UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on Tuesday called on Russia to «end the barbaric war» in Ukraine and to withdraw troops deployed in the country since the beginning of the invasion ordered on February 24 by Russian President Vladimir Putin.
«It is remarkable that Putin did not feel able to join us here,» Sunak has said during his speech at the G20 summit in Bali, Indonesia, where the Russian president is not present. «Maybe if he had come we could have worked something out,» he has added, as picked up by the British television network Sky News.
Thus, he has stressed that «the biggest difference that could be achieved is for Russia to leave Ukraine and put an end to this barbaric war.» «The UK rejects this aggression. We will support Ukraine for as long as necessary,» said Sunak, who told Moscow that «countries should not invade their neighbors».
The British premier stressed that countries «should not attack civilian infrastructure and civilians and should not threaten nuclear escalation». «I’m sure these are things we all agree on,» he said, after stressing before his speech that «Putin and his allies will not have a legitimate seat at the table until they end their illegal war in Ukraine.»
The Russian delegation to the G20 is headed by Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. The summit comes days after the withdrawal of Russian troops from the city of Kherson (south), occupied in early March, amid Ukrainian army advances in this region and other areas in the southeast of the country.
