exchange of positions between them will be constructive, in contrast to a standstill.” Keir Simmons and Natasha Lebedeva reported from Moscow, and Jennifer Jett from Hong Kong.

President Donald Trump has signaled a willingness to drastically cut the U.S.' current 145% tariff rate on China ahead of trade talks between the two countries. Trump wrote in a Truth Social post Friday morning: "80% Tariff on China seems right! Up to Scott B.," appearing to refer to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. The post comes a day before Bessent and U.S. Trade Rep. Jamieson Greer meet with their Chinese counterparts in Geneva for trade discussions. Trump indicated Thursday that he might be open to lowering the current 145% tariff on China. “ I mean, we’re going to see. Right now, you can’t get any higher,” he said during remarks from the Oval Office. A representative for the Chinese embassy in the U.S. did not immediately respond to a request for comment. An 80% across-the-board tariff would still be far beyond the duties the U.S. had in place on China before Trump took office. He first imposed a 20% levy on America's third-largest source of imports in response to its alleged inaction on curbing fentanyl flows, then signed an executive order several weeks later imposing 125% duties. In general, Trump's unwieldy approach to tariffs negotiations has continued unabated: On Thursday, he announced an agreement was being worked out with the U.K. that contained few details but which would leave the U.S.'s 10% across-the-board duty on all countries mostly intact. Yet while the agreement signaled pathways to expand U.S. exports of beef, ethanol and other agricultural products, it provided no guarantees, as yet, that the U.K. would actually increase imports of those products. Trump has attempted to walk back the eye-watering country-by-country duties he announced during his shock "Liberation Day" speech more than a month ago. But sizable levies remain, including 25% duties on all steel, aluminum and auto imports. While discussion of trade deals remains plentiful, actual progress on them has been relatively scarce — leaving business confidence throttled. A number of companies have already changed their forward guidance or reversed it entirely as a result of the uncertainty. It's also not clear that the China tariffs are having Trump's desired effect. In April, according to CNBC calculations, China’s exports surged amid a ramp up in shipments to Southeast Asian countries — an indicator that China may simply be increasing trans-shipment of goods to third-party countries that then export to the U.S., an expert told CNBC.

With suspended cricket matches, power outages and air-raid sirens, fears are swelling of an all-out war between India and Pakistan amid questions over how much of a mediating role the United States will be able to play. The nuclear-armed neighbors engaged in their worst fighting in decades on Wednesday, when India launched an assault on Pakistan in response to a deadly terrorist attack for which New Delhi blames Islamabad. Almost four dozen people were killed in the initial violence between the two countries, including India’s strikes on what it said were “terror camps” and the shelling in response by Pakistan, which denies involvement in the April 22 attack in the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir. Pakistan claimed partial victory, saying it downed five Indian fighter jets and dozens of drones, which India has not confirmed. India has said it does not wish to escalate but will respond firmly if Pakistan strikes its territory. Both countries accused each other of continuing to launch new attacks on Friday, including shelling towns near their de facto border that Pakistan said killed five civilians. The Indian army also said it had “effectively repulsed” drone attacks by Pakistan, which denied the claim. Villagers have fled their homes amid cross-border violence near the de facto border in Kashmir, which both India and Pakistan claim in full and control in part. Tensions have also escalated to cricket, a cherished sport in both countries. The Indian Premier League, which is among the richest sport leagues in the world, was suspended for one week on Friday amid safety concerns after a match was halted amid the turmoil. Secretary of State Marco Rubio spoke with officials in both countries Thursday in the latest U.S. effort to ease tensions. Speaking with Indian External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar, Rubio reiterated his condolences over the April 22 terrorist attack in Indian-administered Kashmir, which killed 26 people, most of them Indian tourists. He also “reaffirmed the United States’ commitment to work with India in the fight against terrorism,” the State Department said. In his call with Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, Rubio “expressed sorrow for the reported loss of civilian lives in the current conflict,” the State Department said, and “reiterated his calls for Pakistan to take concrete steps to end any support for terrorist groups.” Speaking with NBC News, an official Indian government source dismissed the idea of the U.S. or any other country playing a central mediating role, saying the issues were bilateral and that the message of any government to Pakistan should be to stop supporting terrorism. The source said that India’s strikes targeted terrorist infrastructure and followed 15 days of waiting for the Pakistani government to take its own action against militant groups. An official Pakistani government source called India’s strikes “the ultimate act of provocation.” The source said that the actions taken by Pakistan so far have been in self-defense and that Pakistan reserves the right to respond to strikes on its soil. Pakistan has called for a “neutral” international investigation into the Kashmir attack, and the government source said there was “no shred of evidence” that Islamabad had supported it. President Donald Trump has not engaged directly with the leaders of India and Pakistan but said Wednesday that he wants “to see them work it out” and that “if I can do anything to help, I will be there.” Lisa Curtis, an expert on South Asia at the Washington-based Center for a New American Security, said the Trump administration had sent mixed signals to the two countries and needs to “clean up” its public messaging. Trump initially said the U.S. would not get involved in the crisis, and on Thursday Vice President JD Vance told Fox News, “We’re not going to get involved in the middle of a war that’s fundamentally none of our business.” Rubio has made measured statements calling for reducing tensions, while Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said India had a right to defend itself. The U.S. has previously played a key role in defusing conflicts between India and Pakistan, said Curtis, who was senior director for South and Central Asia on the National Security Council from 2017 to 2021. But U.S. relations with Pakistan have deteriorated in recent years, calling into question Washington’s influence with Islamabad. The U.S. has left the door open to supporting Pakistan’s call for further investigation into the terrorist attack. “We want the perpetrators to be held accountable, and are supportive of any efforts to that end,” State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce told reporters Thursday. India responded to the attack by launching military strikes on “terror camps” in Pakistan early Wednesday, which according to Pakistan killed 31 people, including civilians. Pakistan immediately claimed partial victory saying it had downed five Indian fighter jets and dozens of drones, which India has not confirmed. The April 22 attack was the worst of its kind on Indian civilians in two decades and capped years of separatist insurgency and the bitter resentment between the two neighbors over Kashmir, a former princely state and the only Muslim-majority part of India which ceded territory to India in 1947 when the British colonial rule ended. Pakistan and India have since fought three out of their multiple wars over it, and India has long-accused Pakistan of supporting cross-border terrorism, which Islamabad denies. Both countries now lay claim to Kashmir in full but only partly control.

