Russia-Ukraine war: Scott Morrison ‘very concerned’ about Putin’s plan to attend G20 summit in Bali
Scott Morrison says he is “very concerned about sitting across the table” from Russian President Vladimir Putin at the G20 summit in Bali in November.
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Prime Minister Scott Morrison has expressed concern about Russian President Vladimir Putin’s confirmation he will attend the 2022 G20 summit in Indonesia in November.
Mr Morrison said he was “very concerned about sitting across the table” from Mr Putin at the conference, to be held in Bali. It will be the 17th G20 Heads of State and Government Summit.
Mr Morrison has publicly condemned the Russian president for his attacks on Ukraine, saying he has been “rightly accused” of war crimes.
Meanwhile, Ukraine’s foreign minister has asked China to provide security guarantees for Kyiv.
The news came in a lengthy interview containing some of the most direct criticisms of Moscow recently published by Beijing’s state media.
Western powers and Ukraine have repeatedly urged China to condemn Russia’s invasion as it tries to maintain a supposedly neutral stance, with the United States threatening consequences if Beijing provides military or economic support to Moscow.
“Ukraine is currently studying the possibility of acquiring security guarantees from permanent members of the UN Security Council, including China, and other major powers,” Dmytro Kuleba was quoted as saying by official news agency Xinhua.
“We propose that China becomes one of the guarantors of Ukraine’s security, this is a sign of our respect and trust in the People’s Republic of China.”
China in 2013 pledged to provide Ukraine with “security guarantees” if it is ever invaded or threatened with nuclear attack, but appeared evasive on the same issue in the wake of Russia’s attack.
In response to a question about the guarantee last month, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesman suggested that such “security assurances have clear limitations on the content and are triggered under specific conditions”, in reference to a similar United Nations security resolution on non-nuclear states.
Chinese officials have often blamed US-led NATO for provoking Moscow’s invasion and accused Western countries of escalating the conflict by sending weapons to Ukraine.
Beijing’s state media has also repeatedly amplified Russian propaganda surrounding the war and largely avoided attributing Ukrainian civilian deaths to Moscow’s military aggression.
Kuleba has only had two calls with his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi since the invasion began on February 24, while Wang met Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov in China last month and reiterated that cooperation between the two countries has “no limits”.
In the Xinhua interview, Kuleba also accused Russia of having “compromised” Beijing’s signature Belt and Road infrastructure initiative, warning that the consequences of the global food security crisis would threaten China’s economy.
“We also believe that this war is not in China’s interests,” he was quoted as saying.
His remarks directly referred to Russia’s actions as an “invasion” — a term that Chinese officials and state media have sought to avoid.
“The situation is not escalating because of Ukraine, we are exercising our right to defend ourselves,” he said, in an apparent rebuff of Chinese warnings against other states providing arms to Kyiv.
Chinese President Xi Jinping has not yet spoken publicly with his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky. He called Russian President Vladimir Putin the day after the February 24 invasion.
CIVILIANS FLEE UKRAINE STEELWORKS AS MISSILE HITS AIRPORT
A group of 20 civilians have left the Azovstal steelworks, where the last Ukrainian troops are holed up in the Black Sea port of Mariupol, the soldiers there said Saturday, AFP reports.
“Twenty civilians, women and children … have been transferred to a suitable place and we hope that they will be evacuated to Zaporizhzhia, on territory controlled by Ukraine,” said Sviatoslav Palamar, deputy commander of the Azov regiment.
Earlier on Saturday, a correspondent from Russia’s TASS news agency reported from the city that 25 civilians – including six children younger than 14 – had quit the site.
“All night, the enemy artillery bombarded the site,” Palamar added. “The ceasefire that should have started at 6am (1pm AEST) didn’t start until 11am. Since then, the two sides have respected it,” he added.
“The evacuation convoy we had been expecting at 6am only arrived at 6:25 pm. The Azov regiment is still clearing the rubble to get civilians out,” said Palamar.
“We hope this procedure will continue that we will manage to evacuate all the civilians.”
Ukraine’s presidency said on Friday that the evacuation of some civilians from had been planned for that day.
A UN representative to Ukraine, Osnat Lubrani, said earlier this week she was travelling to the central city of Zaporizhzhia to prepare for a “hopeful” evacuation.
