Latest Developments in Ukraine: Nov. 15

The latest developments in Russia’s war on Ukraine. All times EDT.

11:30 p.m.: The governor of the Belgorod region of southern Russia said on Tuesday that two people had been killed and three wounded by shelling in a town near the border with Ukraine, Reuters reported.

Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov gave no further details of the incident in the town of Shebekino.

Belgorod is one of several southern Russian regions where targets such as fuel and ammunition stores have been rocked by explosions since the start of the war in what Moscow said were Ukrainian attacks. Kyiv, without claiming responsibility, has described them as “karma” for Russia’s invasion.

Last month Gladkov said more than 2,000 people had been left without power after what he said was Ukrainian shelling of an electricity substation in Shebekino.

11:07 p.m.: European Union countries should work together in replenishing their military inventories and avoid competing with each other amid ongoing arms deliveries to Ukraine, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said on Tuesday, according to Reuters.

The EU has long urged member states to join forces on arms purchases instead of driving up prices by competing against each other or striking deals individually with suppliers outside the bloc. But countries have been reluctant to heed the advice.

The 27 member states are set to boost military budgets by up to $72.2 billion in total by 2025, but a lack of project cooperation and the purchases outside the bloc risk undermining efforts to create coherent forces, the European Defense Agency (EDA) said in its annual review for ministers.

Only 18% of all investment in defense programs involves cooperation between member states, the EDA stated, adding that investing in European projects was often seen as more time-consuming and complex.

8:48 p.m.: Global leaders gathered for the G-20 meeting in Bali, Indonesia, were holding an emergency meeting on Wednesday after deadly explosions in Poland that Ukraine and Polish authorities said were caused by Russian-made missiles, Reuters reported.

The meeting was convened by U.S. President Joe Biden. Leaders Germany, Canada, Netherlands, Japan, Spain, Italy, France and the United Kingdom also attended.

All except for Japan are members of NATO, the defense alliance that also includes Poland.

A determination that Moscow was to blame for the blast could trigger NATO’s Article 5, in which an attack on one of the Western alliance’s members is deemed an attack on all, starting deliberations on a potential military response.

The leaders were briefly seen together around a conference table at the start of the meeting. Officials said it was not clear how long the meeting would last.

8:27 p.m.: Several protesters disrupted a Russian-hosted event at the COP27 climate conference in Egypt on Tuesday, criticizing delegates over the war in Ukraine and Russia’s use of fossil fuels before being escorted out by security staff, Reuters reported.

About five protesters stood and shouted as Russian officials took part in a panel discussion about the country’s climate plans.

“You are war criminals,” one shouted. Another held a banner reading “fossil fuels kill,” calling the Russian delegates “despicable.”

Earlier Russia’s climate envoy said the country was still actively trying to prevent climate change, and said it was worried that some countries may be using a “difficult geopolitical situation” to justify backsliding on climate commitments.

7:45 p.m.: British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak called Tuesday for efforts to stabilize oil markets in talks with Saudi Arabia’s crown prince, who was shunned by US President Joe Biden over an output cut, Agence France-Presse reported.

The new British prime minister met separately with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the oil-rich kingdom’s effective ruler, as they gathered for the Group of 20 summit on the Indonesian resort island of Bali.

“In light of the global increase in energy prices sparked by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the prime minister said he hoped the UK and Saudi Arabia could continue to work together to stabilize energy markets,” a Downing Street spokesperson said.

The engagement contrasts with the cold shoulder by Biden, with U.S. officials saying they were not planning any meeting with the prince, known by his initials MBS, even on a lower level.

7:10 p.m.: Moldova said it was suffering from electricity outages on Tuesday as a result of Russian strikes on energy infrastructure in neighboring Ukraine and called on Moscow to stop its attacks, Agence France-Presse reported.

“Parts of Moldova are experiencing power outages as a result of Russia’s missiles hitting Ukrainian cities and vital infrastructure,” Foreign Minister Nicu Popescu wrote on Twitter. “Every bomb falling on Ukraine is also affecting Moldova and our people. We call on Russia to stop the destruction now.”