VATICAN CITY — Pope Leo XIV has inherited a raging battle for not only the soul of the Catholic Church, but also its place in the geopolitical world. The new pope will have to decide whether his global pulpit will continue Pope Francis’ broadly progressive legacy, or revert to a more conservative approach. The first American pontiff will grapple with the spiritual decline in the church’s European power base, coupled with its rise in parts of Africa, Asia and Latin America. And he will be forced to confront the legacy of the decadeslong sexual abuse scandal. “Usually the most important thing that the pope has to take care of is the Catholic Church — but right now it’s much more complicated because we are in a time of global disruption,” said Massimo Faggioli, a professor and world-leading expert on the church’s inner workings, based at Villanova University. “The church is much more global than ever before, so the cardinals will have to consider what it means to elect a global leader of the Catholic Church in this situation.” After hundreds of thousands of cases emerged in dozens of countries over the past century, the church’s endemic sexual abuse scandal is far from resolved. Cases continue to be uncovered, and although Francis went further than his predecessors in addressing this, campaigners said he did nowhere near enough. “The next pope must institute a zero tolerance law for sexual abuse that immediately removes abusive clergy and leaders who have covered up abuse from ministry,” Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, or SNAP, a Chicago-based watchdog, said before Leo was elected. “He must use his authority to enact fundamental, institutional changes to end the systematic practice of sexual abuse and its concealment,” it said. Ideology Francis was widely seen as a progressive force, at least compared with predecessors and peers. He allowed priests to informally bless same-sex couples, asking, “Who am I to judge?” And over doctrinal dogma he favored topics such as global capitalism and the climate crisis. Though this was not cut-and-dried (he likened abortions to “hiring a hitman”), his message enraged conservative traditionalists, including those on the American hard right, who would like to see Francis’ successor revert to what they believe are the church’s core teachings.“In a time when illiberalism is gaining ground internationally,” Francis’ “messaging was an unexpected oasis for many, and unwelcomingly out of step for others,” said Effie Fokas, a research associate specializing in geopolitics and religion at the London School of Economics and Political Science before Thursday’s election of Leo. “So there is great anticipation over whether the church will, on the one hand, choose to be an oasis or, rather, in step with the waves of right-wing conservatism sweeping over the United States and much of Europe and beyond.” Geopolitics Whether Leo likes it or not, the new leader of 1.4 billion Catholics will become a leading voice in an upended world. Francis chose to use that platform to pontificate against the war in the Gaza Strip, for example, and even rebuked President Donald Trump’s stance on immigration. The next pope can choose to continue these fulminations, or not. But even a less outspoken pope would be notable by his absence on the world stage. “Francis has been a beacon of hope in the world, probably the only ethical helm in the (sinking) ship of global politics,” said Sara Silvestri, a senior lecturer in international politics at City