Russia last week said it had gained full control of the strategic port city, except for the huge Azovstal industrial area.
Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered a blockade of the steelworks, where several hundred Ukrainian soldiers and civilians are still sheltering in the maze of Soviet-era underground tunnels. Many require medical attention.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had repeatedly warned that if Russian forces killed the last remaining troops there, that would spell the end of any peace talks.
It came as a Russian missile destroyed the runway at Odessa airport in southern Ukraine.
There were no victims, the regional governor Maxim Marchenko said on his Telegram account.
HITMEN ALMOST KILLED ZELENSKYY IN FIRST HOURS OF WAR
Mr Zelenskyy has revealed that Russian hit men almost assassinated him at Kyiv’s presidential compound in the first hours of the war.
Ukrainian troops barricaded Mr Zelenskyy and his family at his presidential offices as Russian strike teams parachuted into the capital city.
The president described the moment to Time magazine during a series of interviews at the scene of the attempt on his life.
In the pre-dawn hours of February 24, Mr Zelenskyy said he woke up his family as gunfights were breaking out in the government quarter.
“It was loud. There were explosions over there,” he told the magazine.
Russian troops made two attempts to storm the compound while Mr Zelenskyy and his family were sheltering inside.
A gate at the rear of the compound was blocked with whatever the presidential guard could find; a pile of police barricades, plywood boards, and various items that made it look like a scrap heap.
The lights inside were shut off and Mr Zelenskyy and about a dozen aides were handed bulletproof vests and assault rifles.
“It was an absolute madhouse,” Oleksiy Arestovych, a veteran of Ukraine’s military intelligence service, told writer Simon Shuster. “Automatics for everyone.”
Ukrainian troops fought the Russians back in the streets and fighting continued the following day, and on February 25 Mr Zelenskyy posted his now infamous video message to Instagram, saying “We’re all here … Defending our independence, our country”.
“Before that night, we had only ever seen such things in the movies,” said Andriy Yermak, the president’s chief of staff.
PUTIN COULD DECLARE NEW WORLD WAR WITHIN DAYS
Vladimir Putin could declare a new world war within days, the UK’s Defence Secretary has warned.
Mr Putin – who has also been threatening the use of nuclear weapons – might use traditional Victory Day celebrations on May 9, which mark the end of World War Two, to spark a war with the “world’s Nazis”, Ben Wallace claimed.
Mr Wallace also said Russia’s occupation of Ukraine risked becoming “a sort of cancerous growth” that must be cut out.
He made the alarming comments to London broadcaster LBC. “I would not be surprised … that he is probably going to declare on May Day that ‘We are now at war with the world’s Nazis and we need to mass mobilise the Russian people’.”
“Putin, having failed in nearly all objectives, may seek to consolidate what he’s got … and just be a sort of cancerous growth within the country.”
The Defence Secretary said Ukraine needed more help to thwart the Russian invaders, telling LBC the UK would continue to supply weapons to the government in Kyiv and was looking at providing anti-ship missiles.
“We have to help Ukrainians effectively get the limpet off the rock and keep the momentum pushing them back.”
MISSILES FIRED DURING KYIV VISIT
Two missiles have been fired into the Ukrainian capital Kyiv during a visit by the UN secretary-general, with one hitting the lower floor of a residential building and injuring at least three people
The brazen act happened while UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres was meeting the Ukrainian President on Thursday.
Russian strikes slammed into Kyiv evening as Mr Guterres was visiting in the first such bombardment of Ukraine’s capital since mid-April.
“Missile strikes in the downtown of Kyiv during the official visit of Antonio Guterres,” tweeted the office of Mr Zelenskyy, with AFP correspondents hearing the blast and seeing smoke and flames coming from the area.
“By this heinous act of barbarism Russia demonstrates once again its attitude towards Ukraine, Europe and the world,” Ukraine’s defence minister tweeted.
Russia stroke Kyiv with cruise missiles right when UN Secretary General @antonioguterres and Bulgarian PM @KirilPetkov visit our capital. By this heinous act of barbarism Russia demonstrates once again its attitude towards Ukraine, Europe and the world.
