VOI - Voice of Indonesia | RRI - Radio Republik Indonesia

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov was on the Indonesian island of Bali on Thursday preparing for a G20 gathering that will be his first face-to-face meeting with the fiercest critics of his country's invasion of Ukraine.

The G20 foreign ministers' meeting runs until Friday in host country Indonesia, which has this year grappled with the tough balancing act of running a global summit buffeted by geopolitical pressures and a global food crisis blamed on the Ukraine war.

There was tight security on Thursday as foreign diplomats descended on the tropical island for a meeting where the Russia-Ukraine conflict will be front and centre.

Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong said her country and like-minded nations would use the G20 meeting to highlight the impact of the war.

"We will be making very clear collectively our views about Russia's position and Russia's behaviour," she said.

Thursday's welcome dinner will be the first time President Vladimir Putin's long-serving foreign minister Lavrov will be up close with the most vocal opponents of the Ukraine invasion, which Moscow has called a "special military operation".

Lavrov planned to meet some G20 counterparts on the sidelines of the summit, Russian news agency TASS reported, but ministers including Germany's Annalena Baerbock and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken have ruled out separate meetings with Lavrov.

The Group of 20 includes Western countries that have accused Moscow of war crimes in Ukraine and imposed sanctions, but also countries like China, Indonesia, India and South Africa that have been more muted in their response.

Some U.S. and European officials have stressed the gathering would not be "business as a usual", with a spokesperson for the German foreign minister saying G7 countries would coordinate their response to Lavrov.

In 2014, the G7 excluded Russia from the G8 over its annexation of Crimea.

Top officials from Britain, Canada and the United States walked out on Russian representatives during a G20 finance meeting in Washington in April.

Despite early talk of boycotting subsequent G20 meetings, some analysts say Western nations may have decided it would be counterproductive to cede the floor to Russia.

A senior U.S. State Department official said on Thursday it was important to maintain a focus on what Indonesia had set out for its G20 presidency and "not let there be any disruptions or interruptions to that."

Discussion of energy and food security are on the agenda in the two-day meeting, with Russia accused of stoking a global food crisis and worsening inflation by blockading shipments of Ukrainian grain. Russia has said it ready to facilitate unhindered exports of grain.

Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi discussed with her Chinese counterpart Wang Yi the need to protect regional stability and solve global issues related to the Russia-Ukraine conflict.

"The solidity of the voices of developing nations are needed to stop the war, and to reintegrate food exports of Ukraine and Russia into the global supply chain," Indonesia's foreign ministry said in a statement.

Trying to leverage Indonesia's neutrality, President Joko Widodo undertook an ambitious peace-brokering mission last week, visiting Kyiv and Moscow to meet his Ukrainian and Russian counterparts. (Reuters)

This week's G20 meeting in Bali cannot be business as usual but the United States is determined to ensure nothing happens there that can give legitimacy to Russia's "brutalising" of Ukraine, a senior U.S. State Department official said on Thursday.

The gathering of G20 foreign ministers, which formally starts on Thursday andruns until Friday, would be a good opportunity to advance efforts to tackle the global food security crisis, the official said, adding it was crucial to ensure the meeting was effective and free from interference.

"The most important thing is that we maintain the focus on the G20 event," the official, who is accompanying U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, said during a brief stop in Tokyo while en route to Indonesia.

"We're very determined to do that and not let there be any disruptions or interruptions to that," the official said.

"But I think we also want to make sure that there's nothing that in any way, shape or form lends any conceivable legitimacy to what Russia is doing in brutalising Ukraine." 

The remarks suggest a walkout will be less likely at a meeting where Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov will come face-to-face for the first time this year with some of the fiercest critics of Moscow's invasion.

Russia calls its actions in Ukraine a "special military operation".

Blinken will hold a trilateral meeting with his Japanese and South Korean counterparts in Bali, the official said, while his meeting with China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi will focus on properly handling the U.S.-China relationship.

"This is part of an ongoing and I think important series of conversations with our Chinese counterparts across the government to make sure that we are responsibly managing the relationship," the official said.

"As two leading powers, whatever our differences, there are also areas where, for example, climate, global health, counter-narcotics, things of that nature, where it makes sense for us to cooperate." (Reuters)

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un convened an unprecedented conference aimed at strengthening the ruling Workers' Party of Korea's (WPK) "monolithic" leadership across society, state media reported on Thursday.

The conference was the first of its kind and involved "realizing the organizational and ideological consolidation of the Party ranks in every way" and enhancing the party's leadership role, state news agency KCNA said.

The event focused on the "Party Life Guidance" (PLG) sections, which are powerful organisations that monitor and police loyalty of officials and members across the country.

According to a 2019 report by the U.S.-based Committee for Human Rights in North Korea (HRNK), party life guidance is "arguably the most critical function" of the WPK, which is the founding and ruling party of North Korea.

As part of the powerful Organization and Guidance Department, PLG monitors trends and patterns in individual behaviour, particularly those that may harm the interests of the supreme leader, the HRNK report said.

Its techniques include regular self-criticism sessions, where participants are required to confess their wrongdoings and face accusations from other members. It is also responsible for passing on guidance from senior leaders and plays a role in selecting which candidates are allowed to run in elections.

In remarks to the conference, Kim called party life guidance a "blood vessel and nerve gland" that firmly link party organisations with the central committee, and the main axis of implementing ideas and policies of the party, KCNA reported.

Kim has increasingly held events aimed at strengthening control in the country, which he has ruled since 2011. Experts said anti-pandemic efforts have further helped his authoritarian government impose new controls on the economy, travel, media and other elements of society.

According to human rights investigators, North Korea has conducted extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances, torture, arbitrary arrests, sexual violence and forced labour. The government has denied mistreating its citizens.

North Korea is grappling with multiple crises, including its first acknowledged COVID-19 outbreak, the economic effects of international sanctions and erratic weather events such as high temperatures and floods.

It said it has the COVID-19 situation under control, though a lack of data has led international experts to doubt the claims. (Reuters)

Russia's defence ministry said a Russian warplane struck and killed an unspecified number of Ukrainian troops on Snake Island in the Black Sea on Thursday after they landed there to raise the Ukrainian flag.

"At about 5 a.m., several Ukrainian servicemen landed on the island from a motor boat and took pictures with the flag. An aircraft of the Russian Aerospace Forces immediately launched a strike with high-precision missiles on Snake Island, as a result of which part of the Ukrainian military personnel was destroyed," Russian defence ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said.

Andriy Yermak, the Ukrainian President's chief of staff, earlier posted a video on Telegram of three soldiers raising a large Ukrainian flag on the island, from which Russian forces withdrew on June 30 after coming under heavy bombardment from Ukrainian artillery.

The tiny island, captured by Russia from Ukraine at the start of the war in February, is strategically important because of its proximity to sea lanes close to Ukraine's port of Odesa.

Russia said it had pulled out from Snake Island last week as a "gesture of goodwill" to show it was not obstructing United Nations attempts to open a humanitarian corridor allowing grain to be shipped from Ukraine.

Ukraine said it had driven the Russian forces out after an artillery and missile assault. (Reuters)