At 08:15 on August 6, 1945, as a nuclear bomb was falling like a stone through the skies over Hiroshima, Lee Jung-soon was on her way to elementary school.

The now-88-year-old waves her hands as if trying to push the memory away.

“My father was about to leave for work, but he suddenly came running back and told us to evacuate immediately,” she recalls. “They say the streets were filled with the dead – but I was so shocked all I remember is crying. I just cried and cried.”

Victims’ bodies “melted away so only their eyes were visible”, Ms Lee says, as a blast equivalent to 15,000 tons of TNT enveloped a city of 420,000 people. What remained in the aftermath were corpses too mangled to be identified.

“The atomic bomb… it’s such a terrifying weapon.”

It’s been 80 years since the United States detonated ‘Little Boy’, humanity’s first-ever atomic bomb, over the centre of Hiroshima, instantly killing some 70,000 people. Tens of thousands more would die in the coming months from radiation sickness, burns and dehydration.

The devastation wrought by the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki – which brought a decisive end to both World War Two and Japanese imperial rule across large swaths of Asia – has been well-documented over the past eight decades.

Less well-known is the fact that about 20% of the immediate victims were Koreans.

Korea had been a Japanese colony for 35 years when the bomb was dropped. An estimated 140,000 Koreans were living in Hiroshima at the time – many having moved there due to forced labour mobilisation, or to survive under colonial exploitation.

Those who survived the atom bomb, along with their descendants, continue to live in the long shadow of that day – wrestling with disfigurement, pain, and a decades-long fight for justice that remains unresolved.

“No-one takes responsibility,” says Shim Jin-tae, an 83-year-old survivor. “Not the country that dropped the bomb. Not the country that failed to protect us. America never apologised. Japan pretends not to know. Korea is no better. They just pass the blame – and we’re left alone.”

Mr Shim now lives in Hapcheon, South Korea: a small county which, having become the home of dozens of survivors like he and Ms Lee, has been dubbed “Korea’s Hiroshima”.

For Ms Lee, the shock of that day has not faded – it etched itself into her body as illness. She now lives with skin cancer, Parkinson’s disease, and angina, a condition stemming from poor blood flow to the heart, which typically manifests as chest pain.

But what weighs more heavily is that the pain didn’t stop with her. Her son Ho-chang, who supports her, was diagnosed with kidney failure and is undergoing dialysis while awaiting a transplant.

“I believe it’s due to radiation exposure, but who can prove it?” Ho-chang Lee says. “It’s hard to verify scientifically – you’d need genetic testing, which is exhausting and expensive.”

The Ministry of Health and Welfare (MOHW) told the BBC that it had gathered genetic data between 2020 and 2024 and would continue further studies until 2029. It would “consider expanding the definition of victims” to second- and- third-generation survivors only “if the results are statistically significant”, it said.

Of the 140,000 Koreans in Hiroshima at the time of the bombing, many were from Hapcheon.

Surrounded by mountains with little farmland, it was a difficult place to live. Crops were seized by the Japanese occupiers, droughts ravaged the land, and thousands of people left the rural country for Japan during the war. Some were forcibly conscripted; others were lured by the promise that “you could eat three meals a day and send your kids to school.”

But in Japan, Koreans were second-class citizens – often given the hardest, dirtiest and most dangerous jobs. Mr Shim says his father worked in a munitions factory as a forced labourer, while his mother hammered nails into wooden ammunition crates.

In the aftermath of the bomb, this distribution of labour translated into dangerous and often fatal work for Koreans in Hiroshima.

“Korean workers had to clean up the dead,” Mr Shim, who is the director of the Hapcheon branch of the Korean Atomic Bomb Victims Association, tells BBC Korean. “At first they used stretchers, but there were too many bodies. Eventually, they used dustpans to gather corpses and burned them in schoolyards.

“It was mostly Koreans who did this. Most of the post-war clean-up and munitions work was done by us.”