— Dmytro Kuleba (@DmytroKuleba) April 28, 2022
Images from the aftermath show smoke rising from close to central Kyiv.
Defence Minister Oleksii Reznikov and Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba both said the blasts were caused by Russian missiles.
AFP witnesses had earlier reported the sound of two blasts.
Mr Zelenskyy‘s chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, said the blasts were “proof that we need a quick victory over Russia … We must act quickly — more weapons, more humanitarian efforts … because every day, Ukraine pays a high price for the protection of democracy and freedom.”
The incident came after the German parliament voted in favour of providing Ukraine with heavy weapons, backing a shift in policy that came with the decision to send tanks to Kyiv earlier this week.
Berlin’s move came shortly before US President Joe Biden announced a plan to send a further $US33bn ($A47bn) to Ukraine to help in its war against Russia.
‘WE’RE ALL GOING TO DIE SOMEDAY’: RUSSIAN STATE TV’S NUCLEAR THREAT
Vladimir Putin will pursue an all-out nuclear war before accepting defeat in Ukraine, according to Russian state TV.
It comes as Moscow laid the groundwork to expand its western front to Moldova amid claims of “terrorism” in the separatist region of Transnistria,
Margarita Simonyan, the editor of the Kremlin’s state broadcaster RT, declared that it was “more probable” for Putin to launch a nuclear strike than he was to end his “special military operation”.
“Either we lose in Ukraine or the Third World War starts. I think World War Three is more realistic, knowing us, knowing our leader,” Ms Simonyan said.
“The most incredible outcome, that all this will end with a nuclear strike, seems more probable to me than the other course of events, this is to my horror on one hand,” she told a panel of experts.
“But on the other hand, it is what it is. We will go to heaven, while they will simply croak … We’re all going to die someday.”
Ms Simonyan is a reliable mouthpiece for Russian propaganda and mirrors the calls for the nuclear first strike from foreign minister Sergei Lavrov on State TV on Tuesday.
Her latest threat of retaliation follows British support for Ukrainian strikes on Russian soil, after the UK’s armed forces minister James Heappey said it was “completely legitimate” for Kyiv to attack targets across the border to disrupt logistics.
On Wednesday, an ammunition depot exploded in the border region of Belgorod. No one has claimed responsibility for the attack.
“What choice are you leaving us, idiots? Complete destruction of what remains of Ukraine? A nuclear strike?” Ms Simonyan said on her Telegram channel.
“Explosions and aerial defence sirens in Belgorod,” she added. “The Anglo-Saxons are publicly calling on Ukraine to take the combat activity into Russian territory. And giving them the ammo to carry out that plan.”
BIDEN SAYS RUSSIA SHOULD STOP ‘IDLE’ NUCLEAR THREATS
Joe Biden blasted Moscow for “idle comments” on the possible use of nuclear weapons in the Ukraine conflict, saying such talk showed Russia’s “desperation.”
“No one should be making idle comments about the use of nuclear weapons or the possibility that they would use that. It’s irresponsible,” Mr Biden said
The US President said he would ask Congress for a $33-billion package to further arm and support Ukraine, saying that “caving” in to Russia is not an option for the West as the war stretches into a third month.
Speaking in the White House, Mr Biden also outlined proposed new laws to allow using luxury assets stripped from Russian oligarchs under unprecedented sanctions to compensate Ukraine for the destruction wreaked by the invading Russians.
He acknowledged the dramatic costs of US backing for Ukraine, but said there was no real choice in the struggle with Mr Putin.
“The cost of this fight is not cheap. But caving to aggression is going to be more costly if we allow it to happen,” he said.
Reflecting the scale of the US assistance to Ukraine, which is badly mauling the larger and more heavily armed Russian forces, Mr Biden confirmed that the United States has already sent 10 tank-killing weapons for every Russian tank sent into the country.
RUSSIA CLAIMS ‘TERRORISM’ IN MOLDOVA
Russia has escalated its rhetoric toward its stated goals of joining Russia with Moldova through “full control” of southern Ukraine.
Foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova claimed “acts of terrorism” in the Moscow-backed separatist region of Transnistria.
It comes less than a week after a top Russian general revealed Mr Putin’s endgame in connecting Russia with Moldova, leading to fears of false flag attacks as a pretext for invasion.
