The escalating conflict between India and Pakistan could be offering the world a first real glimpse into how advanced Chinese military technology performs against proven Western hardware – and Chinese defense stocks are already surging.

Shares of China’s AVIC Chengdu Aircraft rose 40% this week, as Pakistan claimed it used AVIC-produced J-10C jets to shoot down Indian fighter jets – including the advanced French-made Rafale – during an aerial battle on Wednesday.

India has not responded to Pakistan’s claims or acknowledged any aircraft losses. When asked about the involvement of Chinese-made jets, a spokesperson for China’s Foreign Ministry said on Thursday he was not familiar with the situation.

Still, as Pakistan’s primary arms supplier, China is likely watching intently to find out how its weapon systems have and potentially will perform in real combat.

A rising military superpower, China hasn’t fought a major war in more than four decades. But under leader Xi Jinping, it has raced to modernize its armed forces, pouring resources into developing sophisticated weaponry and cutting-edge technologies.

It has also extended that modernization drive to Pakistan, long hailed by Beijing as its “ironclad brother.”

Over the past five years, China has supplied 81% of Pakistan’s imported weapons, according to data from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).

Those exports include advanced fighter jets, missiles, radars and air-defense systems that experts say would play a pivotal role in any military conflict between Pakistan and India. Some Pakistan-made weapons have also been co-developed with Chinese firms or built with Chinese technology and expertise.

“This makes any engagement between India and Pakistan a de facto test environment for Chinese military exports,” said Sajjan Gohel, international security director at the Asia-Pacific Foundation, a think tank based in London.

Chinese and Pakistani militaries have also engaged in increasingly sophisticated joint air, sea and land exercises, including combat simulations and even crew-swapping drills.

“Beijing’s long-standing support for Islamabad – through hardware, training, and now increasingly AI-enabled targeting – has quietly shifted the tactical balance,” said Craig Singleton, a senior fellow at the US-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

“This isn’t just a bilateral clash anymore; it’s a glimpse of how Chinese defense exports are reshaping regional deterrence.”

That shift – brought into sharp focus by rising tensions between India and Pakistan following a tourist massacre in Kashmir – underscores a broader geopolitical realignment in the region, where China has emerged as a major challenge to American influence.

India and Pakistan have gone to war over Kashmir three times since their independence from Britain in 1947. During the height of the Cold War, the Soviet Union backed India, while the United States and China supported Pakistan. Now, a new era of great-power rivalry looms over the long-running conflict between the nuclear-armed South Asian rivals.

Despite its traditional policy of nonalignment, India has drawn ever closer to the US, as successive American administrations courted the rising South Asian giant as a strategic counterweight to China. India has ramped up arms purchases from America and its allies, including France and Israel, while steadily reducing its reliance on Russian weaponry.

Meanwhile, Pakistan has deepened ties with China, becoming its “all-weather strategic partner” and a key participant in Xi’s flagship global infrastructure project, the Belt and Road Initiative. According to SIPRI’s data, the US and China each supplied about one-third of Pakistan’s imported weapons in the late 2000s. But Pakistan has stopped buying American arms in recent years and increasingly filled its arsenal with Chinese weapons.

Siemon Wezeman, a senior researcher in the SIPRI Arms Transfers Program, noted that while China has been an important arms supplier to Pakistan since the mid-1960s, its current dominance largely comes from stepping into a vacuum left by the US.

More than a decade ago, the US accused Pakistan of not doing enough to fight “terrorists” – including Taliban fighters – that it said were operating from or being supplied in Pakistan. Wezeman said that added to Washington’s existing frustrations over Islamabad’s nuclear program and lack of democracy.

“(The US) finally found India as an alternative partner in the region. As a result, (it) more or less cut Pakistan off from US arms,” he added. “China’s arms supply on the other hand significantly increased – one can say that China used the opportunity to show itself as the only real friend and ally of Pakistan.”

