Russian president travels to Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Belarus before finalizing with his Indonesian counterpart his participation in the G-20 meeting in Bali in November, a stone in Biden’s shoe
One of the accusations that the opposition has leveled against President Vladimir Putin is that he has not spent much in the company of other international leaders since the start of the invasion of Ukraine, except for phone calls from leaders such as French President Emmanuel Macron or the German Chancellor, Olaf Scholz. And this while his greatest enemy, Ukrainian President Volodímir Zelensky, conducts video conferences with half the world almost daily.
But the Kremlin seems to have decided to rectify this situation and has set an agenda of travel, meetings and phone calls for Putin with colleagues from some countries. Without going further, the Russian president spoke by phone with his Brazilian counterpart Jair Bolsonaro on Monday about the problem of global food security, which has been jeopardized by the war in Ukraine. According to the press service of the Russian presidency, the Kremlin has promised Brazil to supply fertilizers and strengthen the “strategic partnership” between the two countries.
Putin leaves Russia on Tuesday for the first time since he decided to attack Ukraine. His last trip abroad took place in early February, when he attended the opening of the Beijing Winter Olympics and was received by Xi Jinping. The journey now beginning is to Tajikistan, a longtime ally of Russia, to meet his Tajik counterpart, Emomali Rajmón, Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov said. They will deal with bilateral issues and the situation in neighboring Afghanistan, which is of great concern to the Tajiks. Putin will try to reassure Rakhmon that Moscow currently has very good relations with the Taliban, who first sent a delegation to the recent St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF).
After traveling through Dushanbe, the capital of Tajikistan, Putin will travel to Ashgabat, Turkmenistan on Wednesday, where he will be received by his young Turkmen counterpart, Serdar Berdimujamédov, who was in Moscow on June 10. Both countries have maintained rather cold relations in recent years, but now they seem called to improve. Strong Turkmen authoritarianism seems to please Moscow. The current president of Turkmenistan, 40 years old and “elected” in the latest elections on March 12, is the son of the country’s former president, dictator Gurbangulí Berdimujamédov. In Ashgabat, Putin will also attend a summit of the countries bordering the Caspian Sea (Azerbaijan, Iran, Kazakhstan, Russia, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan).
Back in Russia, Putin will receive Indonesian President Joko Widodo, who will come from Ukraine and has pushed for talks to start to end the war. Widodo will also hold talks with Zelensky in Kiev. Incidentally, the Indonesian president yesterday invited the top Russian leader to attend the G20 summit, which will take place on the island of Bali between 15 and 16 November.
Russian presidency adviser Yuri Ushakov said yesterday that “we have received the official invitation and have responded positively by saying that we are interested in participating.” When asked if Putin will come to Bali in person, Ushakov replied that “there is still a lot of time. I hope the pandemic makes it possible to hold this event in person.” In his words, “we really appreciate Widodo’s invitation because Indonesians are under strong pressure from western countries” because of the war in Ukraine.
Last Saturday, Putin met in St. Petersburg with Belarusian president, Alexander Lukashenko, whom he promised to bolster with missiles, planes and even nuclear warheads to counter a hypothetical NATO attack. The meeting was supposed to take place in Belarus, but was later moved to the former Russian imperial capital.
So there is a good chance that the Russian president will soon travel to the neighboring country. First he wants to make sure that Lukashenko will be completely loyal to him, accept his idea of creating a unitary state, in which case he should send his troops to fight in Ukraine too, in case Kiev is defeated, to to form a “Slavic Union” with Russia, Belarus and Ukraine. Putin has not been to Belarus since the beginning of the war, although it has been Lukashenko who has gone to Russia several times, to Moscow, Sochi and most recently to St. Petersburg.
Source: La Verdad
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