According to a study by the Gyeonggi Welfare Foundation, some survivors were forced to clear rubble and recover bodies. While Japanese evacuees fled to relatives, Koreans without local ties remained in the city, exposed to the radioactive fallout – and with limited access to medical care.

A combination of these conditions – poor treatment, hazardous work and structural discrimination – all contributed to a disproportionately high death toll among Koreans.

According to the Korean Atomic Bomb Victims Association, the Korean fatality rate was 57.1%, compared to the overall rate of about 33.7%.

About 70,000 Koreans were exposed to the bomb. By year’s end, some 40,000 had died.

After the bombings, which led to Japan’s surrender and Korea’s subsequent liberation, about 23,000 Korean survivors returned home. But they were not welcomed. Branded as disfigured or cursed, they faced prejudice even in their homeland.

“Hapcheon already had a leper colony,” Mr Shim explains. “And because of that image, people thought the bomb survivors had skin diseases too.”

Such stigma made survivors stay silent about their plight, he adds, suggesting that “survival came before pride”.

Ms Lee says she saw this “with her own eyes”.

“People who were badly burned or extremely poor were treated terribly,” she recalls. “In our village, some people had their backs and faces so badly scarred that only their eyes were visible. They were rejected from marriage and shunned.”

With stigma came poverty, and hardship. Then came illnesses with no clear cause: skin diseases, heart conditions, kidney failure, cancer. The symptoms were everywhere – but no-one could explain them.

Over time, the focus shifted to the second and third generations.

Han Jeong-sun, a second-generation survivor, suffers from avascular necrosis in her hips, and can’t walk without dragging herself. Her first son was born with cerebral palsy.

“My son has never walked a single step in his life,” she says. “And my in-laws treated me horribly. They said, ‘You gave birth to a crippled child and you’re crippled too—are you here to ruin our family?’

“That time was absolute hell.”

For decades, not even the Korean government took active interest in its own victims, as a war with the North and economic struggles were treated as higher priorities.

It wasn’t until 2019 – more than 70 years after the bombing – that MOHW released its first fact-finding report. That survey was mostly based on questionnaires.

In response to BBC inquiries, the ministry explained that prior to 2019, “There was no legal basis for funding or official investigations”.

But two separate studies had found that second-generation victims were more vulnerable to illness. One, from 2005, showed that second-generation victims were far more likely than the general population to suffer depression, heart disease and anaemia, while another from 2013 found their disability registration rate was nearly double the national average.

Against this backdrop, Ms Han is incredulous that authorities keep asking for proof to recognise her and her son as victims of Hiroshima.

“My illness is the proof. My son’s disability is the proof. This pain passes down generations, and it’s visible,” she says. “But they won’t recognise it. So what are we supposed to do – just die without ever being acknowledged?”

It was only last month, on 12 July, that Hiroshima officials visited Hapcheon for the first time to lay flowers at a memorial. While former PM Yukio Hatoyama and other private figures had come before, this was the first official visit by current Japanese officials.

“Now in 2025 Japan talks about peace. But peace without apology is meaningless,” says Junko Ichiba, a long-time Japanese peace activist who has spent most of her life advocating for Korean Hiroshima victims.

She points out that the visiting officials gave no mention or apology for how Japan treated Korean people before and during World War Two.

Although multiple former Japanese leaders have offered their apologies and remorse, many South Koreans regard these sentiments as insincere or insufficient without formal acknowledgement.

Ms Ichiba notes that Japanese textbooks still omit the history of Korea’s colonial past – as well as its atomic bomb victims – saying that “this invisibility only deepens the injustice”.

This adds to what many view as a broader lack of accountability for Japan’s colonial legacy.

Heo Jeong-gu, director of the Red Cross’s support division, said, “These issues… must be addressed while survivors are still alive. For the second and third generations, we must gather evidence and testimonies before it’s too late.”

For survivors like Mr Shim it’s not just about being compensated – it’s about being acknowledged.