China has expressed regret over India’s military strikes against Pakistan and has called for calm and restraint. Before the latest escalation, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi expressed support for Pakistan in a phone call with his counterpart, calling China Pakistan’s “ironclad friend.”

Military showdown

With Pakistan armed largely by China and India sourcing more than half of its weapons from the US and its allies, any conflict between the two neighbors could effectively be a showdown between Chinese and Western military technologies.

After weeks of rising hostilities following the killing of 26 mostly Indian tourists at the hands of gunmen at a scenic mountain spot in Indian-administered Kashmir, India launched missile strikes early on Wednesday morning, targeting what it said was “terrorist infrastructure” in both Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir.

Many analysts believe the missiles and other munitions were fired by India’s French-made Rafale and Russian-made Su-30 fighter jets.

Pakistan, meanwhile, touted a great victory by its air force, claiming that five Indian fighter jets – three Rafales, a MiG-29 and a Su-30 fighter – were shot down by its J-10C fighters during an hour-long battle it claimed was fought by 125 aircraft at ranges over 160 kilometers (100 miles).

“(It) is now being characterized as the most intense air-to-air combat engagement between two nuclear-armed nations,” said Salman Ali Bettani, an international relations scholar at Quaid-i-Azam University in Islamabad. “The engagement represented a milestone in the operational use of advanced Chinese-origin systems.”

India has not acknowledged any aircraft losses, and Pakistan has yet to provide evidence to support its claims. But a French Defense Ministry source said at least one of India’s newest and most-advanced warplanes – a French-made Rafale fighter jet – was lost in the battle.

“If … confirmed, it indicates that the weapon systems at Pakistan’s disposal are, at the minimum, contemporary or current compared to what Western Europe (especially France) offers,” said Bilal Khan, founder of Toronto-based defense analysis firm Quwa Group Inc.

Despite the absence of official confirmation and hard proof, Chinese nationalists and military enthusiasts have taken to social media to celebrate what they see as a triumph for Chinese-made weapon systems.

Shares of China’s state-owned AVIC Chengdu Aircraft, the maker of Pakistan’s J-10C fighter jets, closed 17% higher on the Shenzhen exchange on Wednesday, even before Pakistan’s foreign minister claimed the jets had been used to shoot down India’s planes. Shares in the company rose an additional 20% on Thursday.

The J-10C is the latest version of China’s single-engine, multirole J-10 fighter, which entered service with the Chinese air force in the early 2000s. Featuring better weapon systems and avionics, the J-10C is classified as a 4.5-generation fighter – in the same tier as the Rafale but a rung below 5th-generation stealth jets, like China’s J-20 or the US F-35.

China delivered the first batch of the J-10CE – the export version – to Pakistan in 2022, state broadcaster CCTV reported at the time. It’s now the most advanced fighter jet in Pakistan’s arsenal, alongside the JF-17 Block III, a 4.5-generation lightweight fighter co-developed by Pakistan and China.

The Pakistan Air Force (PAF) also operates a larger fleet of American-built F-16s, one of which was used to shoot down a Soviet-designed Indian fighter jet during a flare-up in 2019.

But the PAF’s F-16s are still stuck in an early-2000s configuration – far behind the upgraded versions currently offered by the US – while the Chinese-made J-10CEs and JF-17 Block IIIs feature contemporary technologies such as active electronically scanned array (AESA) radars, Khan said.

“So, the F-16s are still a major piece to any PAF-led reprisal, but not the central or indispensable one,” he said.

Senior Col. (ret) Zhou Bo, senior fellow at Tsinghua University’s Center for International Security and Strategy in Beijing, said if Chinese-made J-10Cs were indeed used to shoot down the French-made Rafales, it would be “a tremendous boost of confidence in Chinese weapon systems.”

Zhou said it would “really raise people’s eyebrows” particularly given China has not fought a war for more than four decades. “It will potentially be a huge boost for Chinese arm sales in the international market,” he said.

