Vladimir Putin appeared flushed and merry after flying nine time zones east of Moscow before telling young Russians : “You have to live for something to die for.”
An estimated 75,000 of his people have died or been maimed in his war in Ukraine although the numbers are not discussed publicly in Russia.
His rambling speech in Kamchatka - a glaciers-and-volcanoes peninsula in the Pacific - appeared to bemuse his audience of young ecologists.
