(ANSA-AFP) - NUSA DUA, NOV 15 - Russia faced mounting
diplomatic pressure to end its war in Ukraine Tuesday, as G20
leaders meeting in Indonesia rued the high cost of the
eight-month-old conflict. In a draft communique, countries
including Russia 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 spectre 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. Rubbing salt in his
wounds, Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky -- fresh from a
visit to liberated Kherson -- delivered an impassioned video
appeal to G20 leaders. Zelensky told leaders from China's Xi
Jinping to America's Joe Biden that they could "save thousands
of lives" by pressing for a Russian withdrawal.
Putin's delegate, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, remained in
his seat throughout Zelensky's address, two diplomatic sources
told AFP. The veteran diplomat had preparations for the summit
disrupted by two trips to a Bali hospital in as many days for an
undisclosed ailment. (ANSA-AFP).
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