The outages are the latest example of how the war in Ukraine has spilled over the border of ex-Soviet Moldova, which like Ukraine has for years had Russian troops stationed in a breakaway region in its east.

Moldova was, along with Ukraine, granted candidate status by the European Union in a show of support in the face of Russia’s offensive.

6:58 p.m.: Ukraine said on Tuesday allegations that one of its missiles had landed in Poland were a “conspiracy theory” following reports a Russian-made missile had landed inside the borders of the NATO member, Agence France-Presse reported.

“Russia now promotes a conspiracy theory that it was allegedly a missile of Ukrainian air defense that fell on the territory of Poland. Which is not true. No one should buy Russian propaganda or amplify its messages,” Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said on Twitter.

The Russian-appointed head of the Donetsk region of Ukraine, which is controlled by Russian forces, earlier described reports that a Russian missile had landed in Poland as a “provocation” orchestrated by Kyiv.

6:27 p.m.: Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy spoke by phone Tuesday with Polish counterpart Andrzej Duda, offering his condolences following reports that an alleged Russian missile attack had left two dead in Poland.

“Expressed condolences over the death of Polish citizens from Russian missile terror. We exchanged available information and are clarifying all the facts. Ukraine, Poland, all of Europe and the world must be fully protected from terrorist Russia,” Zelensky said in an English-language tweet.

Ukraine’s Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov meanwhile said in response to the reports: “This is the reality we’ve been warning about. We were asking to close the sky, because sky has no borders. … Gloves are off. Time to win.”

6:05 p.m.: President Joseph R. Biden spoke with President Andrzej Duda of Poland and expressed deep condolences for the loss of life in Eastern Poland earlier this evening, according to the White House.

Duda described Poland’s ongoing assessment of the explosion that took place the border with Ukraine.

Biden offered the full support of the U.S. and reaffirmed the United States’ ironclad commitment to NATO.

Biden also offered assistance with Poland’s investigation. And the two leaders said that they and their teams should remain in close touch to determine appropriate next steps as the investigation proceeds.

5:43 p.m.: Seven million homes were without power following the latest Russian missile attacks, the Ukrainian presidency said, dampening jubilation over the recapture of Kherson city.

Lviv in the west and Kharkiv in the east were also attacked on Tuesday, authorities said, with Lviv’s mayor reporting 80% of the city was without power.

And the Dnipropetrovsk region’s military administration said an energy facility in Kryvyi Rih had been hit, creating a “complicated” situation for the grid.

Kyiv’s mayor Vitali Klitschko said at least half of the city’s residents were without power, two residential buildings were hit and “several missiles were shot down … by air defense systems.”

5:10 p.m.: NATO ambassadors will meet on Wednesday at the request of Poland on the basis of the alliance’s Article 4, two European diplomats told Reuters after an explosion in Poland close to the Ukrainian border that was reportedly caused by a stray Russian missile.

According to Article 4 of the alliance’s founding treaty, members can raise any issue of concern, especially related to the security of a member country.

One of the diplomats said the alliance would act cautiously and needed time to verify how exactly the incident happened.

4:30 p.m.: Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Tuesday he had no information on an explosion in Poland.

“Unfortunately, I have no information on this,” Peskov said in response to a question from Reuters.

The Russian defense ministry denied that Russian missiles had hit Poland.

4 p.m.: The U.N. human rights office (OHCHR) said on Tuesday that both Russia and Ukraine have tortured prisoners of war during the nearly nine-month conflict, citing examples including the use of electric shocks and forced nudity, Reuters reported.

The U.N.’s Ukraine-based monitoring team based its findings on interviews with more than 100 prisoners of war on each side of the conflict since April. The interviews with Ukrainian prisoners of war were conducted after their release, since Russia did not grant access to detention sites, it said.

Matilda Bogner, head of the monitoring mission, told a Geneva press briefing that the “vast majority” of Ukrainian prisoners they interviewed held by Russian forces reported torture and ill-treatment. She gave examples of dog attacks, mock executions, electric shocks with Tasers and military phones and sexual violence.

