Sunak and US to rally G20 nations against Putin invasion
RISHI Sunak will meet President Joe Biden for the first time at this week’s G20 summit as Western allies confront Russia over its invasion of Ukraine.
He will meet Mr Biden one-toone on Wednesday morning and pledge to continue working ‘hand in glove’ with the US in the response to the conflict.
The two leaders will try to persuade member countries less supportive of Ukraine to rally behind their position, piling more pressure on Vladimir Putin to withdraw.
Russia is a G20 member. It is the first time in the 15-year history of G20 summits that it has met during a major European war instigated by one of its members.
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky will address the gathering by videolink.
Putin pulled out of the two- day summit, sending his foreign affairs secretary Sergey Lavrov in his place. Lavrov is expected to take a battering around the leaders’ table during the opening session tomorrow. It will be the first encounter between a British prime minister and Russian official since the country’s invasion in February and several leaders are expected to use their opening speeches to lambast Lavrov and his government.
Last night the Prime Minister’s official spokesman said: ‘We will use every opportunity to confront Russia about their continued illegal actions, about their inhumane bombardment of innocent civilians, of civilian infrastructure in an attempt to starve the Ukrainian people and, of course, the significant knock-on impact that is having on vulnerable countries around the world.’
Mr Sunak will also call for a global spending spree to help less wealthy countries resist cash provided by ‘exploitative’ lenders such as China, which has helped build infrastructure in 60 countries across Asia and Africa under its Belt and Road initiative.
However, the call could be undermined by the fact that the UK’s aid budget has been cut to 0.5 per cent of gross national income. It is not due to rise again until at least 2024.
‘Inhumane bombardment’
TIED to posts, two suspected collaborators are confronted by residents in Kherson.
They were rounded up after Ukrainian troops swept into the southern city following the Russian evacuation.
Many of those who collaborated with the Russians after they occupied Kherson at the start of the war in March have fled the city in the past few weeks.
But these two men were detained yesterday and were being guarded by a Ukrainian soldier as they awaited their fate. Although there was jubilation in Kherson yesterday over the liberation, there are fears some Russian forces may still be present in the city and the surrounding area. Intelligence offi cials said they could be dressed in civilian clothes to avoid capture.
The Ukrainians are dealing with huge devastation and booby traps left by fleeing Russians.
Nearly 2,000 explosives including mines, trip wires and unexploded ordnance have already been cleared by ten bomb disposal groups in the liberated city.
It came as Defence Secretary Ben Wallace warned: ‘Russia is a long way from giving up.’ He said Moscow will be ‘worried’ and ‘disappointed’ by the loss of Kherson, but added that it is important not to ‘underestimate’ the Russians.
‘History will remind you that Russia can be brutal to their own,’ Mr Wallace said. ‘If they need more cannon fodder, that is what they’ll be doing.’
Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky said last night that investigators had uncovered more than 400 Russian war crimes and found the bodies of both servicemen and civilians in Kherson area. He said the occupiers had ‘destroyed all critical infrastructure – communication, water supply, heat, electricity’. Satellite images also show considerable damage to the nearby Nova Kakhovka dam amid fears about its structural integrity. Mr Zelensky vowed: ‘We will restore everything, believe me,
although it takes time.’ Ukrainian troops received a rapturous reception from residents as they entered Kherson, but the true toll of eight months of occupation has begun to emerge. Residents said they had been left without water and electricity for days and officials warned it is ‘a humanitarian catastrophe’.
The Russians even stole llamas, a racoon and wolves from a zoo.
Ukrainian police have warned refugees not to return to the city until it has been made safe after one officer was injured on Saturday while de-mining an administrative building. Police have set up checkpoints and there is a curfew in place from 5pm to 8am to stop anyone entering or leaving.
Kyiv claimed to have hit a building occupied by 500 Russian troops in a high-precision strike near the village of Dnipriany, about 30 miles east of Kherson. Ukrainian officials said the blast killed two truckloads of Russian troops.
While the liberation of the only regional capital taken by Russia marks a huge strategic victory for Ukraine, there is still a long road ahead. Now Russian troops have retreated to the relative safety of the eastern bank of the Dnipro River, it allows them to throw more men into their offensive in the Donbas, further north.