‘A powerful advertisement’

The United States remains the world’s largest arms exporter, accounting for 43% of global weapons exports between 2020 and 2024, according to data from SIPRI. That’s more than four times the share of France, which ranks second, followed by Russia.

China ranks fourth, with nearly two-thirds of its arms exports going to a single country: Pakistan.

Khan, the defense analyst in Toronto, agreed the downing, if confirmed, would go a long way in promoting China’s defense industry saying there would likely be interest from “powers in the Middle East and North Africa” who typically can’t access “the most cutting-edge Western technology.”

“With Russia set back as a result of its invasion of Ukraine, I’m sure the Chinese have begun pushing hard at Moscow’s traditional markets – e.g., Algeria, Egypt, Iraq, and Sudan – to secure big-ticket sales.”

Experts in Pakistan and China say the J-10Cs deployed by the Pakistan Air Force are likely to have been paired with the PL-15, China’s most advanced air-to-air missile – which has a reported beyond-visual-range of 200-300 kilometers (120-190 miles). The known export version has a reduced range of 145 kilometers (90 miles).

Last week, amid spiraling tensions, the Pakistan Air Force released a three-minute video showcasing its warplanes. It featured the JF-17 Block III armed with PL-15 missiles, describing them as “PAF’s potent punch”.

“From China’s perspective, this is essentially a powerful advertisement,” Antony Wong Dong, a Macau-based military observer, said of the Pakistan claims.

“It will shock even countries like the United States — just how strong is its opponent, really? This is a question that all countries potentially looking to buy fighter jets, as well as China’s regional rivals, will need to seriously reconsider: how should they face this new reality?”

But some experts have expressed caution. India’s losses, if confirmed, could stem more from poor tactics and planning by the Indian Air Force than from the perceived advancements in Chinese weapons.

“If reports of India losing multiple jets holds up, it would raise serious questions about the IAF’s readiness, not just its platforms. The Rafales are modern, but warfighting is about integration, coordination, and survivability — not just headline acquisitions,” said Singleton, the analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

What’s also not known is what intelligence India had on the PL-15.

If, for instance, it believed Pakistan only possessed the shorter-range export version, Indian aircraft might have lingered in vulnerable areas.

Rules of engagement may also have prevented Indian pilots from firing first, or firing back against Pakistani aircraft, according to Fabian Hoffman, a defense policy research fellow at the University of Oslo.

In such cases, Indian misjudgments may have made the Pakistani weaponry look more effective, Hoffman wrote on his blog.

Experts also note that India’s strikes successfully hit multiple targets in Pakistan – suggesting its missiles penetrated Pakistani air defenses, which are armed with Chinese surface-to-air missiles, including the long-range HQ-9B.

“If Chinese-origin radar or missile systems failed to detect or deter Indian strikes, that’s (also) bad optics for Beijing’s arms export credibility,” said Gohel, the defense expert in London.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has taken center stage at Russia’s Victory Day parade on Friday, surrounding himself by friendly world leaders in a highly choreographed show designed to show the Western world that Russia is far from isolated.

Watching as thousands of troops marched across Moscow’s Red Square, Putin stood next to his guest of honor, the Chinese leader Xi Jinping.

The annual May 9 commemoration of the Soviet Union’s victory over Nazi Germany in World War II is one of the most important days in Putin’s calendar, and this year marks its 80th anniversary.

Traditionally, the day has been dedicated to the estimated 25 million to 27 million Soviet soldiers and civilians who died during the conflict. But since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Victory Day has become more of a propaganda exercise, with Putin framing the war against Russia’s much smaller neighbor as a continuation of what Russians call the Great Patriotic War.

And while celebrations were muted in the past three years, Russia has not held back this time.

Putin and Xi were joined by scores of other world leaders, most of whom had the black and orange ribbon of Saint George pinned to their lapels. Many of them have also sent troops to march in the parade, alongside Russian servicemen.