On the Ukrainian side, Bogner reported “credible allegations” of summary executions of Russian prisoners, noting that no progress has yet been seen in Ukrainian authorities’ investigations into these cases. Other Russian prisoners reported poor and humiliating conditions of transport and of being packed into trucks or vans naked, with their hands tied behind their backs. The U.N. team said it had also documented cases of so-called “welcome beatings” at a penal colony.

Asked to compare the scale of the abuses by both sides, Bogner said the mistreatment of Ukrainian prisoners by Russians was “fairly systematic” whereas she said it was “not systematic” for Ukraine to mistreat Russian soldiers.

3:10 p.m.: Russia’s defense ministry on Tuesday denied reports that Russian missiles had hit Polish territory, describing them as “a deliberate provocation aimed at escalating the situation,” it said in a statement on Telegram.

The Pentagon and NATO said they are looking into the reports.

It added in a statement: “No strikes on targets near the Ukrainian-Polish state border were made by Russian means of destruction.”

Wreckage reportedly found at the scene “has nothing to do with Russian weapons,” it said.

2:10 p.m.: Poland’s prime minister has called an urgent meeting of a committee for national security and defense affairs, the government spokesman said on Twitter on Tuesday, Reuters reported.

The committee, which consists of heads of defense, interior, justice and foreign affairs ministries as well as coordinator of intelligence services, is a body that prepares and coordinates decisions on national security and defense.

Cabinet spokesman Piotr Muller was not immediately available for a comment. His tweet did not mention what the committee was due to discuss.

Russia pounded cities and energy facilities across Ukraine on Tuesday, killing at least one person and causing widespread power outages in what Kyiv said was the heaviest wave of missile strikes in nearly nine months of war.

1:40 p.m.: Leaders of most of the world’s economic powers are nearing approval of a declaration strongly denouncing Russia’s invasion that has devastated Ukraine and roiled the global economy, The Associated Press reported.

Even China, which has mostly declined to censure Russia until now, and India, which buys weapons from Russia, are providing encouraging words.

The draft statement seen Tuesday by The Associated Press “deplores in the strongest terms the aggression by the Russian Federation” and “demands its complete and unconditional withdrawal from the territory of Ukraine.”

The G-20 statement does note that there are different views on the situation and on sanctions against Russia, saying that the G-20 is not the forum for resolving security issues.

More discussion and a possible vote come Wednesday at the summit, which has proved unusually eventful.

12:45 p.m.: Russia pounded Ukraine’s energy facilities Tuesday with its biggest barrage of missiles yet, striking targets from east to west and causing widespread blackouts, The Associated Press reported.

A defiant President Volodymr Zelenskyy shook his fist and declared: “We will survive everything.”

His energy minister said the attack was “the most massive” bombardment of power facilities in the nearly 9-month-old Russian invasion, striking both power generation and transmission systems.

The minister, Herman Haluschenko, described the missile strikes as “another attempt at terrorist revenge” after military and diplomatic setbacks for the Kremlin. He accused Russia of “trying to cause maximum damage to our energy system on the eve of winter.”

Neighboring Moldova was also affected. It reported massive power outages after the strikes knocked out a key power line that supplies the small nation, an official said.

12:10 p.m.: Britain’s foreign minister James Cleverly on Tuesday said Russia’s latest missile strikes across cities in Ukraine showed President Vladimir Putin’s weakness, Reuters reported.

“The callous targeting of Ukrainian cities with more sickening missile attacks today shows only Putin’s weakness,” Cleverly said in a tweet.

“Putin is losing on the battlefield and – as we saw today at the G20 – diplomatically too.”

11:30 a.m.: The United States strongly condemns Russia’s latest missile attacks against Ukraine, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said in a statement Tuesday.

He said the missiles “appear to have struck residential buildings in the capital Kyiv and additional sites around the country.”

“It is not lost on us that, as world leaders meet at the G-20 in Bali to discuss the issues of significant importance to the lives and livelihoods of people around the world, Russia again threatens those lives and destroys Ukraine’s critical infrastructure,” Sullivan said, adding that Russia’s actions are deepening international leaders’ concerns about the war and its impact.