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un supervised tests of short-range ballistic missile systems that simulated nuclear counterstrikes against U.S. and South Korean forces, state media said Friday, as the North continued to blame its rivals for escalating tensions through their joint military exercises. The report came a day after South Korea’s military detected multiple launches from North Korea’s eastern coast and assessed that the tests could also be related to the country’s weapons exports to Russia during its war in Ukraine. North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency said Thursday’s tests involved a mobile ballistic missile system apparently modeled after Russia’s Iskander, as well as 600-millimeter multiple rocket launchers that South Korean officials classify as ballistic due to their self-propulsion and guided flight. Both are part of a growing lineup of weapons systems that the North says could be armed with “tactical” nuclear weapons for battlefield use. KCNA said the tests were intended to train military units operating missile and rocket systems to more effectively execute attacks under the North’s nuclear weapons control system and ensure a swift response to a nuclear crisis. The agency criticized the United States and its “vassal states” for expanding joint military exercises on and around the Korean Peninsula, which the North claims are preparations for nuclear war, and said Thursday’s launches demonstrated the “rapid counteraction posture” of its forces. Kim stressed the need to strengthen the role of his nuclear forces in both deterring and fighting war, and called for continued efforts to improve combat readiness and precision strike capabilities, KCNA said. Kim Inae, spokesperson for South Korea’s Unification Ministry, which handles inter-Korean affairs, described the latest North Korean launches as a “clear act of provocation” that violates U.N. Security Council resolutions and poses a serious threat to peace and stability in the region. South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said multiple missiles of various types were launched from the area around the eastern port city of Wonsan on Thursday from about 8:10 to 9:20 a.m. (7:10 to 8:20 p.m. Wednesday ET), with the farthest traveling about 500 miles. Lee Sung Joon, spokesperson for the Joint Chiefs, said in a briefing that the North Korean launches were possibly intended to test the performance of weapons it plans to export, as the country continues to send military equipment and troops to fuel Russia’s warfighting against Ukraine. Japanese Defense Minister Gen Nakatani told reporters that none of the North Korean missiles reached Japan’s exclusive economic zone and there was no damage to vessels or aircraft in the area. It was the North’s first known ballistic activity since March 10, when it fired several ballistic missiles hours after U.S. and South Korean troops began an annual combined military exercise, and the country’s sixth launch event of the year. Tensions on the Korean Peninsula have escalated in recent months as North Korean leader Kim continues to accelerate the development of his nuclear and missile programs and supply weapons and troops to support Russia’s war against Ukraine. Thursday’s launch came a day after North Korean state media said Kim urged munition workers to increase the production of artillery shells amid his deepening alignment with Moscow.

SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea fired what appeared to be multiple short-range ballistic missiles off its east coast, South Korea’s military said Thursday, in what may be a performance test of various projectiles for export. The missiles were launched from Wonsan, North Korea’s eastern coastal city, around 8:10 a.m. (7:10 p.m. ET Wednesday) and flew up to about 500 miles before splashing down in the sea, the military said in a statement. South Korea is closely communicating with the U.S. and Japan to share information about the launch, it added. South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff spokesperson Lee Sung-jun declined to comment on the exact number of missiles detected or their characteristics but said at a news briefing that the launch might have been to test the performance and flight stability of missiles intended for export. The Japanese government also said it detected a launch of a ballistic missile by North Korea, which may have flown on an irregular trajectory. The nuclear-armed North’s ballistic missile program is banned by United Nations Security Council resolutions, but in recent years Pyongyang has forged ahead in developing missiles of all ranges. In March, North Korea fired multiple ballistic missiles, while blaming the South Korean and U.S. militaries for conducting drills it calls dangerous and provocative. North Korea has also exported short-range ballistic missiles, among other weapons, to Russia for use in the war in Ukraine, according to U.S. and allied intelligence agencies as well as independent researchers. Pyongyang and Moscow have denied the weapons trade, although North Korean troops have been deployed to fight on the frontlines in Russia’s Kursk region.

