NZ will deploy a C-130 Hercules aircraft with 50 Defence Force personnel to Europe, to help transport and distribute donated military aid to Ukraine. Video / NZ Herald
Russian President Vladimir Putin said that his country can't be isolated.
Speaking on a visit to the Vostochny space launch facility in Russia's Far East, Putin said Tuesday that Russia has no intention to isolate itself and added that foreign powers wouldn't succeed in isolating it.
He said that "it's certainly impossible to isolate anyone in the world of today, especially such a huge country as Russia".
Putin added that "we will work with those of our partners who want to cooperate".
Putin's visit to Vostochny marked his first known trip outside Moscow since Russia launched military action in Ukraine on February 24. Putin toured space facilities together with Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko.
Russian President Vladimir Putin delivers his speech at a rocket assembly factory during his visit to the Vostochny cosmodrome outside the city of Tsiolkovsky. Photo / AP
He charged that Ukraine was turned into an "anti-Russian bridgehead" where "sprouts of nationalism and neo-Nazism were being cultivated". Ukraine and its Western allies have dismissed such claims as a cover for aggression.
Putin reaffirmed his claim that the Russian "special military operation" was aimed to protect people in areas in eastern Ukraine controlled by Moscow-backed rebels. He also said that the campaign was also aimed to "ensure Russia's own security".
Putin argued that "we had no other choice" and said that "there is no doubt that we will achieve our goals".
The World Trade Organisation is predicting that trade in goods will grow much less than previously expected this year, saying prospects for the global economy have darkened since the onset of Russia's war in Ukraine.
The Geneva-based WTO on Tuesday pointed to multiple uncertainties in its forecast over the next two years because Russian and Ukrainian exports of items like food, oil and fertilisers are under threat from the war. It also cited the lingering impact of the Covid-19 pandemic - notably from lockdowns in China.
Director-general Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala described a "double whammy" from the conflict and the coronavirus. She said the war has caused "immense human suffering" in the region and its effect has rippled around the world, notably in poorer countries.
The WTO said its projections for world trade take into account factors like the impact of the war, sanctions on Russia, and lower demand around the world from lower business and consumer confidence. It said world merchandise trade volume is expected to grow 3 per cent this year, down from a forecast of 4.7 per cent before the war began.
Mayor: 10,000 dead in Ukraine's Mariupol and toll could rise
The besieged Ukrainian city of Mariupol yielded up more horrors after six weeks of pummelling by Russian troops, with the mayor saying more than 10,000 civilians have died in the strategic southern port, their bodies "carpeted through the streets".
As Russia pounded targets around Ukraine and prepared for a major assault in the east, the country's leader warned Putin's forces could resort to chemical weapons, and Western officials said they were investigating an unconfirmed claim by a Ukrainian regiment that a poisonous substance was dropped in Mariupol.
The city has had some of the heaviest attacks and civilian suffering in the war, but the land, sea and air assaults by Russian forces fighting to capture it have increasingly limited information about what's happening inside the city.
A woman pulls her bags past houses damaged during a fighting in Mariupol. Photo / AP
Speaking by phone Monday with the Associated Press, Mariupol Mayor Vadym Boychenko accused Russian forces of having blocked weeks of attempted humanitarian convoys into the city in part to conceal the carnage. Boychenko said the death toll in Mariupol alone could surpass 20,000.
Boychenko also gave new details of allegations by Ukrainian officials that Russian forces have brought mobile cremation equipment to Mariupol to dispose of the bodies of victims of the siege. He said Russian forces have taken many bodies to a huge shopping centre where there are storage facilities and refrigerators.
"Mobile crematoriums have arrived in the form of trucks: You open it, and there is a pipe inside and these bodies are burned," the mayor said.
Boychenko spoke from Ukrainian-controlled territory outside Mariupol. The mayor said he had several sources for his description of the alleged methodical burning of bodies by Russian forces in the city, but did not detail the sources.
The discovery of large numbers of apparently massacred civilians after Russian forces retreated from cities and towns around the capital, Kyiv, already has prompted widespread condemnation and accusations that Russia is committing war crimes in Ukraine.
Those forces withdrew after they failed to take Kyiv in the face of stiff Ukrainian resistance, and Russia now says it will focus on the Donbas, an industrial region in Ukraine's east. Already there are signs the military is gearing up for a major offensive there.
