The war in Ukraine unleashes a fierce diplomatic battle between Russia and the West at the G20 summit

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Friday he was absent from several interventionss of his G20 colleagues in Indonesia, after numerous Western statements condemning the invasion of Ukraine by Russian troops.

The participants expressed “theirs deep concern for the humanitarian consequences of the war “ in Ukraine, said the Indonesian minister, Retno Marsudi, at the end of the meeting of this forum of industrialized and emerging powers, on the island of Bali.

But the G20 did not unanimously condemn the Russian invasion and only “some of its members” did, he added.

However, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken assured reporters that “what we hear today is a great chorus from around the world, not just the United States, about the need to end the aggression.”

Absence

Lavrov, who first met Blinken since the start of the Russian military operation in late February, was absent from his speech.

Neither was he present when the Ukrainian Foreign Minister, Dmytro Kuleba, spoke by videoconference, nor when the German minister, Annalena Baerbock, who according to diplomatic sources said that Lavrov “is not interested in international cooperation or dialogue with his other partners “.

French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna told AFP that “Russia was so isolated that Lavrov left the conference in the middle of the day after speaking” before the forum.

Russia, on the other hand, felt that Western countries “failed” in an attempt to isolate it..

“Nobody supported the Western regimes,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova wrote on Telegram.

The spokesperson also described Baerbock’s statements as “totally absurd” and said that “German citizens must know that their foreign minister is lying to them”.

In his speech, Blinken denounced Moscow’s responsibility in the global food and energy crisis and asked Russia to authorize the export of grain from Ukraine.

Lavrov, in turn, said Western countries use the G20 to criticize Russia instead of addressing major global issues.

more bombings

In Ukraine, Western criticism has not prevented the Russian army from continuing to bomb the Donetsk region with the aim of seizing the entire Donbas (east) basin, its strategic objective since it withdrew from the Kyiv suburb in the end. March.

Blinken had discussed this “unjustifiable and unprovoked” war with his colleagues in France and Germany and with a British representative prior to the plenary meeting, the State Department said in a statement.

The United States, supported by some of its allies, he called for the exclusion of Russia from international forums.

The meeting in Bali was marked by the announcement of the attack that killed former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe during an election in his country.

Appointment in November

The Bali meeting is the prelude to the leaders’ summit to be held in November on the Indonesian island, scheduled to discuss global recovery from the covid-19 pandemic.

But attention has turned to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which shook world markets, skyrocketed food prices and sparked Russian war crimes allegations.

The appointment comes at a time when US President Joe Biden said he hoped to speak in the coming weeks with his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, with whom he last spoke in March.

Source: AFP

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