The Russian military symbol dates back to imperial times, but it has become hugely controversial in recent years, having been coopted as a sign of support for Moscow’s aggression against Ukraine. It has been banned in a number of countries.

Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, the Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, Serbia’s President Aleksandar Vucic, Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro and Mahmoud Abbas, the President of the Palestinian Authority were all in attendance, marking a significant upgrade to last year’s guestlist which was limited to a handful of delegations from post-Soviet states, Cuba and a few other countries.

Robert Fico, the Prime Minister of Slovakia, a European Union member state, was also in Moscow on Friday. His appearance side by side with Putin was particularly significant given the EU’s tough stance against Russia over its aggression against Ukraine.

Unilateral ceasefire, breached multiple times

Last month, Putin declared a three-day unilateral ceasefire around the anniversary – an announcement that was promptly rejected by Ukraine.

“The Kremlin’s proposal for a three-day truce is not about peace, but about ensuring the safe conduct of the parade in Moscow. This is political manipulation,” Andriy Yermak, the head of the Ukrainian Presidential Office, said in a statement on Thursday.

Kyiv said that if Russia wanted a truce, it should sign up to the US proposal for a 30-day ceasefire that Ukraine has already agreed to. Russia has repeatedly refused this offer, despite multiple high-profile meetings with top US officials.

Kyiv said on Thursday that Russia had breached the ceasefire hundreds of times since it came into effect. Several civilians were killed and injured in guided bomb attacks against Ukrainian cities, Kyiv said.

Kyiv is openly indifferent to the smooth-running of Putin’s parade, saying that it “cannot be responsible for what happens on the territory of the Russian Federation” because of the war. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said his country would not be “playing games to create a pleasant atmosphere to allow for Putin’s exit from isolation on May 9.”

In the run-up to the parade, Ukraine launched several drone attacks against the Russian capital, with authorities forced to shut down all four Moscow airports on Wednesday.

Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania also threw in some logistical complications for international parade-goers, shutting their airspaces to diplomatic planes traveling to Moscow. Several pro-Kremlin leaders were forced to reroute their journeys to Moscow to circumvent the Baltic states.

“In Latvian society, there is a clear and principled understanding that Russian propaganda and glorification of war crimes cannot be supported or encouraged … given this context, Latvia cannot grant diplomatic overflight permits for flights facilitating participation in the 9 May event,” the Latvian Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Thursday.

Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico, one of the leaders affected by the closures, criticized the move, saying on Wednesday that it was “extremely disruptive.”

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic was also forced to re-route after the Baltic states said he wouldn’t be allowed to enter their airspace. According to Serbian media, he ended up flying via Baku in Azerbaijan.

For the first time in history, the majority of humans live in cities — spaces often defined by concrete, glass and a disconnect from the natural world. Access to nature is no longer guaranteed.

In 2020, Miles founded Nature Is a Human Right, a campaign advocating for daily access to green spaces to be recognized in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Frustrated by the slow pace of institutional change, Miles says she “lost faith in the top-down process.” So she took matters into her own hands. Her weapon? Not protest banners or petitions, but seeds and shovels.

She became a so-called guerrilla gardener — “Grassroots planting in a public place, with a purpose,” Miles explains. “Think of it like graffiti, but with wildflowers instead of spray paint.” This form of urban activism involves transforming neglected or overlooked spaces — cracks in pavements, roadside verges, abandoned lots — into mini-oases for people, pollinators and biodiversity.

What began during the Covid pandemic — when parks were shut and access to green space became scarce — grew into a weekly ritual. Miles and her neighbors would meet on Sunday mornings, armed with bulbs and trowels, planting in overlooked corners of the London Borough of Hackney.

Guerrilla gardening

In the UK, guerrilla gardening occupies a legal gray area: while planting on public land without permission is not technically lawful, authorities often turn a blind eye — so long as it doesn’t cause damage, obstruction or a public nuisance.

