G20 meeting sees sparring between Russia and the West

US and European allies confronted Russia at today’s meeting of the G20 Foreign Ministers in New Delhi. They urged the Group of 20 nations to maintain pressure on Russia to end the Ukraine war they said had destabilized the globe.

In turn, Russia accused the West of turning the work on the G20 agenda into a “farce” and said Western delegations were seeking to blame their economic situations on Moscow.

Foreign ministers of the G20 nations came together for the day-long meeting where the war in Ukraine was in the spotlight. Russia maintains its actions are a special military operation to eliminate security threats.

“Unfortunately, one G20 member prevents all the other 19 from focusing all their efforts on these issues the G20 was created for,” German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock told the meeting, addressing Russia’s Sergei Lavrov, according to the German delegation.

“I ask you, Mr Lavrov, to return to full implementation of New START (nuclear arms treaty) and to resume dialogue with the U.S. Because, as China rightly pointed out in its 12-points-plan, the threat of nuclear weapons should be opposed,” she added.

“A number of Western delegations turned the work on the G20 agenda into a farce, wanting to shift the responsibility for their failures in the economy to the Russian Federation,” Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov said, according to a Russian statement.

French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna said the war in Ukraine had hurt “almost every country on the planet, in terms of food, energy, inflation”.

India, which holds the presidency of the bloc this year, has declined to blame Russia for the war and has sought a diplomatic solution while sharply boosting its purchases of Russian oil.

The Group of Twenty (G20) comprises 19 countries (Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Republic of Korea, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Türkiye, United Kingdom and United States) and the European Union. The G20 members represent around 85% of the global GDP, over 75% of the global trade, and about two-thirds of the world population.

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