Pakistan has vowed to retaliate after India launched missiles at it early Wednesday, as tensions escalated dramatically between the nuclear-armed neighbors. India said the deadly strikes had targeted “terrorist camps” and were in response to the massacre last month of 26 people, most of them Indian tourists, in Indian-administered Kashmir. New Delhi has long accused Pakistan of supporting cross-border terrorism and blamed Islamabad for the Kashmir attack, the latest in a long history of conflict between the two countries. Here’s a look at that history: 1947-48 With the end of British colonial rule in 1947, the Indian subcontinent was divided into what became Hindu-majority India and Muslim-majority Pakistan. A territory then called East Pakistan is now known as Bangladesh. Over a million people are estimated to have died in the explosion of communal violence that accompanied the dismemberment of the British Raj, as huge numbers of Hindus fled their homes in Pakistan to cross to India and Muslims in India did the same to Pakistan. The mountainous state of Jammu and Kashmir, which at the time was still a kingdom, soon became a flashpoint. Pakistan backed an insurgency there, leading to the first war with India. Kashmir’s Maharaja Hari Singh sought help from the Indian military in exchange for ceding territory, and in January 1949 the war ended in a ceasefire after U.N. intervention. Details of the agreement, under which the two new and unstable countries controlled parts of Kashmir, have been disputed ever since. 1965 Pakistan, still hoping to gain control of the mountainous region, launched an incursion across the ceasefire line. India responded by sending ground troops into the Pakistan-controlled areas. The conflict triggered another wave of displacements, with millions leaving formerly East Pakistan for India. New Delhi used the conflict to back guerrilla forces fighting the Pakistani army. India’s involvement opened a new front with Pakistan, which launched aerial attacks in late 1971. The Pakistani army ultimately surrendered in Dhaka, which became the capital of Bangladesh. As part of agreements following the war, the existing ceasefire line between India and Pakistan in Kashmir was ratified in 1972. The "Line of Control" remains the de facto border between the two countries. In 1974, India became a nuclear power. 1989 A yearslong armed resistance broke out in Indian-administered Kashmir amid resentment over Indian rule. 1999 As the Soviet Union pulled out of Afghanistan after a decadelong occupation, Islamic jihadist fighters began infiltrating across the Line of Control into Kashmir. Meanwhile, Pakistan, which became a nuclear power in 1998, backed the anti-Indian uprising in Kashmir and its troops entered the region. India and Pakistan then engaged in a high-altitude war in and around the city of Kargil. Both sides suffered hundreds of casualties, and thousands of people fled their homes. Fighting ended in July 1999 with India reclaiming Kargil. Later that year, Gen. Pervez Musharraf led a military coup in Pakistan, a pivotal moment that shapes Pakistani politics to this day.2000s In 2001, a suicide-bombing on Kashmir's Assembly killed 38 people in Srinagar, the main city in the Indian-administered region. This was followed by an attack on the Indian Parliament in New Delhi that killed 14 people. A year later, 36 people were killed when militants hurled grenades at an army station in Kashmir and opened fire on passengers aboard a bus. More attacks continued throughout the decade as did regular firing between Indian and Pakistani forces across the Line of Control, which continued to rock Kashmir along with separatist insurgencies. In 2008, a four-day terror attack in the Indian commercial capital of Mumbai killed 166 people. Militants from the Pakistan-based group Lashkar-e-Taiba armed with rifles and, according to India, supported by Pakistan’s spy agency, took hostages at three locations, including luxury hotels. 2016 and 2019 Border skirmishes along the Line of Control had become common, and in 2016 militants from the Jaish-e-Mohammed group attacked an Indian army brigade headquarters near the town of Uri in Kashmir, killing 19 soldiers. Led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, a Hindu nationalist, India responded by conducting “surgical strikes” against what it said were launchpads of Islamist militant groups in Pakistan. Pakistan said there was no Indian incursion and it did not respond to the attack. Then in 2019, another militant affiliated with the same group rammed a car bomb into a convoy of Indian security forces in Pulwama in Kashmir, killing 40 personnel.