“Our thoughts are with the brave Ukrainian people,” he said, adding that the “United States and our allies and partners will continue to provide Ukraine with what it needs to defend itself, including air defense systems.

11:05 a.m.: At least one person was killed in a Russian missile strike on the Ukrainian capital Kyiv on Tuesday, the city’s mayor said.

Mayor Vitali Klitschko said a body had been pulled out of a residential building that was hit in the central Pechersk district. 10:25 a.m.: The energy situation in Ukraine is ‘critical’ following a wave of Russian missile strikes on Tuesday that damaged energy infrastructure, the deputy head of the president’s office said, according to Reuters.

The national grid operator, Ukrenergo, said the worst damage was in northern and central regions and that emergency power outages for “all categories of consumers” had been introduced in those areas.

It also announced special emergency outages in Kyiv.

10:10 a.m.: U.N. aid chief Martin Griffiths on Tuesday voiced confidence in the continued work of the Black Sea grains deal after meeting with Russian and Ukrainian delegations in Istanbul.

“I am confident we will continue to improve our important work, together,” he said on Twitter after meetings where he heard both sides’ views on improving the export initiative.

The meeting comes days ahead of the deal’s renewal date on November 19.

10:00 a.m.: A United Nations spokeswoman, Florencia Soto Niño, answered media questions Tuesday about U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’ meeting with Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Bali on the sidelines of the G20 meeting, VOA’s U.N. correspondent Margaret Besheer reported.

“The Secretary-General met today with the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, Sergey Lavrov. They had a lengthy meeting and they went through all the aspects related to the process of facilitation of Russian exports – food and fertilizers – and the Black Sea Grain Initiative,” Niño said.

“It was a very frank and open discussion,” she added, without providing any more details.

9:20 a.m.: Three apartment buildings were hit by Russian missile strikes in Ukraine’s capital city Kyiv on Tuesday, according to Mayor Vitali Klitschko.

Officials warned residents to stay in shelter for fear of more attacks, Reuters reported.

The missile strike on Kyiv followed air raid warnings across Ukraine hours after Zelenskiy delivered a video address to leaders of the Group of 20 nations who are meeting in Bali.

“Russia responds to @Zelenskiy’s powerful speech at #G20 with a new missile attack. Does anyone seriously think that the Kremlin really wants peace? It wants obedience. But at the end of the day, terrorists always lose,” Andriy Yermak, chief of the presidential staff, wrote on Twitter.

Russia has stepped up missile strikes on Ukraine in recent weeks, with missiles damaging energy infrastructure as well as residential buildings.

The Kyiv Independent shared photos and reports from the scene on Twitter Tuesday.

8:50 a.m.: Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Tuesday that Ukraine’s conditions for restarting talks with Moscow were “unrealistic,” Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported.

He was speaking at the Group of 20 summit, where pressure was mounting on Russia to end the conflict.

“All problems are with the Ukrainian side, which is categorically refusing negotiations and putting forward conditions that are obviously unrealistic,” Lavrov told reporters in Bali, Indonesia.

He said he had put forward that position during a meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron and that he had explained Russia’s position during talks with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz.

8:10 a.m.: Kyiv urged leaders in Africa Tuesday to keep their citizens from being embroiled in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, a day after Zambia said one of its own was killed, Agence France-Presse reported.

Zambia’s foreign minister on Monday said a Zambian student who had been jailed in Russia died in fighting in Ukraine and demanded an explanation from the Kremlin.

Lemekhani Nathan Nyirenda, 23, who had been serving a prison sentence in Moscow, “passed away on 22nd September 2022, in Ukraine,” minister Stanley Kakubo said in a statement, adding he died “at the battlefront.”

Spokesman to Ukraine’s foreign ministry, Oleg Nikolenko, urged African countries to press Russia not to use their citizens in Moscow’s war in Ukraine. “We call on African Union and all African states to demand that Russia stop press ganging their nationals,” Nikolenko wrote on social media. “Africans shouldn’t die for Putin’s sick imperial ambitions,” he said.

