Volodymyr Zelenskiy welcomed some elements of a Chinese proposal for a ceasefire in Russia’s war on Ukraine, but said only the country where a war is being fought can be the initiator of a peace plan. Zelenskiy said during a press conference in Kyiv on Friday that the plan was ‘an important signal that they are going to participate in this topic’, but warned Beijing against providing Moscow with arms The Guardian
Tag: Volodymyr Zelenskiy
Ukraine war to take centre stage at UN as west and Russia vie for support
The UN general assembly summit this week will be dominated by a struggle – between the US and its allies on one side and Russia on the other – for global support over the fate of Ukraine, as the global south fights to stop the conflict from overshadowing the existential threats of famine and the climate crisis. With a return to fully in-person general debate, presidents and prime ministers will be converging on New York, many of them direct from London, where the diplomacy got under way on the sidelines…
Friend or foe: what world leaders think of Liz Truss
She has caused uproar by questioning whether the French president, Emmanuel Macron, is a trusted ally and pursued a policy in Northern Ireland that has upset the White House. Should Liz Truss become prime minister on 5 September, she will come with some unhelpful baggage to the top table on the international stage at a fraught time. The challenges will come thick and fast. From the war in Ukraine, the global energy crisis and the urgent calls for more and deeper action on the climate crisis, the world is looking…
Putin and Xi ‘could meet in September’ at summit in Samarkand
Xi Jinping could meet Vladimir Putin in mid-September at a regional summit in the Uzbek city of Samarkand, it has been reported. According to the Wall Street Journal, preparations are being made for the Chinese president to travel to Samarkand on 15 September for a meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO). Xi’s office signalled he might attend in person, the report said, and that as well as Putin, bilateral meetings could also be held with the leaders of Pakistan, India and Turkey. However, officials cautioned that the Chinese leader’s…
Ukraine crisis: claims Mariupol women and children forcibly sent to Russia
Authorities in the Ukrainian city of Mariupol have said Russian troops have forcibly deported several thousand residents to Russia, as claims emerged that the besieged city had been “wiped off the face of the earth”. “Over the past week, several thousand Mariupol residents were deported on to the Russian territory,” the city council said in a statement on its Telegram channel late on Saturday. “The occupiers illegally took people from the Livoberezhniy district and from the shelter in the sports club building, where more than a thousand people (mostly women…
How Ukraine has become the crucible of the new world order
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has been described by politicians and commentators as a watershed moment in modern history, a turning point comparable in importance to the 9/11 attacks in the US in 2001, the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, and even the assassination of John F Kennedy in 1963. Whether this portentous view of the war turns out to be justified, only time – and future historians – will tell. But there’s no doubt that in the violent, tumultuous days after 24 February, the established international order has…