G20 chairman Widodo to push for peace in visits to Ukraine, Russia

JAKARTA/KYIV/MOSCOW－Indonesian President and G20 chairman Joko Widodo will meet his counterparts in Ukraine and Russia next week and press for a peaceful resolution to the conflict, in the first such trip by an Asian leader, his foreign minister said on Wednesday.

The Ukraine crisis has overshadowed meetings of the G20 major economies this year, with Indonesia struggling to unify the grouping's members while resisting pressure from Western states threatening to boycott a November leaders' summit and pushing for Russia's exclusion.

Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi said the visits by Jokowi, as the Indonesian president is known, to both Kyiv and Moscow would be conducted in a "not normal" situation.

"The president is showing compassion on the humanitarian crisis, will try to contribute to a solution to the food crisis caused by the conflict, and the impact felt on all countries, especially the developing and low-income ones," she told a news conference. "And he'll keep pushing for the spirit of peace."

The monthslong fighting began when Russia sent troops into Ukraine on Feb 24 in its special military operation aimed at "demilitarizing and denazifying" Kyiv.

It has caused major disruption to supply chains, stoking a food and energy crisis that has seen inflation soar in many countries, some of which have imposed export curbs to ensure domestic supplies.

Day of commemoration

Meanwhile, Ukrainian and Russian forces were entrenched in eastern Ukrainian battlegrounds on Wednesday, a day of commemoration in both countries to mark the anniversary of Hitler's invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941.

Fighting in the conflict has favored Russia in recent weeks because of its huge edge in artillery firepower, a fact Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky acknowledged in an address late on Tuesday.

In a symbolic decision, Ukraine is set to become an official candidate for European Union membership on Thursday, EU diplomats said.

June 22 is a significant date in Russia－the "Day of Remembrance and Sorrow"－marking when Hitler's Nazi forces invaded the Soviet Union in World War II. It is also commemorated in Ukraine and neighboring Belarus, then part of the Soviet Union. The war there lasted 1,418 days from June 22,1941, and historians estimate about 27 million Soviet soldiers and civilians were killed.

Russian President Vladimir Putin laid flowers to honor the dead on Wednesday.

In retaliation for Western sanctions, Russia has begun pumping lower volumes of gas to Europe via Ukraine.

EU states have outlined measures to cope with a supply crisis after the conflict put energy at the heart of an economic battle between Russia and the West.

The Kremlin said on Wednesday that the EU sanctions that led Lithuania to block the transit of some goods from mainland Russia to the exclave of Kaliningrad were "absolutely unacceptable", and that Moscow was working on retaliatory measures.

Kaliningrad is connected to the rest of Russia by a rail link through Lithuania, a member of the EU and NATO.

Agencies Via Xinhua