“Memory matters more than compensation,” he says. “Our bodies remember what we went through… If we forget, it’ll happen again. And someday, there’ll be no one left to tell the story.”

US Attorney General Pam Bondi has ordered prosecutors to open legal proceedings into allegations that political opponents of Donald Trump may have conspired to falsely accuse him of colluding with Russia in the run-up to the 2016 presidential election.

According to the BBC’s US partner CBS News, prosecutors will submit evidence to a grand jury – a group of members of the public who will decide whether formal charges will be filed.

It is unclear, however, what those charges might be and who could be charged.

Trump was elected president in the 2016 election, beating Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton. He has always accused political foes of smear over the so-called Russiagate allegations.

Last month, US Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard accused former President Barack Obama and his national security team of a “years-long coup” against Trump.

Gabbard alleged that intelligence about Russian meddling in the 2016 White House election had been politicised by the Obama White House to falsely tie Trump to Russia.

Trump reacted by accusing Obama of “treason” – and an Obama spokesman called that claim “bizarre”.

Democrats said nothing in Gabbard’s findings invalidated a US intelligence assessment in January 2017 concluding that Russia had sought to damage Clinton’s campaign and boost Trump in the vote three months earlier.

A 2020 bipartisan report by the Senate intelligence committee also found that Russia had tried to help Trump’s 2016 campaign.

Fox News reported last month that ex-CIA Director John Brennan and ex-FBI Director James Comey were under criminal investigation relating to the Trump–Russia probe. Both have long denied any wrongdoing and accuse Trump of subverting the justice system.

Half of Trump’s first presidency was overshadowed by an investigation from his own justice department into whether he had conspired with Russia to sway the 2016 outcome.

The resulting Mueller report found no proof that Trump or his campaign had co-ordinated with the Kremlin, and no-one was charged with such crimes.

The debate over Russiagate was reinvigorated last week when an appendix to another justice department investigation into the affair was declassified.

The 29 pages from Special Counsel John Durham’s inquiry cites a March 2016 memo from a US intelligence source stating that Hillary Clinton had approved a plan to smear Trump as a Russian asset.

Durham cites “what appear or purport to be original” emails that hackers affiliated with Russian intelligence might have obtained from an employee with a non-profit organisation run by liberal donor George Soros.

One of the messages appeared to have been sent by Leonard Benardo, senior vice-president at Open Society Foundations, Soros’ philanthropic arm. It apparently refers to a Clinton foreign policy adviser, Julianna Smith.

The email, dated 26 July 2016, reads: “Julie says it will be a long-term affair to demonize Putin and Trump. Now it is good for a post-convention bounce. Later the FBI will put more oil into the fire.”

There is nothing illegal about a political smear, but Trump allies suggested the email, if genuine, showed that federal investigators could have been part of the scheme. Durham, however, found no proof of such an FBI conspiracy.

According to the appendix, Benardo told Durham that “to the best of his recollection” he did not draft the email, although he noted that some of the verbiage further down sounded like something he would have said.

The special counsel also interviewed Smith, who said she did not recall receiving such an email from Benardo.

Durham made no determination in his appendix whether the emails were authentic, or if they had been doctored by Russian spies.

His main 306-page report, published in 2023, found the original FBI probe into Trump’s campaign had lacked “analytical rigor” and relied on “raw, unanalysed and uncorroborated intelligence”.

US officials found the Russian meddling in 2016 included bot farms on social media and hacking of Democratic emails, but they ultimately concluded the impact was probably limited and did not actually change the election result.

An Australian politician convicted of rape is fighting – from his jail cell – to remain a member of the New South Wales (NSW) state parliament.

Gareth Ward was last month found guilty of sexually assaulting two young men, aged 18 and 24, at his home between 2013 and 2015, and is now in custody pending sentencing.

The NSW House of Representatives had planned to expel the 44-year-old this week after he refused to resign following the guilty verdict.

