Last week, Uzbekistan’s President Shavkat Mirziyoyev has instructed the government to work out a detailed plan of specific measures to overcome the negative impact of “the current situation in individual key trading partner countries”.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov was due to meet his Ukrainian opposite number Dmytro Kuleba in Turkey – the first high-level diplomacy undertaken between the two countries since Moscow launched the invasion of its neighbour on 24th February.

Ukraine flatly rejected as “immoral” a Russian proposal to allow residents of the towns --  including Mariupol on the Sea of Azov, Sumy in the north, the capital Kyiv and Ukraine’s second city Kharkiv -- that would have sent them into the territory of Russia or Belarus, Moscow’s close ally.