UK prime minister Rishi Sunak has condemned Russia’s “barbaric” invasion of Ukraine at the G20 summit in Indonesia, calling on Moscow to “get out” of the besieged country.
At his first G20 appearance as PM, Sunak reaffirmed British support for Ukraine, saying that the UK would “back Ukraine for as long as it takes”.
He added that Russia had undermined the “fundamental principles of sovereignty and territorial integrity” in its actions and that withdrawing from Ukraine would make "the single biggest difference" to the current global economic climate.
The PM said that the war in Ukraine had driven up prices around the world and damaged the global economy, accusing Russia of weaponising energy and food exports.
Sunak also criticised Russian president Vladimir Putin for not attending the G20 summit, after he’d opted to send Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov in his place.
Sunak said: “It is notable that Putin didn't feel able to join us here. Maybe if he had, we could get on with sorting things out.”
On food, Ukraine’s president Volodomyr Zelensky called on the G20 leaders to move to extend a grain export deal with Russia that will expire this week.
The deal has been in place since July and ensures that Russian forces allow ships to safely leave Ukraine via the Black Sea, exporting millions of tonnes of grain and other key food supplies around the world.
However, Moscow said on Saturday that there was no agreement in place for the deal to be extended beyond its current expiration date of November 19.
In return for enabling food exports to continue from Ukraine, Russia has asked the West to lift sanctions that it has imposed on a Russian-state run agricultural bank, which the Kremlin claims have effectively put a block on Russian exports of food and fertilisers.
During the summit, Sunak separately said that China posed a “systemic challenge” to Western values and interests and constituted “the biggest state-based threat to our economic security.”
However, the PM added that Beijing remained “indisputable” in its standing within the global economy and that “dialogue with them” would be necessary to “resolve shared global challenges like climate change, or public health, or indeed actually dealing with Russia and Ukraine.”
Image by HM Treasury - OGL 3, on Wikimedia Commons
