‘Rewarded': Albo's call on Trump-Putin meet
While both leaders hailed the talks as 'productive' and 'constructive', they emerged from their 'Pursuing Peace' summit in Alaska with little but pledges to keep talking.
Though, in a big win for Mr Putin, he got a red-carpet welcome and photographed handshakes with the US President while the war in Ukraine raged on.
The Prime Minister on Sunday said it was a 'good thing' that parties were talking.
'It is a good thing that President Trump is an advocate for peace,' Mr Albanese told reporters in Perth.
'What we want to see is that the sovereignty of Ukraine be protected and that the illegal and immoral invasion conducted by Mr Putin and Russia are not very rewarded.'
He added that standing up for international rule of law was important, too.
'It's also important because of the precedent that Russia's invasion sets of a powerful nation invading a much smaller nation and engaging in the brutality, which we have seen at great cost to the Ukrainian people, but also at a great cost to Russian soldiers who've lost their lives as well,' Mr Albanese said. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese says he does not want to see Vladimir Putin 'rewarded'. Philip Gostelow / NewsWire Credit: NewsWire
Ukrainian Ambassador Vasyl Myroshnychenko also warned not taking a firm line with Mr Putin would embolden him.
'Russia invaded Ukraine in 2014 – they grabbed Crimea, they invaded eastern parts of Ukraine and started the war,' Mr Myroshnychenko told Sky News.
'They got inspired and emboldened by the weak reaction to what they had done and invaded Ukraine again eight years later, with a goal of subjugating the entire nation, occupying Kyiv and the entire territory of Ukraine.'
He said his country 'wants to achieve peace more than anybody else because Ukrainians get killed, our country is getting destroyed'.
Mr Myroshnychenko also said Australia has 'skin in the game because this is going to shape the security and stability of the Indo-Pacific'.
'Because if Russia can end up even technically controlling 20 per cent of Ukrainian territory, it will be a blueprint for any other authoritarian leader here in the region to follow the same path and just do the same thing,' he said, in a nod to China.
Mr Trump met Mr Putin without Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, raising eyebrows in Kyiv and across Europe.
Mr Zelenskyy will meet with Mr Trump in Washington on Monday.
Ahead of their meeting, the Ukrainian leader said that 'Russia rebuffs numerous calls for a ceasefire and has not yet determined when it will stop the killing'.
'This complicates the situation,' he said.
'If they lack the will to carry out a simple order to stop the strikes, it may take a lot of effort to get Russia to have the will to implement far greater – peaceful coexistence with its neighbors for decades.
'But together we are working for peace and security.
'Stopping the killing is a key element of stopping the war.'
Ukraine has lost nearly 400,000 troops since Russia invaded in February, 2022, according to research from the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
The think tank put the death toll at just under 1 million for Russia.
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