Imran Khan chooses 'exciting time' to be in Russia

Moscow, Feb 24: Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan, who is on his maiden visit to Russia, has seemingly described the Russia-Ukraine war as “exciting”. “What a time I have come so much excitement,” he was heard telling a Russian official after landing in Russia. A video of the interaction is now doing rounds on the internet.

 

 

 

Prime Minister Imran Khan on Wednesday left for Russia on a two-day visit — the first by a Pakistani premier in over two decades. He will hold talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin to strengthen bilateral ties and expand cooperation in the energy sector. Khan's visit to Moscow comes in the wake of US President Joe Biden and other Western governments imposing tough economic sanctions on Russia for sending its military into parts of eastern Ukraine.

 

 

 

In a televised address on Thursday, Vladimir Putin announced the invasion and said clashes between Russian and Ukrainian forces are "inevitable". He even called on Ukrainian service members to "lay down their arms and go home". Ukraine has declared martial law in the country. Russia wants the US and its allies to keep Ukraine and other ex-Soviet nations from joining NATO, halt weapons deployments there and roll back alliance forces in Eastern Europe — demands the West has dismissed as nonstarters.

 

 

 

On Tuesday, Putin offered a streamlined version of his top demands, saying that Ukraine should renounce its bid to join NATO, partially demilitarise and recognize Russia's sovereignty over Crimea, the Black Sea peninsula that Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014. Putin had for weeks defied a barrage of international criticism over the crisis, with some Western leaders saying he was no longer rational.

 

 

His announcement of the military operation came ahead of a last-ditch summit involving European Union leaders in Brussels planned for Thursday. The 27-nation bloc had also imposed sanctions on Russia's defense minister Sergei Shoigu and high-ranking figures including the commanders of Russia's army, navy, and air force, another part of the wave of Western punishment after Putin sought to rewrite Ukraine's borders. The United Nations Security Council met late Wednesday for its second emergency session in three days over the crisis, with a personal plea thereby UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to Putin going unheeded.