China: Putin and Nazarbayev meet ahead of WWII commemorations

Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Kazakh counterpart Nursultan Nazarbayev met in Beijing ahead of China's World War II commemorations, Wednesday. Nazarbayev thanked the Russian leader for allowing a Kazakh cosmonaut to travel to the International Space Station, with Putin responding by saying "it will be a strong incentive for the development of cosmonautics in Kazakhstan". He also agreed with his Kazakh counterpart in regards to the volume of traffic passing through the Baikonnur to space, saying it is "one of the busiest cosmodromes in the world." Kazakh national Aidyn Aibmetov blasted off from the Baikonnur Cosmodrome in the early hours of Wednesday morning aboard a Soyuz TMA-18M in what Putin described as an "exclusive" event. Aibmetov was accompanied by Russia’s Sergei Volkov and the European Space Agency's Andreas Mogensen of Denmark and will dock with the ISS at 06:42 a.m. GMT on Friday.