7:55 a.m.: The airport is in ruins, littered with the twisted hulks of destroyed tanks and aircraft. On the edge of town, there is a mass burial site with unidentified human remains. On the main square, people are asking soldiers for autographs and posing with them for photos. Reporter Maryan Kushnir of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s Ukrainian Service found that a day in newly liberated Kherson is filled with contrasts.

7:40 a.m.: Ukraine has resumed rail service to the southern city of Mykolaiv for the first time since Russia invaded the country on February 24, the Kyiv Independent reported Tuesday.

“The report on the resumption of railway traffic followed the liberation of the neighboring city of Kherson by Ukrainian troops on Nov. 11,” the news organization reported.

“After launching its full-scale invasion on Feb. 24, Russia unsuccessfully attempted to seize Mykolaiv and other cities in Mykolaiv Oblast and heavily shelled the region,” it added.

7:05 a.m.: Two freelance correspondents working for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s Russian Service who were detained on Monday while interviewing people on the streets of Moscow have been released, the RFE/RL news organization reported Tuesday.

Yury Lebedev and Yelizaveta Movchan were taken to a police station after a person whom the reporters wanted to interview called the police.

Since Moscow launched its unprovoked invasion of Ukraine in February, police in Russia have repeatedly detained journalists, including those from RFE/RL, to prevent them from carrying out their work as reporters.

6:30 a.m.: Russia is now engaged in a defensive operation in Ukraine following its withdrawal from the southern city of Kherson, a Western official told Reuters on Tuesday.

“It’s clear that for now, the Russia occupation of Ukraine is a defensive operation,” said the official, who spoke to the news agency on condition of anonymity.

6:10 a.m.: Ukraine wants to feed at least 5 million more people facing acute food shortages by the end of next spring under proposals set out by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to the Group of 20 nations on Tuesday, Reuters reported citing a senior aide.

Zelenskyy also told a G-20 summit that a U.N.-brokered deal that has eased a Russian blockade of Ukrainian Black Sea ports should be extended indefinitely and include two more ports — Mykolaiv and Olvia.

Three ports are already included in the U.N.-brokered deal, which Zelenskyy said had enabled Ukraine to export more than 10 million tons of food products since July. The deal is set to expire on November 19 and talks are under way on extending it.

“The right to food is a fundamental right of every person in the world,” Zelenskyy said in a video address to G-20 leaders gathered in Bali. Setting out what he called the “Grain from Ukraine” plan, he urged all countries to join “our initiative to help the poorest with food.”

Ukraine is one of the world’s largest grain exporters and the sea blockade following Russia’s invasion of the country in February contributed to a global food crisis.

Andriy Yermak, the chief of Ukraine’s presidential staff, said on the Telegram messaging app that Ukraine would set aside a portion of harvested wheat for partner countries to purchase on behalf of African countries on the brink of famine.

“The program envisages providing grain to at least 5 million people by the end of spring 2023,” he wrote, adding that it would be implemented in partnership with the World Food Program. “We will not give the Russians any opportunity to create a Holodomor 2.0,” Yermak added, referring to the death by starvation of millions of people in what was then Soviet Ukraine in the 1930s.

He said a ship carrying 27,000 tons of wheat had already left for Ethiopia as part of the program and in coordination with the German government.

5:55 a.m.: Russia’s Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday it was working to ascertain details about the death of Zambian student on the frontline in Ukraine, Reuters reported citing the state-owned TASS news agency.

Zambia on Monday asked Russia to explain how one of its citizens who had been serving a prison sentence in Moscow had ended up on the battlefield in Ukraine.

5:30 a.m.: Germany will establish a maintenance hub in Slovakia to service and repair weapons it has delivered to Ukraine, German Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht said on Tuesday.

“We have reached agreement, and work can start immediately so that all the equipment which has been supplied (to Kyiv) can be repaired after coming out of battle,” she told reporters as she arrived for a meeting with her EU counterparts in Brussels.

