Situation ‘critical’: Ukraine clings to Bakhmut as Russians advance
NBCDec 23, 2022
The Facts
Repeating the outcome of last year's summit in Indonesia, a meeting of G-20 foreign ministers ended on Thursday without consensus on the war in Ukraine. Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, the foreign minister of India — this year's host — said there would be no joint statement because of "divergences" on the issue "which we could not reconcile as various parties held differing views."
America's Antony Blinken and Russia's Sergey Lavrov both exchanged blame with each other over the lack of agreement but they still held a 10-minute discussion on the summit's sidelines — their first face-to-face interaction since the beginning of the war.
The Spin
Pro-establishment narrative
The US and its allies must continue to call on Russia to end its war of aggression and withdraw from Ukraine for the sake of international peace and economic stability. Unfortunately, Russia marred the G-20 meetings with its failure to accept responsibility for its illegal invasion.
Pro-Russia narrative
The US launched multiple wars in faraway places — including Iraq, Syria, and Libya — to protect its supposed national security interests. When Russia does the same on its territorial border, after 10 years of warning that this would end badly, America pretends to care about international sovereignty. This is blatant hypocrisy.