Rishi Sunak today blasted Vladimir Putin's "utter contempt" for international law as tensions mounted at the G20 summit over a missile that fell in Poland, killing two.
The UK Prime Minister said it was a “worrying time” and attacked Russia ’s “grandstanding and hollow excuse-making” on the world stage over the war in Ukraine.
He did not apportion blame for the missile that landed in Poland, but claimed “none of this would be happening if it weren’t for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine".
He added "this is the cruel and unrelenting reality of Putin’s war", and said: "As last night’s events laid bare the challenges we face are utterly political".
As inflation hit 11.1% in the UK, after Liz Truss sent markets into turmoil with her mini-Budget, he claimed the “global economic asphyxiation has been driven by the actions of the one man unwilling to be at this summit, Vladimir Putin”.
“There is not a single person in the world who hasn't felt the impact of Putin’s war… the economic aftershocks of Putin and his casual disregard for human life will ripple around the world for years to come,” he added.
Earlier Mr Sunak met US President Joe Biden at the G20 summit hours after Poland said a Russian-made missile fell in Poland near the Ukrainian border, killing two people.
They also joined an emergency roundtable of likeminded leaders, called by President Biden, to discuss what happened.
The roundtable included French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Japan's premier Fumio Kishida and Canada's Justin Trudeau.
If there was a deliberate, hostile attack on Poland it could trigger a military response by NATO - which includes the UK.
But key questions remain around the circumstances of the missile launch. Poland said it was Russian-made but not who fired it, amid suggestions it could be a defensive missile fired by Ukrainian forces.
US President Biden earlier said it was “unlikely” the missile that killed two people in Poland was fired from Russia.
Rishi Sunak also told world leaders in Bali: “It is important that we remain calm and focus on establishing the facts.”
But he said Vladimir Putin had shown himself to be a pariah on the world stage with the war in Ukraine, regardless of what happened in Poland.
The Prime Minister, who was attending a G20 summit in Bali, was woken up at 5am to be told the news.
He held a call with Foreign Secretary James Cleverly and Defence Secretary Ben Wallace, before speaking to Polish president Andrzej Duda.
Mr Sunak said: “I think the right thing now is for everyone to just calmly ascertain exactly what happened, gather the facts.
“Until we have a definitive answer, it is right everyone just remains calm.
“But I think what we do know as a fact, is that over the course of [Tuesday], Russia rained down something like over 80 different missile strikes on the Ukrainian people on their civilian infrastructure. “That is a fact. It's barbaric, and it's wrong. And we shouldn't forget that.”
In a G20 session, the PM told world leaders that the series of missile attacks by Russia “deserves to be condemned by us all”.
In a call with Volodymyr Zelensky, Mr Sunak “underscored [Britain’s] enduring support for Ukraine’s resistance”.