Berlin is planning to train some 5,000 Ukrainian soldiers in Germany as part of an EU training mission by June, Reuters reported.

5 a.m.: Britain’s biggest defense company, BAE Systems, lifted its earnings guidance on Tuesday after reporting “very strong” orders for 2022 and forecast more growth next year as the war in Ukraine boosts military spending, Reuters reported.

The Ukraine war has boosted defense spending globally and BAE said despite worsening economic conditions the commitment to defense in its major markets of the United States, Britain, Saudi Arabia and Australia remained robust.

It forecasts another year of top line growth and margin expansion in 2023. “We see sales growth coming from all sectors and opportunities to further enhance the medium-term outlook as our customers address the elevated threat environment,” Chief Executive Charles Woodburn said in a statement on Tuesday.

4:53 a.m.: Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Tuesday that Western countries had tried to “politicize” a joint declaration at the Group of 20 summit in Bali.

The draft declaration by leaders of the G-20, seen by Reuters on Tuesday, said “most” members strongly condemned the war in Ukraine and stressed that it was exacerbating fragilities in the global economy.

4:30 a.m.: German Chancellor Olaf Scholz told a session at the Group of 20 leaders on Tuesday that the best way of achieving a recovery in the global economy would be ending Russia’s war in Ukraine.

“Above all, I would like to once again make very clear that the most effective way to get a recovery in the world economy is to end Russia’s war against Ukraine,” Scholz told the food and energy security session at the meeting in Bali, according to Reuters.

4:04 a.m.: The president of the world football body called Tuesday for a one-month cease-fire in Ukraine to mark the World Cup, Agence France-Presse reported quoting the official as saying sport could bring people together.

FIFA president Gianni Infantino, addressing leaders of the Group of 20 major economies gathered in Bali, said the World Cup opening Sunday in Qatar could serve as a “positive trigger” in the nearly nine-month Russian invasion of Ukraine.

“My plea to all of you is to think of a temporary cease-fire for one month for the duration of the World Cup,” he told a G-20 lunch for the leaders. If not a full cease-fire, there can be “the implementation of some humanitarian corridors or anything that could lead to the resumption of dialogue,” he said.

Describing football as a unifier, he pointed out that Russia had hosted the 2018 World Cup and that Ukraine is submitting a joint bid with Spain and Portugal for 2030.

“We are not naive to believe that football can solve the world’s problems,” Infantino said. But the World Cup offered a “unique platform,” he said, as an estimated five billion people — more than half of humanity — are expected to watch on television.

3:20 a.m.: Russia faced mounting diplomatic pressure to end its war in Ukraine Tuesday, as G-20 leaders meeting in Indonesia rued the high cost of the eight-month-old conflict.

In a draft communique, countries deplored the impact of “the war in Ukraine” — a conflict that “most members strongly condemned.” The group is also expected to declare that “the use or threat of use of nuclear weapons” is “inadmissible,” a veiled rebuke of President Vladimir Putin who has repeatedly raised the specter of nuclear conflagration.

Putin was forced to skip the summit as he reckons with a string of embarrassing battlefield defeats and a grinding war that threatens the future of his regime, Agence France-Presse reported. Rubbing salt in his wounds, AFP report cited that Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy — fresh from a visit to liberated Kherson — delivered an impassioned video appeal to G-20 leaders.

3:03 a.m.: Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Tuesday that Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s statement that there will be no “Minsk 3” deal to end the fighting in Ukraine confirms that Kyiv is not interested in holding peace talks with Moscow, Reuters reported citing the RIA Novosti news agency.

2:35 a.m.: The U.K. Ministry of Defence analyzed Russia’s withdrawal from Kherson city and designation of the port town of Henichesk as temporary capital of the occupied region in its latest update posted on Twitter Tuesday.

There, the ministry said, Russian troops can coordinate action against Kherson city in the west and Melitopol in the northeast, receive reinforcements from Crimea and keep out of range of Ukrainian artillery systems.

2:15 a.m.: Close cooperation between France and China is key to overcome the consequences of the war in Ukraine, which go beyond European borders, French President Emmanuel Macron said on Twitter after meeting with China’s president Xi Jinping.

