India and Pakistan have started an armed conflict. What the media is writing
An armed conflict broke out between India and Pakistan. Indian authorities reported missile strikes, and Islamabad announced the destruction of five Indian fighter jets. The escalation began after the terrorist attack in the Indian part of Kashmir, over which the countries have been arguing for almost 80 years. What the media write about the first day of the military confrontation is in the Izvestia digest.
CNN: India launched missile strikes on Pakistan
India has launched missile strikes against targets in Pakistan. New Delhi said in a statement that they targeted terrorist infrastructure at nine sites in Pakistan's densely populated Punjab province and in the Pakistani-controlled part of Kashmir. They were a response to the killing of tourists by militants in Indian-controlled Kashmir two weeks ago.
CNN
Pakistan said Wednesday's strikes killed at least 26 people, including women and a three-year-old girl, and injured 46 others. The country's Prime Minister, Shahbaz Sharif, called the strikes an "act of war," and Islamabad promised to take retaliatory measures.
Also, since the morning of May 7, both sides have been exchanging artillery fire across the border. Pakistani military sources said they shot down five Indian Air Force planes and one drone. Three French-made Rafale aircraft, a MiG-29 and a Su-30 fighter were among those shot down.
Al Jazeera: India has hit Punjab Province for the first time since 1971
The Pakistani military said Indian missiles had hit six cities. These included four settlements in the Punjab province. It was the first time India had hit Pakistan's most populous province since the war between the neighbors in 1971. Muzaffarabad and Kotli in Pakistan-administered Kashmir were also hit.
Al Jazeera
A state of emergency was declared in Punjab province on Wednesday, hospitals and security forces were placed on high alert, and schools were closed. Shortly after the Indian attacks, Pakistan's leadership, both political and military, said that the country had deployed its means of defense, and its fighter jets "took to the air."
The Pakistani military said India had fired all of its missiles from Indian airspace. It follows from this that Pakistan shot down Indian planes when they were in Indian airspace. The Indian authorities have not yet commented on these statements and have not reported whether all the Indian Air Force aircraft involved in the strikes returned safely to their bases.
The Guardian: There is panic on the line of demarcation in Kashmir
After India accused Pakistan of involvement in the terrorist attack, which killed 26 people, and promised to respond with military action, the locals realized that a confrontation between the two countries could begin at any moment. In Indian Kashmir, residents of border villages were preparing bunkers and stocking up on supplies. Around one o'clock in the morning on May 7, the whistling of rockets overhead and the shuddering roar of explosions over the border informed them that Indian strikes on Pakistan had begun.
The Guardian
In the village of Vuyen, located in Pulwama district in southern Indian Kashmir, local residents reported that an object, presumably an airplane, had fallen from the sky. Firefighters were immediately dispatched to extinguish the fire. Although officials declined to confirm whether it was a military aircraft, eyewitnesses reported hearing a loud explosion around midnight, accompanied by the sound of fighter jets overhead.
In the Chowkibala area, the nighttime shelling caused mass panic and led to the evacuation of the population to safer places. On the other side of the border in Pakistan-controlled Kashmir, they say India's strikes occurred without warning. A local resident said that two children in the Kotli area died as a result of Indian attacks.
Bloomberg: international flights are bypassing Pakistan
Commercial aircraft have left Pakistan's airspace, leaving the sky virtually empty after India's targeted military strikes provoked a sharp escalation of tensions between the countries. More than a dozen Indian airports near the border with Pakistan have been closed.
Bloomberg
Pakistan's airspace has already been closed to Indian air carriers. But a complete shutdown would be a blow for air carriers flying between Europe and the Middle East to Southeast Asia, as well as for planes flying between Africa and North Asia. Europe's largest airlines have already avoided Pakistan's airspace amid escalating tensions with India.
Lufthansa, Air France-KLM and British Airways stopped using the airspace and instead returned to flying over the Arabian Sea to reach India. Emirates also operates flights around the area. The detours mean that flight hours between Europe, the Middle East, and Asia have become longer, in some cases by as much as 100 minutes, resulting in higher costs due to additional fuel burning.
The New York Times: The war between India and Pakistan is also a conflict between the United States and China
Six years have passed since the last military conflict between India and Pakistan. During this time, both countries have changed their military allies, making the new confrontation a reflection of the rivalry between the United States and China in the context of arms supplies. India has gotten rid of its indecisive attitude towards the United States and is buying billions of dollars worth of equipment from them and other Western suppliers. At the same time, India has sharply reduced purchases of cheap weapons from Russia.
The New York Times
Pakistan, whose importance to the United States has waned since the end of the war in Afghanistan, no longer buys American equipment. Instead, Pakistan turned to China for most of its military purchases. These ties have brought the politics of the superpowers into the longest and most intractable conflict in South Asia.
The United States views India as a partner in countering China, while Beijing is expanding its investments and patronage of Pakistan as India moves closer to America. At the same time, relations between India and China have deteriorated in recent years due to territorial claims, and clashes have occasionally broken out between the two armies. And relations between the United States and China reached a low point when President Donald Trump launched a trade war against Beijing.
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