However, lawyers for Ward – who plans to appeal his conviction – say they will seek an injunction, at a Supreme Court hearing on Thursday, to stop the independent member for Kiama from being forced out.

“He’s got no shame,” NSW Premier Chris Minns told local radio station 2GB on Tuesday.

He repeated calls for Ward to resign from state parliament, saying it’s the “first and most obvious choice”.

“It’s an unconscionable situation to have someone who’s currently sitting in jail in Silverwater, convicted of serious sexual offences, who is demanding to remain a member of parliament and continue to be paid,” Minns said.

Opposition leader Mark Speakman joined calls for Ward to step aside.

“Every day he clings to his seat from a jail cell, taxpayers are footing the bill and the people of Kiama are left voiceless. It’s not just wrong, it’s offensive,” the leader of the NSW Liberals – a party which Ward was formerly a part of – said.

In a statement after his conviction but before his bail was revoked, Ward said he was “absolutely shattered” by the jury’s verdict and was spending time with his family.

“I am taking advice about next steps, but I can confirm that I have provided instructions to my legal team to prepare an appeal at the earliest opportunity,” the statement read.

Ward resigned as a state government minister and from the Liberal Party when the accusations emerged in 2021, but refused to leave parliament and was re-elected as the member for Kiama in 2023.

The NSW government had previously considered voting to expel Ward – who has been a state MP since 2011 – but legal advice indicated it could risk prejudicing his trial.

If Ward is expelled from parliament, it would trigger a by-election in the south coast town of Kiama, with a possible vote within weeks.

Ward is due to be sentenced next month, for three counts of indecent assault and one count of rape.

An Indigenous group has launched legal action to stop a 63,000-seat stadium for the 2032 Brisbane Olympics being built on culturally significant land.

The Queensland government announced in March that a new A$3.8bn ($2.5bn; £1.8bn) stadium would be built – with federal funding – at Victoria Park, a 60-hectare site.

The Yagara Magandjin Aboriginal Corporation (YMAC) and Save Victoria Park group are requesting the federal environment minister to determine the park as a culturally significant site, which could protect the land from development.

Victoria Park is “of great significance and history” for Indigenous and non-Indigenous people, YMAC spokeswoman Gaja Kerry Charlton explained.

“We are very concerned there are ancient trees, artefacts and very important ecosystems existing there. There may be ancestral remains.”

A spokesperson for the federal government confirmed it had received the request to designate the site under the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage Protection Act.

“The department is currently reviewing this application and will take all standard steps to progress it, including engaging with the applicant, the proponent and the Queensland government,” they said.

If the stadium is built, it will host the opening and closing ceremonies of the Olympic and Paralympic Games in 2032.

After the Olympics, the stadium will become the home of AFL and cricket in Queensland.

Infrastructure plans for the 2032 Olympics have become a heated political issue in Queensland in recent years.

Labor’s Annastacia Palaszczuk led the successful Olympic bid, and announced plans to redevelop the ageing Gabba stadium for the games, at a cost of about A$3bn. But the plan was unpopular with locals who feared being displaced, and taxpayers dismayed at the price tag.

A review commissioned after she quit as premier in 2023 recommended an even more expensive plan, a brand new stadium in Victoria Park. However, amid a cost-of-living crisis, the state’s new leader Steven Miles opted instead to upgrade existing venues to host the games events, a decision some criticised as an embarrassment for Australia on the world stage.

Months later, he lost an election to the Liberal National Party which campaigned on a promise of no new stadiums.

But after the new government’s own review, new premier David Crisafulli adopted the plan to build a venue in Victoria Park, and has since introduced laws exempting new Olympic venues from planning rules in a bid to fast-track the development.

However the plans have been met with protests in Queensland, with some locals concerned about losing a large inner-city green space, and other worried about potential damage to cultural heritage.

The state and federal governments have signaled they will engage with Indigenous groups on the development plans at Victoria Park.

