Sign up now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com Register April 12 (Reuters) – President Vladimir Putin warned the West on Tuesday that efforts to isolate Moscow would fail, citing the success of the Soviet space program as proof that Russia could make spectacular leaps forward in difficult conditions. Russia says it will not depend on the West again after the United States and its allies imposed crippling sanctions on it to punish Putin for his February 24 mandate for what he called a “special military operation” in Ukraine. Sixty-one years after Yuri Gagarin of the Soviet Union made history by becoming the first man in space, Putin traveled to the Vostochny Cosmodrome in the Far East of Russia, 3,450 miles (5550 km) east of Moscow. . Sign up now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com Register “The sanctions were complete, the isolation was complete, but the Soviet Union was still first in space,” Putin was quoted as saying by Russian state television. “We do not intend to isolate ourselves,” Putin said. “It is impossible to seriously isolate anyone in the modern world – especially such a huge country as Russia.” Russia’s space successes in the Cold War, such as Gagarin’s flight and the launch of Sputnik 1 in 1957, the first man-made satellite from Earth, are of particular importance to Russia: both events shocked the United States. The launch of Sputnik 1 prompted the United States to create NASA in an effort to reach Moscow. Putin says the “special military operation” in Ukraine is necessary because the United States was using Ukraine to threaten Russia – including through the NATO military alliance – and that Moscow had to defend Russian-speaking people in Ukraine from persecution. He said on Tuesday that he had no doubt that Russia would achieve all its goals in Ukraine – a conflict he described as inevitable and necessary to defend Russia in the long run. “Her goals are very clear and noble,” Putin said. “Obviously we had no choice. It was the right decision.” read more Ukrainian forces have put up fierce resistance and the West has imposed sweeping sanctions on Russia in a bid to force it to withdraw its forces. Russia’s economy is well on its way to shrinking by more than 10 percent in 2022, the biggest drop in gross domestic product since the years following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, former Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin said on Tuesday. read more Putin toured the Russian Far East space port with Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko. “Why are we so worried about these sanctions?” Lukashenko said, according to Russian state television. Mr Lukashenko, who has a history of saying things that seem to fit in with his closest ally on a number of issues, has insisted that Belarus be involved in negotiations to resolve the conflict in Ukraine. Belarus was unjustly described as an “accomplice of the attacker”. read more Sign up now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com Register Report by Reuters. Guy Faulconbridge writes Our role models: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
