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BEIJING: Russian President Vladimir Putin said Tuesday that USPresident Donald Trump’s administration is listening to the Kremlin’s justifications for its invasion of neighboring Ukraine and claimed that Moscow and Washington have come to a “mutual understanding” about the conflict.

Putin said during a visit to China that “the (Trump) administration is listening to us,” as he complained that former President Joe Biden paid Moscow’s arguments no heed.

“Now we see this mutual understanding, it’s noticeable,” Putin said at a bilateral meeting with Slovakian President Robert Fico after talks with Chinese leader Xi Jinping in Beijing. “We are very happy about this and hope this constructive dialogue will continue.”

But Russia faces possible punitive actions by Trump, who has expressed frustration at Putin’s lack of engagement in US-led peace efforts and threatened unspecified “severe consequences.” The American president has made ending the three-year war one of his diplomatic priorities and hosted Putin at a summit in Alaska last month.

Putin attended the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in the Chinese city of Tianjin with Chinese leader Xi Jinping and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who are also facing pressure from Trump. The SCO started out as a security forum viewed as a foil to US influence in Central Asia but it has grown in influence over the years.

After the summit, the Russian leader held talks with Xi in Beijing, and on Wednesday he was to attend a massive military parade there commemorating the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II.

In Beijing, Putin struck an apparently amenable tone about possible progress in some aspects of the discussions to stop the fighting, although his comments reflected no substantial change in Russia’s position. Western leaders have accused Putin of marking time in peace efforts while Russia’s bigger army seeks to overwhelm Ukrainian defenses.

On the key issue of possible postwar security guarantees for Ukraine to deter another Russian invasion, Putin said “it seems to me that there is an opportunity to find consensus.” He didn’t elaborate.

While Putin reiterated that Moscow will not accept NATO membership for Ukraine, he also noted that he had never objected to Ukraine joining the European Union.

He also said Russia “can work with our American partners” at the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, Europe’s largest and one of the 10 biggest atomic power plants in the world. Its fate has been a central concern of the war due to fears of a nuclear accident.

Putin said Russia could also work with Ukraine on the Zaporizhzhia question — “if favorable conditions arise.”

GENEVA: More than one in every 100 deaths globally is due to suicide, the World Health Organization said Tuesday, calling for urgent action to stem a mounting mental health crisis among young people especially.

The WHO said that, while global suicide rates had fallen somewhat in recent years, progress in combating the issue was far too slow.

In 2021 — the last year for which data was available — there were an estimated 727,000 suicides worldwide, the United Nations’ health agency said.

“Globally, suicide accounts for more than one in every 100 deaths, and for each death, there are 20 suicide attempts,” said Devora Kestel, the interim head of the WHO’s non-communicable disease and mental health department.

Those suicides “affected countless more lives and livelihoods, as friends, carers and loved ones were forced to grapple with unimaginable hardship,” she told reporters.

The WHO’s World Mental Health Today report highlighted that suicide remains a leading cause of death among young people across geographies and socioeconomic contexts.

In 2021, it was the second leading cause of death for girls and women aged 15 to 29, and the third leading cause for males in the same age category, it found.

Despite a 35-percent global decline in the age-adjusted suicide rate between 2000 and 2021, the world is still falling short of its goal: instead of the targeted one-third reduction in suicide rates between 2015 and 2030, current progress suggests only a 12 percent decrease will be achieved, according to the WHO.

Decreases were seen in every region — except in the Americas, where the suicide rate increased by 17 percent in the same period.

Nearly three-quarters of all suicides take place in lower-income countries, where most of the global population lives.

Although wealthier countries have a higher suicide rate, as a proportion of population, it is difficult to compare since they also tend to have better data available than lower-income countries, the WHO pointed out.

The agency cautioned that, while suicide rates have been slowly declining, the prevalence of mental disorders like anxiety and depression has been swelling.

“Between 2011 and 2021, the number of people living with mental disorders increased faster than the global population,” the report said.

According to the latest findings, more than one billion people are living with mental health disorders.

The WHO voiced particular concern about growing mental health distress among young people.

While there are likely a long line of drivers behind the increase, Mark van Ommeren, head of the WHO mental health unit, said “the two main hypotheses are social media and the impact of the Covid pandemic.”

In this context, WHO voiced alarm at a “stagnation” in mental health investment around the world, with median government spending on mental health remaining at just two percent of total health budgets — unchanged since 2017.

Globally, only nine percent of people with depression get treatment, it found.
“Transforming mental health services is one of the most pressing public health challenges,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a statement.