Brisbane’s Lord Mayor Adrian Schrinner told the Brisbane Times that there was strong support for the stadium.

“Ultimately, this is going to happen,” he said. “No doubt there will be attempts to thwart the project and slow it down.”

Has the relationship between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin gone off the rails?

A popular Russian newspaper thinks so. It turned to trains to illustrate the current state of US-Russian ties.

“A head-on collision seems unavoidable,” declared tabloid Moskovsky Komsomolets recently.

“The Trump locomotive and the Putin locomotive are speeding towards each other.

“And neither is about to turn off or stop and reverse.”

For the ‘Putin locomotive’, it’s full steam ahead, with the so-called ‘Special Military Operation’: Russia’s war in Ukraine. The Kremlin leader has shown no desire to end hostilities and declare a long-term ceasefire.

Meanwhile, the ‘Trump locomotive’ has been accelerating efforts to pressure Moscow into ending the fighting: announcing deadlines, ultimatums, threats of additional sanctions against Russia and hefty tariffs on Russia’s trading partners, like India and China.

Add to all of that the two US nuclear submarines which President Trump claims he’s repositioned closer to Russia.

When you switch from talking about locomotives to nuclear subs, you know things are serious.

But does that mean the White House is really on a “collision course” with the Kremlin over Ukraine?

Or is a visit to Moscow this week by Donald Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, a sign that for all the posturing, a deal between Russia and America to end the fighting is still possible?

In the early weeks of the second Trump presidency, Moscow and Washington appeared well on track to reboot their bilateral relations.

No hint of a head-on collision. Far from it. At times it seemed as if Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump were in the same carriage, moving in the same direction. In February the United States sided with Russia at the United Nations, opposing a European-drafted resolution that had condemned Russia’s “aggression” in Ukraine.

In a telephone call that month the two presidents talked about visiting each other’s countries. It felt like a Putin-Trump summit could happen any day.

Meanwhile the Trump administration was exerting pressure on Kyiv, not on Moscow, and picking fights with traditional US allies, such as Canada and Denmark. In speeches and TV interviews, American officials were fiercely critical of Nato and of European leaders.

All of this was music to the Kremlin’s ears.

“America now has more in common with Russia than Washington does with Brussels or with Kyiv,” political scientist Konstantin Blokhin from the Russian Academy of Sciences Centre for Security Studies told the Izvestia newspaper in March.

The following month the same newspaper was crowing:

“The Trumpists are revolutionaries. They are wreckers of the system. They can only be supported in this. The unity of the West is no more. Geo-politically it is no longer an alliance. Trumpism has destroyed the Transatlantic consensus confidently and quickly.”

Meanwhile Donald Trump’s envoy, Steve Witkoff, had become a regular visitor to Russia. He made four trips here in just over two months, spending hours in talks with Vladimir Putin. After one meeting, the Kremlin leader presented him with a portrait of Donald Trump to take back to the White House.

President Trump was said to be “clearly touched” by the gesture.

But President Trump was looking for more than just a painting from Moscow. He wanted President Putin to sign up to an unconditional comprehensive ceasefire in Ukraine.

Confident that Russia holds the initiative now on the battlefield, Vladimir Putin has been reluctant to stop fighting, despite his claim that Moscow is committed to a diplomatic solution.

Which is why Donald Trump has grown increasingly frustrated with the Kremlin.

In recent weeks he has condemned Russia’s relentless attacks on Ukrainian cities as “disgusting”, “disgraceful” and accused President Putin of talking “a lot of bullshit” on Ukraine.

Last month, Donald Trump announced a 50-day ultimatum to President Putin to end the war, threatening sanctions and tariffs. He subsequently reduced that to ten days. The deadline is due to expire at the end of this week. So far, there is no sign that Vladimir Putin will yield to pressure from Washington.

Then again, how much pressure does Vladimir Putin really feel under?

