Sunak calls on G20 to bar Putin from meetings until Russia halts war in Ukraine

Warns leaders can’t sit around a table with someone responsible for killing children ‘in their beds’

Rishi Sunak has called on the G20 to bar Vladimir Putin from meetings until Russia halts its war in Ukraine.

The Russian leader will attend the organisation’s summit in Bali this November, a longtime adviser to the Indonesian president has said.The event could pose a headache for the next prime minister. Both Mr Sunak and Liz Truss have talked about taking a tough line with Putin during the Tory leadership contest.

A spokesman for Mr Sunak said: “Our G20 partners and allies have a collective responsibility to call Putin’s abhorrent behaviour out. Sitting round a table with him isn’t good enough when he is responsible for children being killed in their beds as they sleep.

"We need to send a strong message to Putin that he doesn’t have a seat at the table unless and until he stops his illegal war in Ukraine."

Andi Widjajanto, former cabinet secretary and unofficial adviser to President Joko Widodo, known as Jokowi, told Reuters the leaders of Russia and China would join the summit.

“Jokowi told me that Xi and Putin are both planning to attend in Bali,” Widjajanto, who heads the National Resilience Institute, said.

On Thursday, Jokowi also told Bloomberg News that both leaders had given him their assurances.

The campaign team for Liz Truss, the foreign secretary and Mr Sunak’s rival, pointed to what she told a recent hustings event. She said: “I was prepared to face down Sergey Lavrov, I’m prepared to say to Putin directly and call him out in front of those very important swing countries like India and Indonesia. So I would go there, and I would call Putin out.”

Indonesia has also invited Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky to attend the Bali summit.

Jokowi has attempted to position himself as mediator between the two countries.

This week, he said both had accepted Indonesia as a “bridge of peace”.

Sources also said the Chinese leader Xi Jinping would attend.

The trip would be his first time outside China since January 2020, before the pandemic, when he visited Myanmar.

China currently maintains a zero-Covid policy that has radically clamped down on international travel.

Xi made his only trip outside of mainland China on June 30, when he visited Hong Kong to mark the 25th anniversary of the handover of the territory from Britain.