According to the Royal Horticultural Society, guerrilla gardeners should ensure their planting doesn’t inconvenience others and be careful to not restrict public access or create trip hazards. It’s also important that anything planted is removable, and that the roots won’t cause structural damage to sidewalks and buildings.

Guerrilla gardening dates back to the 1970s, when the Green Guerrillas, founded by Liz Christy in the US, transformed vacant lots into community gardens. The movement has since spread worldwide, from Ron Finley, the “Gangsta Gardener” in Los Angeles, to Ta Mère Nature in France, and the Ujamaa Guerrilla Gardening Collective in South Africa.

Miles has brought the underground movement into the spotlight on TikTok and other social media. Her upbeat videos demystify the process, showing everything from creating seed bombs to planting moss graffiti — a form of street art where living moss is used to create patterns or words on walls. “I wasn’t a gardener. I was learning as I went along,” she admits. “But I just wanted the streets to be greener.”

As Miles’ seeds grew, so did her online following. “Young people today are very awake to issues like climate change, inequality, and mental health,” Miles says. “Guerrilla gardening intersects with all of that. It’s something you can do with your own two hands and see the impact immediately.”

“A lot of activism can feel intangible,” she adds. “With guerrilla gardening, you see the results. It’s empowering.”

And it’s more than just symbolic: “It’s been shown that having access to green spaces is as vital to your mental and physical health as regular exercise and a healthy diet,” says Miles. “We need it around us. We need the phytoncides (compounds plants release into the air) that plants produce. The experience of having plants around us calms us.”

A study of 20,000 participants by the UK’s University of Exeter found that people who spent at least 120 minutes a week in green spaces reported significantly better physical health and psychological well-being than those who didn’t. For young children, access to green spaces has been linked to reduced hyperactivity and improved attention spans. Communities can benefit too: a US study showed that greening vacant lots can lead to lower crime rates.

Miles’ message is simple: anyone can get involved. “It’s spring now,” she continues. “Find native wildflowers, scatter them when it’s raining then you won’t even have to water them.” For those who want to go further, Miles has written a book on the subject and teaches a free four-week online course through the nonprofit Earthed, which has attracted over 300 participants. She advises gardening as a group — community is key.

Her vision is bold but refreshingly practical: “Why aren’t all our sidewalks lined with hedges?” says Miles. “Our buildings could be covered in plants. Our rooftops and bus stops could be buzzing with flowers. It’s a no-brainer.”

Two men have been found guilty of criminal damage for felling a landmark sycamore tree in northern England.

Daniel Graham, 39, and Adam Carruthers, 32, were each found guilty of two counts of criminal damage, one relating to the tree and the other to Hadrian’s Wall that the tree fell on, according to the UK’s PA Media news agency on Friday.

The verdict was handed down following a trial at Newcastle Crown Court in northeast England. Both men will be sentenced on July 15.

The tree had stood sentinel on Britain’s Roman-built Hadrian’s Wall for more than 200 years before being “deliberately felled” in September 2023 in what authorities at the time called an “act of vandalism.”

The sycamore tree, located in the Northumberland National Park in northern England, was made famous to millions around the world when it appeared in Kevin Costner’s 1991 blockbuster movie “Robin Hood: Prince Of Thieves.”

The tree – at a spot known as “Sycamore Gap” – was located on the historic UNESCO World Heritage listed Hadrian’s Wall, which was constructed around 1,900 years ago to guard the furthest northwestern frontier of the Roman Empire.

During the trial, prosecutor Richard Wright KC said the felling was an act of “mindless vandalism.” He detailed how the two men drove 30 miles (48 kilometers) at night to reach the tree before one cut it down while the other filmed it.

The jury determined Graham and Carruthers caused £622,191 (about $826,000) of criminal damage to the tree and £1,144 ($1,500) of damage to Hadrian’s Wall, according to PA Media.

