By Leonardo Bennasatto and Lisi Niesner CHASIV YAR, Ukraine (Reuters) -Russian troops and mercenaries were closing off the last access routes to the besieged Ukrainian city of Bakhmut on Friday, on the cusp of Moscow s first major victory in half a year after the bloodiest fighting of the war. The head of Russia s Wagner private army said the city, which has been blasted to ruins, was now almost completely surrounded, with only one route out left open for Ukraine s troops. Reuters journalists west of the city saw Ukrainians digging new trenches for defensive positions there, and the commander of a Ukrainian drone unit inside the city for months said he had been ordered to withdraw. Victory in Bakhmut, with a pre-war population of about 70,000, would give Russia the first major prize of a costly winter offensive after it called up hundreds of thousands of reservists last year. It says it would be a stepping stone to capturing the surrounding Donbas region, an important war aim. Ukraine
By Krishn Kaushik and Simon Lewis NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov accused the United States of hypocrisy after U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Russia cannot be allowed to wage war in Ukraine with impunity, during a security forum they attended in New Delhi on Friday. The top diplomats from Moscow and Washington had both attended the Group of 20 foreign ministers gathering in the Indian capital earlier this week, and met in person for the first time since Russian forces invaded Ukraine a year ago. If we allow with impunity Russia to do what it s doing in Ukraine, then that’s a message to would-be aggressors everywhere that they may be able to get away with it too, Blinken told the Raisina Dialogue strategic affairs forum. Speaking at the same strategic affairs forum after Blinken, Lavrov said it was double standards to question Russia s action in Ukraine when the United States cited a threat to its national interest to justify military interven
MUMBAI (Reuters) -The financial viability of many countries is being threatened by unsustainable debt, India s Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Friday, as he called for the Group of 20 (G20) to focus on the world s most vulnerable citizens. Trust in international financial institutions has eroded, partly because the lenders had been slow to reform themselves, Modi said in a video message at the beginning of a two-day meeting of G20 finance ministers and central bank governors. Food and energy security have become major concerns across the world. Even the financial viability of many countries is threatened by unsustainable debt levels, Modi said. The meeting at a hill resort on the outskirts of the tech hub of Bengaluru is the first major event of India s G20 presidency and coincided with the first anniversary of Russia s invasion of Ukraine, which Modi alluded to. We are also witnessing rising geo-political tensions in different parts of the world. There are disruptions in global s
By Poppy McPherson and Panu Wongcha-um BANGKOK (Reuters) -U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris called an emergency gathering of several allies on the sidelines of an Asia-Pacific economic summit, emerging with leaders of five other nations to condemn North Korea after it test-fired an intercontinental ballistic missile. Harris met with leaders from Australia, Japan, South Korea, Canada and New Zealand on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting after North Korea carried out the missile test, just hours before the summit opened in the Thai capital. This conduct by North Korea most recently is a brazen violation of multiple U.N. Security Council resolutions, she said. It destabilises security in the region, and unnecessarily raises tensions. The weapon tested on Friday was a longer range missile.that can hit many, many countries , a senior U.S. administration official said later in the day. The United States is also in regular contact with China on the North Korean mis