Airstrike warnings continued across the country on Saturday in Ukraine as Russia and China blocked a G20 statement condemning the war, amid recent saber-rattling from Putin’s ally.
Financial leaders and central bankers from the world’s largest economies met in India a 12 months ago to strongly condemn Moscow for the invasion, but Russia and China refused to sign a joint statement.
India, which currently serves as G20 chairman, was reluctant to lift the problem but was pressured by Western countries but avoided using the word “war” in the “chairman’s summary and final document”, which was produced after two days of negotiations.
“The bulk of members strongly condemned the war in Ukraine and stressed that it causes immense human suffering and exacerbates the prevailing vulnerabilities of the worldwide economy,” the statement said, citing disruptions in supply chains, threats to financial stability, and chronic energy and food insecurity. .
“There have been different views and different assessments of the situation and sanctions,” the statement said, referring to measures taken by the USA, European countries and others to punish Russia for the invasion and deprive it of revenue.
“We just finished a session where it was clear that there was a commitment to smoothing differences for the profit of countries,” Kristalina Georgieva, managing director of the International Monetary Fund and co-chair of the round table, told reporters.
China’s statement and refusal to sentence Russia got here a day after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said he planned to satisfy Chinese President Xi Jinping to debate Beijing’s proposals to finish the war.
Hours later, China announced that Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, a key Russian ally, would visit Beijing in the approaching week.
Lukashenko, who allowed Russia to make use of Belarusian territory to support the invasion, individually said he had a lengthy conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday.
“I’ll inform you a secret, last night we had a protracted talk with him on various topics,” a social channel linked to Lukashenko’s press service he quoted him as speakingbut gave no further details.
The most recent developments followed one other round of threats from former Russian president and staunch Putin supporter Dmitry Medvedev, who said that moving the borders of NATO member Poland could be Moscow’s only option to ensure peace with Ukraine.
Medvedev, the present deputy chairman of the Security Council of Russia, commented on it Telegram channel Friday, the anniversary of the invasion of Moscow.
The 57-year-old politician predicted tense negotiations between Russia, Ukraine and the West that may end in “some kind of agreement”, but added that any agreement would lack “fundamental agreements on actual borders”, making it essential for Russia to now expand its own borders.
“That’s the reason it’s so essential to realize all of the objectives of a military special operation. Ward off the borders that threaten our country so far as possible, even in the event that they are the borders of Poland,” Medvedev said.
Medvedev’s comments got here two days after he urged Russia to distrust the U.S. and President Joe Biden, who made a surprise visit to Kiev earlier this week to mark the war’s anniversary, then tore apart Putin’s “cowardly lust” for Ukrainian soil during a speech in the capital of Poland.
“Biden spoke to the Russian people in front of a crowd of Poles,” Medvedev wrote in Wednesday’s Telegram. “In truth, he preached in the standard messianic tone for America, adapted to senile madness. Heaps of lofty words about how essential it’s to defend democracy and that the US shouldn’t be going to attack Russia. It looked dishonest and ridiculous.
Poland shares an roughly 125 km border with the north-eastern tip of Russia, and likewise has large eastern borders with Ukraine and Belarus.
Individually on Saturday, Zelensky told German officials that economic ties alone couldn’t stop Russian tanks.
As a substitute, Zelensky called for unity in a video speech, which he hailed because the only working strategy against Moscow’s invasion. “Diplomacy didn’t work,” Zelensky said. “The present security architecture in the world didn’t work. The old European hope that economic ties would keep Russian tank columns from moving has failed.
“But there was something that worked,” he added. “Unity above all. Unity of Ukraine, Germany and the entire free world.