Jurors heard how the two men sometimes worked together and had experience of cutting down large trees. Although originally the “best of pals,” the two defendants now appear to have fallen out and their friendship has “unravelled,” the court was told.

During testimony, Graham told the court that Carruthers had told him that the tree “was the most famous tree in the world” and had spoken about cutting it down, reports PA Media.

Ukraine said Friday it had exposed a network of Hungarian spies trying to obtain defense secrets in a border region of Ukraine – the first time it said such an operation has been discovered.

The Security Services of Ukraine (SBU) said it had detained two Hungarian special services agents, whom it claims were reporting to a handler in Hungarian military intelligence and were looking for ground and air defense vulnerabilities in the southwestern Zakarpattia region, which borders Hungary.

“Comprehensive measures are currently underway to bring all members of the Hungarian intelligence network to justice,” said the statement.

Hungary responded to the arrests by expelling two of the staff at the Ukrainian embassy in Budapest.

Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said on his Facebook page that two spies who had been working “under diplomatic cover” at the embassy were ordered to leave.

Ukraine and Hungary are at odds over the conflict between Ukraine and Russia and Ukrainian accession to the European Union. Hungary has also criticized European sanctions against Moscow.

The Hungarian government has also frequently complained that the ethnic Hungarian minority in Zakarpattia is discriminated against.

“The past three years have shown that the war in Ukraine is being fought not only on the battlefield, but also in the information space. Anti-Hungarian propaganda is often used without any factual basis,” Szijjarto said in a post on X in response to the arrests.

Speaking to reporters, Szijjarto said: “If we receive any details or official information, then we will be able to deal with this. Until then, I must classify this as propaganda that must be handled with caution.”

“We will not tolerate smear campaigns against Hungary and the Hungarian people,” he said, before alleging that “anti-Hungarian propaganda has intensified,” since the start of the war.

“We haven’t let Hungary be dragged into this war — and we won’t. That’s exactly why we keep being targeted,” Szijjarto said.

Ukraine’s SBU said the Hungarian spies were tasked with gathering information about the military security and studying the views of residents and “behavior scenarios” if Hungarian troops entered Zakarpattia.

The SBU alleged that one man from Berehove in Zakarpattia was recruited in 2021 and “activated” last September. It accused him of collecting information on the location of Ukrainian defense systems, including its S-300 anti-aircraft missile system in the region.

It also alleged he had attempted to recruit two other men as he tried to establish a “network of informants.”

The second person detained, a woman who left her unit in Ukraine’s Security and Defense Forces this year, had been tasked with informing the Hungarian special services about the defense systems of her unit and informing on the presence of aircraft and helicopters in the Zakarpattia region, the SBU claimed.

The Zakarpattia region stayed part of Ukraine after the breakup of the Soviet Union. The region was once part of the former Kingdom of Hungary and later Czechoslovakia.

According to a census in 2001, just over 150,000 ethnic Hungarians lived in the region, but the number is widely thought to have declined since then. Last year, representatives of the Hungarian-speaking community criticized a draft Ukrainian law that would have restricted the use of Hungarian in schools by allowing it to be used only in classroom activities and not outside classroom settings.

The two countries had disagreements over Hungary’s 2011 decision to relax its naturalization procedures and allow anyone who can speak Hungarian and has Hungarian ancestry to gain citizenship – even if they have never stepped a foot in the country. Tens of thousands of Ukrainians were granted Hungarian passports since then, despite Ukraine not allowing dual citizenship.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has opposed Ukraine’s accession to the EU in part because of claims that ethnic Hungarians in western Ukraine face discrimination.

Orban has remained on good terms with Moscow throughout the conflict and has opposed the growing raft of EU sanctions against Russia as well as EU aid packages for Ukraine.

On Wednesday, Orban said EU President Ursula von der Leyen “wants to pour further billions into Ukraine, pull Europe further into a losing war, and rush a bankrupt state into the EU.”

“Hungary won’t go along with this,” he said.