“Because Donald Trump has changed so many deadlines and he’s twisted one way or another, I don’t think Putin takes him seriously,” believes Nina Khrushcheva, a professor of international affairs at The New School, a university in New York City.

“Putin’s going to fight for as long as he can, or, unless Ukraine says, ‘We’re tired, we are willing to accept your conditions.’

“I think Putin sits there in the Kremlin and thinks that he’s fulfilling the dreams of the Russian tsars, and then the general secretaries such as Joseph Stalin, in showing the West that Russia should not be treated with disrespect.”

From the picture I’ve painted so far it may look as if a head-on collision between the Putin and Trump locomotives is inevitable.

Not necessarily.

Donald Trump sees himself as a great dealmaker and, from the look of things, he hasn’t given up trying to secure one with Vladimir Putin.

Steve Witkoff is due back in Russia this week for talks with the Kremlin leader. We don’t know what kind of an offer he may bring with him. But some commentators in Moscow predict there will be more carrot than stick. It did not go unnoticed that on Sunday President Trump said Russia “seem to be pretty good at avoiding sanctions”.

On Monday, Ivan Loshkarev, associate professor of political theory at MGIMO University, Moscow, told Izvestia that to facilitate dialogue, Mr Witkoff may present “advantageous offers of cooperation [to Russia] that would open up after a deal on Ukraine”.

Might that be enough to persuade the Kremlin to make peace after three-and-a-half years of war?

There’s no guarantee.

After all, so far in Ukraine Vladimir Putin hasn’t budged from his maximalist demands on territory, Ukraine’s neutrality and the future size of the Ukrainian army.

Donald Trump wants a deal. Vladimir Putin wants victory.

More than 7,000 cases of a mosquito-borne virus have been reported across China’s Guangdong province since July, prompting measures similar to those taken during the Covid-19 pandemic.

In Foshan city, which has been hit the hardest, chikungunya patients must stay in hospital, where their beds will protected with mosquito nets. They can only be discharged after they test negative or at the end of a week-long stay.

Spread through the bite of an infected mosquito, the virus causes fever and severe joint pain, which sometimes can last for years.

Although rare in China, chikungunya outbreaks are common in South and South East Asia and parts of Africa.

Aside from Foshan, at least 12 other cities in the southern Guangdong province have reported infections. Nearly 3,000 cases were reported in the last week alone.

On Monday, Hong Kong reported its first case – a 12-year-old boy who developed fever, rash and joint pain after traveling to Foshan in July.

The virus is not contagious, and only spreads when an infected person is bitten by a mosquito that then goes on to bite others.

Officials say all the reported cases have been mild so far, with 95% of the patients discharged within seven days.

Still, the cases have led to some panic, given the virus is not widely known in the country.

“This is scary. The prolonged consequences sound very painful,” one user wrote on Chinese social media platform Weibo.

The US has urged travellers to China to exercise “increased caution” following the outbreak.

Authorities across Guangdong province have vowed to take “decisive and forceful measures” to stop the spread of the disease.

Those with symptoms, such as fever, joint pain or rashes, are being urged to visit the nearest hospital so they can be tested for the virus.

Authorities have instructed residents to remove stagnant water in their homes, such as in flowerpots, coffee machines or spare bottles – and warned of fines up to 10,000 yuan ($1,400) if they don’t do this.

They are also releasing giant “elephant mosquitoes” that can devour smaller, chikungunya-spreading bugs; and an army of mosquito-eating fish.

Last week, officials in Foshan released 5,000 of these larvae-eating fish into the city’s lakes. In parts of the city, they are even flying drones to detect sources of stagnant water.

Some neighbouring cities had ordered travellers from Foshan to undergo a 14-day home quarantine, but that has since been withdrawn.

Some people have compared these measures to those imposed during the pandemic, and questioned their necessity.

A user on Weibo wrote, “These feel so familiar… But are they really necessary?”

Another wrote: “What’s the point of the quarantine? It’s not as though an infected patient will then go around biting other people?”