“Ending escalation and facing the consequences of the war in Ukraine, supporting the most vulnerable economies, decarbonizing our economies and acting to protect bio-diversity: France and China are determined,” Macron wrote.

2:05 a.m.: A draft of a declaration by leaders of the Group of 20 major economies, seen by Reuters on Tuesday, strongly condemned the war in Ukraine and stressed it was exacerbating fragilities in the global economy.

“There were other views and different assessments of the situation and sanctions,” said the draft declaration, which was confirmed by a European diplomat.

The 16-page document has yet to be adopted by G-20 members.

The summit, which host Indonesia and other countries have said should focus on the global economy, has instead been overshadowed by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

“Recognizing that the G-20 is not the forum to resolve security issues, we acknowledge that security issues can have significant consequences for the global economy,” the draft declaration said.

Russia’s foreign ministry on Sunday said the G-20 was not the place where security issues and should instead prioritize the world’s economic challenges, ahead of a meeting expected to be dominated by the war.

The draft document also said the G-20’s central banks were monitoring inflationary pressures and calibrating monetary policy accordingly.

Earlier on Tuesday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy urged counterparts at the summit via video link to step up their leadership and stop Russia’s war in his country under a peace plan he has proposed.

Russia, which was represented at the summit by Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov rather than President Vladimir Putin, says it is conducting a special military operation in Ukraine.

1:27 a.m.: International Monetary Fund Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva warned G-20 leaders on Tuesday against allowing trade protectionism to “take root” and said fragmentation of the world economy into geopolitical blocs would significantly hurt growth.

In prepared remarks delivered at the G-20 leaders summit, Georgieva said that 345 million people in the world were now suffering from a food crisis as a result of Russia’s war in Ukraine, high inflation and climate disasters. She said G-20 countries should “allow trade to do its job.”

“Removing barriers, especially for food and fertilizers, can go a long way to counter the suffering of hundreds of millions of people,” Georgieva said. “We must not allow protectionism to take root and the world to drift into separate blocs.”

12:58 a.m.: The United States expects the G-20 to condemn Russia’s war in Ukraine and its impact on the global economy at the conclusion of a leaders’ meeting in Bali, a senior U.S. official said.

12:30 a.m.: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Tuesday told world leaders gathered at a Group of 20, or the G-20, summit in Indonesia that now was the time to stop Russia’s war in his country under a peace plan he has proposed.

Zelenskyy was speaking via video link to the summit on the Indonesian island of Bali.

“I am convinced now is the time when the Russian destructive war must and can be stopped,” he said, according to a copy of his speech reviewed by Reuters.

Ukrainian forces have made advances against Russian troops in recent weeks in Ukraine’s east and south.

Zelenskyy on Monday visited Kherson city in the south, the biggest prize his troops have recaptured, vowing to press on until Ukraine reclaims control of all of its occupied territory.

In his address to the G-20, Zelenskyy said the war should be ended “justly and on the basis of the U.N. Charter and international law.”

He called for restoring “radiation safety” with regard to the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, introducing price restrictions on Russian energy resources, and expanding a grain export initiative. He also called for all Ukrainian prisoners to be released.

“Please choose your path for leadership — and together we will surely implement the peace formula,” he said.

The United States expects the G-20 to condemn Russia’s war in Ukraine and its impact on the global economy at the conclusion of the meeting in Bali, a senior U.S. official said earlier.

Russia calls its action in Ukraine a “special operation” to disarm Ukraine and protect it from fascists. Ukraine and the West say the fascist allegation is baseless and that the war is an unprovoked act of aggression.

Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, is representing his country at the G-20 after Russia said President Vladimir Putin was too busy to attend.

12:02 a.m.: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy delivered an “impassioned, yet detailed” speech via video link at the G-20 summit, the European Union ambassador to Indonesia said.

In his G-20 speech, Zelenskyy said the world should endorse the establishment of a special tribunal regarding Russia’s aggression against Ukraine.

 

Source: Voice of America