ACT OVER PUTIN, US AND UK URGE CHINA

RUSSIA WILL LISTEN TO XI, DECLARES CLEVERLY. ZELENSKY SAYS: WE ARE READY FOR PEACE

- Nicholas Cecil Political Editor

JOE BIDEN met Xi Jinping today as the United States and Britain urged Beijing to pile pressure on Vladimir Putin to end his war in Ukraine.

The US president and Chinese leader held talks on the sidelines of the G20 gathering in Bali, Indonesia. Amid tensions between the two superpowers, they smiled as they shook hands at a hotel in Nusa Dua bay.

But the focus of their talks was thousands of miles away from the idyllic holiday resort as Mr Putin’s bloody war in Ukraine was claiming ever more lives.

Mr Biden was believed to have raised China’s relationship with the Russian president, whose war in Ukraine is estimated to have left around 200,000 soldiers dead or wounded and to have killed around 40,000 civilians.

Ahead of the talks, Foreign Secretary James Cleverly told LBC Radio: “We know President Putin will listen to what the Chinese say. China has a huge influence on the world stage.”

On the front line, Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky visited the southern city of Kherson today, which has been recaptured after the Russian army retreated across the Dnipro river. “We are ready for peace — peace for all our country,” he told troops, although it was not clear whether this signalled any progress towards a deal to end the conflict. He also accused Mr Putin’s troops of having committed “atrocities” in Kherson, the only provincial capital that Russia has seized in the nine-month war. There were reports that US and Russian officials were holding secret talks in Turkey.