China implemented severe restrictions during the pandemic, including forcing people into quarantine camps and sealing residential buildings and whole neighbourhoods on short notice for days or even weeks.

Most people bitten by an infected mosquito will develop symptoms of chikungunya within three to seven days.

Apart from fever and joint pain, other symptoms include rash, headache, muscle pain and swollen joints.

In most cases, patients will feel better within a week. In severe cases however, the joint pain can last for months or even years.

Those at risk for more severe disease include newborns, the elderly, and people with underlying medical conditions, such as heart disease or diabetes.

There is no cure, but deaths from chikungunya are rare.

The virus was first identified in Tanzania in 1952. It then spread to other countries in sub-Saharan Africa and South East Asia.

To date, it has been reported in more than 110 countries.

The best way to prevent the virus from spreading is to reduce pools of stagnant water that allow the mosquitoes to breed, according to the World Health Organization.

India has called Donald Trump’s threat of “substantially” higher tariffs over its purchase of oil from Russia “unjustified and unreasonable”.

In a post on Truth Social, the US president warned he would raise levies, saying India “don’t care how many people in Ukraine are being killed by the Russian War Machine”.

India is currently among the largest buyers of Russian oil. It has become an important export market for Moscow after several European countries cut trade when Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

Trump did not specify what the new tariff would be, but it comes just days after he unveiled a hefty 25% levy on India.

In a statement, a spokesperson for India’s foreign ministry, Randhir Jaiswal, said the US had encouraged India to import Russian gas at the start of the conflict, “for strengthening global energy markets stability”.

He said India “began importing from Russia because traditional supplies were diverted to Europe after the outbreak of the conflict”.

India also criticised the US – its largest trading partner – for introducing the tariffs, when the US itself is still doing trade with Russia. Last year, the US traded goods worth an estimated $3.5bn (£2.6bn) with Russia, despite tough sanctions and tariffs.

“Like any major economy, India will take all necessary measures to safeguard its national interests and economic security,” the foreign ministry statement said.

“The targeting of India is unjustified and unreasonable,” it added.

Last week, Trump had described India as a “friend” but said its tariffs on US products “are far too high” and he warned of an unspecified “penalty” over its trade with Russia.

His latest Truth Social post again struck a critical tone.

“India is not only buying massive amounts of Russian Oil, they are then, for much of the Oil purchased, selling it on the Open Market for big profits,” he wrote.

“Because of this, I will be substantially raising the Tariff paid by India to the USA,” he added.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has not ordered India’s oil refineries to stop buying Russian oil, Bloomberg reported, citing people familiar with the situation.

Ajay Srivastava, a former Indian trade official and head of the Global Trade Research Initiative (GTRI), a Delhi-based think tank, said Trump’s claims about India’s oil trade with Russia are misleading for several reasons.

He told the BBC that the trade has been transparent and broadly understood by the US.

Mr Srivastava said India ramped up purchases of oil to help stabilise global markets after Western sanctions disrupted supplies – helping to stop a global oil price shock.

He also said that India’s oil refineries – both public and private – decide where to buy crude oil based on factors like price, supply security, and export rules. They operate independently of the government and do not need its approval to buy from Russia or other countries.

• I’m ‘disappointed but not done’ with Putin, Trump tells BBC

Though relations between the US and Russia warmed after Trump returned to the White house in January, the US president has more recently toughened his rhetoric against the Kremlin and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Trump has questioned whether Putin is truly committed to peace with Ukraine. In Monday’s Truth Social post he used stern language, describing the Russian military as the “Russian War Machine”.

Russia’s leader has repeatedly said he is ready for peace but only if Kyiv meets certain conditions, such as recognising Ukrainian territories that Russia has occupied.

Trump has threatened Moscow with severe tariffs targeting its oil and other exports if a ceasefire with Ukraine is not agreed by 8 August.

US envoy Steve Witkoff is due to visit Russia later this week, where he is expected to meet Putin.