RIO DE JANEIRO \u2014\u00a0With just two months remaining in President Joe Biden\u2019s administration, the United States is ramping up financial, military and diplomatic support for Kyiv\u2019s effort to defend itself against Russian aggression. At the G20 summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, where Biden and leaders of 20 of the world\u2019s largest economies are meeting, U.S. officials are pushing for the \u201cstrongest possible\u201d language on Ukraine, deputy national security adviser Jon Finer told VOA during a briefing Monday. Western diplomats have renewed their push for stronger criticism on Moscow following Russia\u2019s weekend airstrike, its largest on Ukrainian territory in months. They\u2019ve also warned that increased Russian war efforts could have a destabilizing effect beyond Europe. Earlier this month, the U.S. and Ukraine announced that North Korea has sent more than 10,000 troops to help Moscow reclaim territory seized by Ukraine in Russia\u2019s Kursk region. However, the final leaders’ statement did not include the language the U.S. pushed for. It highlights human suffering and the negative impacts of the war in Ukraine to the global economy without any condemnation to Russia. On Gaza, it called for cease-fire in Gaza and in Lebanon and commitment to the two-state solution, without mentioning Israel\u2019s right to defend itself. Finer acknowledges that finding a consensus on global conflicts is elusive given the diversity of the G20. In addition to mostly like-minded countries of the G7, the G20 also includes Russia, China and nations of the Global South. Ever since the G20 summit in Bali in 2022 \u2014 held months after Moscow\u2019s invasion of Ukraine \u2014 the global grouping has faced challenges hammering out a response to the conflict. Long-range missiles authorized The U.S. has been surging its military assistance to Kyiv. It is also authorizing Ukraine to use American-supplied long-range missiles to strike inside Russia, according to media reports quoting officials who spoke on condition of anonymity. Finer declined to confirm but said it is \u201cconsistent\u201d with the U.S. approach of tailoring its response to meet developments on the ground to \u201callow the Ukrainians to continue to defend their territory and their sovereignty.\u201d On Monday, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said that if true, authorization for Kyiv to strike inside Russia with U.S. long-range missiles, \u201cwill mark a qualitatively new round of tensions and level of Washington’s involvement in the Ukraine conflict.\u201d Last week in Brussels, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken sought to reassure European allies that Biden is \u201ccommitted to making sure that every dollar we have at our disposal will be pushed out the door between now and January 20,\u201d the date of President-elect Donald Trump\u2019s inauguration. Trump has been critical of using American taxpayer\u2019s money to help Kyiv. Without providing details, Trump often boasts he can swiftly end the war \u2014 a statement that many in Europe fear would mean forcing Ukraine to capitulate. Earlier this month, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he wants a \u201cjust end\u201d to the war, and that a swift end \u201cmeans losses.\u201d On Saturday, he told Ukrainian public radio that under the Trump administration, \u201cthe war will end faster.\u201d \u201cThis is their approach, the promise to their country,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd for them, it is also very important.\u201d At the State Department, spokesperson Matthew Miller told VOA during Monday\u2019s briefing that the U.S. seeks an end to the war in Ukraine that upholds the country’s territorial integrity and sovereignty, while ensuring it does not \u201creward a dictator\u201d intent on seizing land by force. The sentiment is shared by many European leaders, but they may ultimately be forced to accept a new political reality. \u201cNo government in Europe is going to officially endorse a land-for-peace deal at this point. It\u2019s diplomatically and legally impossible to do that,\u201d said Edward Hunter Christie, a former NATO official and now senior research fellow at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs. Behind the scenes, however, some European leaders believe Ukraine\u2019s chances are not strong enough, Christie told VOA, especially if the U.S. under Trump does not continue its assistance to Ukraine. The U.S. is racing to disburse $20 billion as part of a Biden-driven G7 initiative agreed in June to provide Kyiv with $50 billion in loans. The funds are to be paid back using interest income from Russian assets frozen in Western financial institutions. A senior administration official briefing reporters in Rio told VOA they are \u201cworking full speed\u201d to get the loan disbursed before the end of the year. Climate change, poverty alleviation G20 host Brazil has worked to keep the focus of talks away from global conflicts and more on addressing divisions in the ongoing U.N. conference on climate change in Azerbaijan, as well as accelerating efforts to reduce global hunger and poverty \u2014 an initiative championed by summit host President Luiz In\u00e1cio Lula da Silva. Lula\u2019s approach to resist pressures from the G7 and the rest of the G20 on Ukraine and Gaza reflects Brazil\u2019s strategy of \u201cmulti-alignment\u201d in an increasingly fragmented global landscape, said Bruna Santos, director at the Wilson Center\u2019s Brazil Institute. However, \u201cneutrality risks alienating all sides in an increasingly polarized world,\u201d Santos told VOA. Negotiators in Rio have also been struggling to find consensus on shared language on climate financing, said diplomatic sources who spoke to VOA on condition of anonymity to discuss ongoing negotiations. Western nations have been pushing for China and wealthy Middle Eastern countries to join them in contributing to global funds for climate change mitigation \u2014 a proposal resisted by Brazil and other member countries of the Global South. Another Lula proposal, a 2% tax on the super-rich that Brazil says can potentially generate up to $250 billion per year to help the world\u2019s poor, has also met new resistance. Argentinian right-wing President Javier Milei rejected the proposal after visiting Trump at his Florida residence, the first foreign leader to visit the president-elect. Milei\u2019s rejection is an example of how as president-elect, Trump has already affected dynamics among world leaders and upended Biden\u2019s international priorities. The senior administration told VOA that the U.S. was \u201creally supportive\u201d of Lula\u2019s proposal, which was \u201cvery much in line\u201d with the fiscal policy Biden has pushed in his term. In the G20 joint statement released Tuesday, leaders agreed to work to \u201censure that ultra-high-net-worth individuals are effectively taxed.\u201d State Department bureau chief Nike Ching contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
RIO DE JANEIRO \u2014\u00a0With just two months remaining in President Joe Biden\u2019s administration, the United States is ramping up financial, military and diplomatic support for Kyiv\u2019s effort to defend itself against Russian aggression. At the G20 summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, where Biden and leaders of 20 of the world\u2019s largest economies are meeting, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":495,"featured_media":25480,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[141],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25547","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-america"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jobbinghood.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25547","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jobbinghood.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jobbinghood.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jobbinghood.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/495"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jobbinghood.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25547"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jobbinghood.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25547\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jobbinghood.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25480"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jobbinghood.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25547"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jobbinghood.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25547"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jobbinghood.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25547"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}