Vostochny According to its President Vladimir Putin, Russia will not be isolated or held back by the West. Putin said this morning at one of his few public appearances.
As proof that Russia can make spectacular leaps forward even under difficult conditions, Putin referred to the Soviet space program on Tuesday – exactly 61 years to the day after Yuri Gagarin was the first man in space. “The sanctions were total, the isolation was complete. But the Soviet Union was still the first in space,” Putin pointed out, according to state television.
Together with the Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, he visited the Vostochny Cosmodrome, which is located around 5500 kilometers from Moscow in the far east of Russia.
“We don’t want to be isolated,” Putin said, referring to sanctions over Russia’s invasion of neighboring Ukraine. “It is impossible to seriously isolate anyone in the modern world – especially a huge country like Russia.” Putin reiterated that there is no doubt that Russia will achieve its goals in Ukraine.
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“Russia’s goals are absolutely clear and noble,” he said. “It is clear that we had no choice. It was the right decision.” The Russian leadership describes the war of aggression against Ukraine that began on February 24 as a special military operation. Allegedly one wants to contribute to the demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine and to the protection of Russia. These pretexts apparently serve primarily to justify the war internally. They are considered fictitious.
The successes in Soviet space travel in the middle of the Cold War still have a special meaning in Russia today.
(Photo: dpa)
The successes in Soviet space travel in the middle of the Cold War still have a special meaning in Russia today. In 1957, the Soviet Union launched the first satellite, Sputnik 1. In 1961, cosmonaut Gagarin made the first manned space flight and orbited the earth.
Both events came as a shock to the United States. The successful launch of Sputnik prompted the United States to found the space agency Nasa.
More: Read all current developments in the Ukraine war in the live blog