A private lunar lander from Japan is now circling the moon, with just another month to go before it attempts a touchdown. Tokyo-based ispace said Wednesday morning its Resilience lander entered lunar orbit. “The countdown to lunar landing has now officially begun,” the company said in a statement. SpaceX launched Resilience with U.S-based Firefly Aerospace’s lunar lander in January. Firefly got there first in March, becoming the first private outfit to successfully land a spacecraft on the moon without crashing or falling over. Another American company, Intuitive Machines, landed a spacecraft on the moon a few days later, but it ended up sideways in a crater. Now it’s ispace’s turn. It’s targeting the first week of June for Resilience’s touchdown. The company’s first lander crashed into the moon in 2023. The lander holds a mini rover equipped with a scoop to gather lunar dirt for analysis as well as other experiments.

Pakistan’s military has vowed that India will “pay dearly” after its airstrikes on Wednesday left at least 31 people dead in Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir, raising fears of an all-out war between the nuclear-armed neighbors. India says at least 16 Indian civilians, including three women and five children, have also been killed since Pakistan began shelling Wednesday across the two South Asian countries’ de facto border in the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir. Exchange of live fire across the border also surged overnight. Even as hostilities spilled into Thursday, both India and Pakistan emphasized that they had acted with restraint, and there are reports that security officials in both countries have started to open lines of communication. But in order to de-escalate, the two countries need international mediation and a way for both of them to declare victory, experts said. New Delhi launched the strikes in response to an April 22 terrorist attack in Indian-administered Kashmir in which 26 people, mostly Indian tourists, were killed by militants India says were backed by Pakistan. Pakistan, which denies involvement in the attack, has claimed partial victory in the Indian assault, saying it shot down five Indian fighter jets as well as 25 Indian drones. India has not confirmed those reports. “Indian drones continue to be sent into Pakistan airspace,” military spokesperson Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry said Thursday, adding that India “will continue to pay dearly for this naked aggression.” U.S. Consulate personnel in the Pakistani city of Lahore were told to shelter in place Thursday due to reports of drone explosions, downed drones and possible airspace incursions in the area. Indian Foreign Minister S. Jaishankar said New Delhi has no intention to escalate the situation further, but that if Pakistan launches retaliatory strikes, they will be met with a “very, very firm” response. President Donald Trump, who has yet to nominate a U.S. ambassador to either India or Pakistan, said Wednesday that he wanted to “see them work it out.” “They’ve gone tit for tat, so hopefully they can stop now,” he said. Experts say whether the conflict between Hindu-majority India and Muslim-majority Pakistan spirals into the latest of several wars since the end of British colonial rule in 1947 depends on whether Pakistan can cast its response so far as sufficient and find a political off-ramp.

PESHAWAR, Pakistan — India launched missiles at neighbor and rival Pakistan on Wednesday, dramatically escalating tensions between the nuclear powers two weeks after a terrorist attack in Indian-administered Kashmir killed 26 people. Calling them an “act of war,” Pakistan said the strikes, which according to India hit nine locations across the Pakistani province of Punjab and in Pakistan-administered Kashmir, killed 26 people and injured 46 others. Among the dead were six people killed at two mosques and two teenagers who were killed elsewhere, Pakistani officials said. India said the strikes hit only “terror camps” and no civilian or military targets. It said it had exercised “considerable restraint” in its target selection. “Our actions have been focused, measured and non-escalatory in nature,” the Indian defense ministry said in a statement. Several buildings were on fire after the strikes, which caused power outages in various locations, videos posted on social media and verified by NBC News showed. Some of the injured were being taken to hospital in ambulances, and in another video, a loud hissing sound can be heard before a blast hits a few feet away from a crowd of bicyclists. India blames Pakistan for the massacre last month of 26 civilians, mostly tourists, in the Indian part of Kashmir, a disputed Himalayan region that both India and Pakistan claim in its entirety. Pakistan, which India has long accused of supporting cross-border terrorism, denies involvement and has called for a “neutral” investigation into the April 22 attack, the deadliest against Indian civilians in almost two decades. “It was expected that Pakistan would take action against terrorists and the infrastructure that supports them,” the Indian Embassy in Washington said in a statement. “Instead, during the fortnight that has gone by, Pakistan has indulged in denial and made allegations of false flag operations against India.”