“We are alarmed by the escalation of tensions in Transnistria,” Ms Zakharova said during her weekly briefing, pointing to reports of shootings and explosions.
“We regard these actions as acts of terrorism aimed at destabilising the situation in the region and expect a thorough and objective investigation.
She said Russia “strongly condemns” attempts to involve Transnistria in the conflict in neighbouring Ukraine and dismissed a “sensational statement” from Ukraine about Russian peacekeepers and Transnistrian conscripts preparing “for some offensive actions”.
The separatist region bordering Ukraine has reported explosions hitting the security ministry, a military unit and a Russian-owned radio tower as well as shots fired at a village housing a Russian arms depot.
The self-proclaimed republic of Transnistria seceded from Moldova in 1992 after a brief war with Chisinau. Around 1,500 Russian soldiers have been based there ever since.
Fears of destabilisation in the region grew after a Russian general said the Kremlin’s offensive aimed to create a land corridor through southern Ukraine to Transnistria.
Kyiv has accused Russia of wanting to destabilise the region to create a pretext for a military intervention
“All these statements do not cast doubt on the fact that the situation on the left bank of the Dniester, including in the security zone, is reliably controlled by the joint peacekeeping forces,” Ms Zakharova continued.
Moscow used similar claims of Ukrainian attacks in its self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics in the Donbas as justification for its invasion of Ukraine in February.
EX US MARINE AND RUSSIAN PILOT IN PRISONER SWAP
Russia and the United States swapped prisoners despite fierce tensions over Ukraine, with Moscow handing over a jailed ex-Marine in exchange for a Russian pilot convicted of drug smuggling.
Trevor Reed, a 30-year-old from Texas who was jailed in Russia in 2020, was exchanged for Konstantin Yaroshenko, 53, who had been serving a 20-year US prison sentence since 2011.
In footage shown on Russian state television, Yaroshenko emerged from a US plane onto a sunlit airfield, wearing a T-shirt and accompanied by two men in dark suits.
Simultaneously, Reed emerged from a plane opposite with a guard carrying bags. The two men walked past one other, each on their way to the other’s plane. Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said the exchange was carried out on Wednesday after “a lengthy negotiations process”.
State television showed footage of Reed talking to guards in Russian as he left his penal colony and being escorted onto a plane at Moscow’s Vnukovo airport by men in military uniform.
His father Joey Reed told CNN that Trevor was moved to a Moscow prison this week and then flown to Turkey where the swap took place.
In a statement, Reed’s family asked for privacy while their son addresses health issues “brought on by the squalid conditions he was subjected to in his Russian gulag”.
Mr Biden said in a statement the swap required “difficult decisions that I do not take lightly”.
“His safe return is a testament to the priority my administration places on bringing home Americans held hostage and wrongfully detained abroad,” he added.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken also praised the exchange. “I am pleased to announce the release of US citizen Trevor Reed, who was wrongfully detained in Russia,” he said in a statement.
UN CHIEF: WAR AN ‘ABSURDITY IN 21ST CENTURY’
A senior Ukrainian presidential aide says that Kyiv has the “right” to strike Russian military targets, suggesting direct attacks on facilities within Russian territory.
“Ukraine will defend itself in any way, including strikes on the warehouses and bases of the killer Russia. The world recognises this right,” presidential aide and conflict negotiator Mykhaylo Podolyak wrote on Twitter.
It comes as UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called war “an absurdity in (the) 21st century” as he visited Borodianka outside Kyiv, the scene of alleged civilian killings by Russian forces.
Mr Guterres will later meet Mr Zelenskyy on the visit, which follows talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow.
Mr Guterres is also expected to visit Bucha and Irpin, sites of further alleged Russian war crimes.
Mr Putin has said that if Western forces, which are supplying increasingly heavy weaponry to Kyiv, intervene in Ukraine, they will face a “lightning-fast” military response.
“We have all the tools for this, that no one else can boast of having,” the Russian leader told politicians, implicitly referring to Moscow’s ballistic missiles and nuclear arsenal.
“We won’t boast about it: we’ll use them, if needed,” he said.
