Vladimir Putin will visit two minor former Soviet governments in central Asia this week, according to a report on Russian official television on Sunday. Since he gave the go-ahead for the invasion of Ukraine, this will be his first known journey outside of Russia.
Putin argues that the hundreds of dead, millions of displaced people, and severe financial sanctions meted out by the West as a result of Russia’s invasion on February 24 are all reasons to deepen trade ties with nations like China, India, and Iran.
According to Pavel Zarubin, the Kremlin correspondent for the Russian television network Rossiya 1, Putin would visit Tajikistan and Turkmenistan before meeting Indonesian President Joko Widodo for talks in Moscow.
In Dushanbe, Putin will pay a visit to Imomali Rakhmon, the longest-serving leader of a former Soviet state and a staunch ally of Russia. He would join the leaders of Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Iran, and Turkmenistan at a summit of the Caspian states in Ashgabat. Zarubin said.
Putin also plans to visit Grodno, Belarus, on the 30th of June and the 1st of July to take part in a conference with Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko,
Early in February, Putin visited Beijing, where he signed a “no limits” friendship pact with Chinese President Xi just hours before attending the Olympic Winter Games opening ceremony. This is the last time Putin is known to have traveled abroad.
Russia claims to have sent troops into Ukraine on February 24 to undermine that country’s military might, stop the West from using it as a pretext to provoke it, drive out nationalists, and protect Russian-speaking residents in the east of the region. According to reports, Ukraine is attempting an imperialist land grab with this invasion.
