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Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand says she’ll make a point of pushing her G7 colleagues to take further, concerted action against Russia following this week’s horrific strike on an aid distribution site in Ukraine.
Anand will be meeting with her counterparts this weekend in Paris and said Friday that the issue of Moscow’s unrelenting campaign targeting civilians should also be a topic of conversation at the G20 later this year near Miami.
The death toll from Russia’s bombing earlier this week of an aid distribution point in Ukraine’s southeastern Zaporizhzhia region rose on Friday to 53, making it one of the deadliest strikes on civilians this year.
Russian attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure caused renewed power outages in seven Ukrainian regions, the country’s deputy energy minister said.
Anand said the strikes, which came as U.S. First Lady Melania Trump tried to further mediation efforts, “necessitates collective action over and above what we are putting on the table” in terms of sanctions and economic and military support.
“I will be raising the need for collective effort with my G7 counterparts,” Anand said following a meeting in Ottawa with her Austrian counterpart.
U.S. President Donald Trump has invited Russian President Vladimir Putin to the mid-December gathering of G20 world leaders at his Doral, Fla., golf club. Putin has not yet decided whether he will accept the invitation.
Anand said the world community shouldn’t waste the opportunity to confront Russia.
Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand met with Austrian Foreign Affairs Minister Beate Meinl-Reisinger on Friday in Ottawa. (Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press)
“At the G20 in December, this issue must be raised amongst countries at the table, especially given that Russia will be represented there and it will be an opportunity to speak directly to them,” Anand said.
At a recent meeting of G20 foreign ministers in Atlanta, in preparation for the upcoming summit, Anand confronted Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.
She said she sat directly across the table from Lavrov, looked him straight in the eye and condemned Russia’s “horrific crimes” and full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Anand and some European ministers refused to participate in the routine “family photo” because she didn’t want to be pictured alongside Lavrov.
Austrian Foreign Minister Beate Meinl-Reisinger said she is particularly worried about the recent strikes in Zaporizhzhia because the region hosts Ukraine’s largest nuclear power complex, which has been under Russia occupation since the early days of the full-scale invasion.
She said she’s in favour of further tightening international pressure on the Kremlin.
“There’s one person only to decide to stop the war and it would stop immediately. This is Vladimir Putin,” Meinl-Reisinger said.
“He is not able to win this war militarily. So we have to continue to put pressure that he is ready to negotiate for real this time.”