The dire threats came as Moscow claimed to have carried out a missile strike in southern Ukraine to destroy a “large batch” of Western-supplied weapons.
As the war, which has already claimed thousands of lives, entered its third month, Kyiv conceded that Russian forces had made gains in the east.
Russia’s military offensive saw it capture a string of villages in the Donbas region, now the focus of its invasion.
And in its economic standoff with the West, Moscow cut off gas supplies to Bulgaria and Poland, two EU and NATO members backing Ukraine in the conflict.
However, Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, said Poland and Bulgaria are now receiving gas from their EU neighbours.
She described the announcement by Russia’s state energy giant Gazprom as “another provocation from the Kremlin”.
“It comes as no surprise that the Kremlin uses fossil fuels to try to blackmail us … Our response will be immediate, united and co-ordinated.
“Both Poland and Bulgaria are now receiving gas from their EU neighbours,” she said.
“The era of Russian fossil fuels in Europe will come to an end.”
European powers have imposed massive sanctions on Russia since Mr Putin’s invasion, while shipping weapons to Ukraine’s defenders.
But they have moved slowly on hitting Moscow’s vast exports, with many EU members – notably industrial giant Germany – reliant on Russian energy.
Mr Putin has intensified pressure by insisting on payments for gas in rubles – hoping to force his foes to prop up his currency.
Gazprom announced the halt of gas to both Poland and highly dependent Bulgaria, saying it had not received payment in rubles from the two EU members.
But Ms Von der Leyen said that “about 97 per cent” of all EU contracts explicitly stipulate payments in euros or dollars – and warned importing firms paying in rubles would breach sanctions.
The European Commission sought to lend Kyiv economic support by proposing a suspension of import duties on Ukrainian goods, though the idea still needs to be approved in a vote by the bloc’s 27 members.
Mr Zelenskyy welcomed the plan, saying Russia was “trying to provoke a global price crisis” and stir “chaos” in the world’s food market.
SHOTS FIRED IN MOLDOVA: RUSSIA
The first phase of Russia’s invasion failed to reach Kyiv or overthrow Mr Zelenskyy’s government after encountering stiff Ukrainian resistance reinforced with Western weapons.
The campaign has since refocused on seizing the east and south of the country while increasingly using long-range missiles against west and central Ukraine.
In Kharkiv, whose northern and eastern districts are less than five kilometres from the front, at least three people died and 15 were injured in shelling, Governor Oleg Synegoubov said Wednesday.
Defenders of the besieged Azovstal factory in the strategic port city of Mariupol described massive bombardments, with Sergey Volyna of the 36th Marine Brigade pleading for extraction for the 600 wounded soldiers and hundreds of civilians he said remain trapped there.
Russia’s defence ministry, meanwhile, said its forces had destroyed a “large batch” of weapons and ammunition supplied by the United States and European countries.
Russia hit hangars at an aluminium plant near the Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia with “high-precision long-range sea-based Kalibr missiles”, the ministry said.
Local authorities denied that weapons had been stored at the factory, which they said had not been operational for six years.
Tensions are also rising in Transnistria, a breakaway region of Moldova that borders southwestern Ukraine.
Pro-Russian separatists in the area claimed shots were fired across the border towards a village housing a Russian arms depot after drones flew over from Ukraine.
The unrecognised region has reported a series of explosions in recent days that it called “terrorist attacks”, leading Kyiv to accuse Moscow of seeking to expand the war further into Europe.
Moldovan Foreign Minister Nicu Popescu called the events a “dangerous deterioration of the situation”.
Mr Popescu said the Transnistrian authorities announced they would prevent men of fighting age from leaving the region.
Russia’s targeting of Western-supplied arms came as the United States and Europe started to heed Mr Zelenskyy’s call for heavier firepower.
Western allies remain wary of being drawn into war with Russia but have stepped up military support as Ukraine has maintained its fierce resistance.
The Kremlin said that Western arms deliveries to Ukraine were dangerous for European security.
“The tendency to pump weapons, including heavy weapons into Ukraine, these are the actions that threaten the security of the continent, provoke instability,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.
His words were in response to UK Foreign Secretary Liz Truss’s fresh call on Wednesday for an increase in arms deliveries to Ukraine, including heavy weapons, tanks and planes.
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