Russian state television reported on Sunday 26 June that President Vladimir Putin will visit two small former Soviet states in central Asia this week, his first known international trip since the beginning of the Ukraine war.
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Putin to visit Tajikistan and Turkmenistan
Pavel Zarubin, the Kremlin correspondent of the Rossiya 1 state television channel, said Putin will travel to Tajikistan and Turkmenistan and then return to Moscow for talks with Indonesian President Joko Widodo, as reported by Reuters.
As a result of the Ukraine war, Russia is suffering from severe financial sanctions imposed by the West. Consequently, these trips could be seen as part of Putin’s desire to build stronger trade ties with other powers such as China, India, and Iran.
Indeed, on Sunday, June 26, at the opening of the G7 summit in the Bavarian Alps, leaders from Britain, the United States, Canada, and Japan announced a ban on imports of gold from Russia, as reported by The Guardian. The ban targets wealthy Russians who have been buying it to decrease the financial burden of western sanctions.
The United States has imposed unprecedented costs on Putin to deny him the revenue he needs to fund his war against Ukraine.
— President Biden (@POTUS) June 26, 2022
Together, the G7 will announce that we will ban the import of Russian gold, a major export that rakes in tens of billions of dollars for Russia.
Former Soviet states
In Dushanbe (the capital of Tajikistan), Putin will meet Tajik President Imomali Rakhmon, a close Russian ally and the longest-serving ruler of a former Soviet state, having held office for nearly 30 years. While in Ashgabat (the capital of Turkmenistan), Zarubin said he will attend a summit of Caspian nations (countries that border the Caspian Sea) including the leaders of Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Iran, and Turkmenistan.
Valentina Matviyenko, the speaker of Russia's upper chamber of parliament, allegedly told Belarus television on Sunday, June 26, that Putin also intends to travel to Grodno, Belarus on June 30 and July 1 to participate in a forum with Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, as reported by RIA news agency.
It comes as Putin said the Kremlin will deliver missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads to Belarus in the coming months. Putin said in a broadcast on Russian television at the beginning of his meeting with Belarusian leaderLukashenko in St Petersburg on Saturday 25 June, as reported by The Guardian:
In the coming months, we will transfer to Belarus Iskander-M tactical missile systems, which can use ballistic or cruise missiles, in their conventional and nuclear versions.
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