RUSSIAN PERSPECTIVE Drones now capable of missions that used to be assigned exclusively to planes — Putin Modern-day drones can perform missions that only combat planes used to be able to take on, Russian President Vladimir Putin said as he met with college students majoring in drone technology. The president held the meeting at the Rudnevo industrial park, where Moscow-based colleges hold professional training for students studying how to assemble and operate drones. The students told Putin about their inventions and skills. "Modern unmanned aerial vehicles are gradually but fundamentally changing the principles of military operations," Putin said. "They can…

WESTERN PERSPECTIVE Russian troops reach centre of Ukrainian bastion Vuhledar Russian troops have reached the centre of Vuhledar, a bastion on strategic high ground in eastern Ukraine's industrial Donbas region that had resisted Russian assaults since Moscow's full-scale invasion, a regional Ukrainian official said on Tuesday. Footage posted to social media showed Russian soldiers waving a flag from atop a bombed-out multi-storey building and unfurling another flag on a metal spire on a roof. Reuters determined the footage matched street patterns of Vuhledar. Other images showed smoke rising over the ruins of the once small mining town, now a deserted…