Russia under pressure to end Ukraine war
On Tuesday, G20 allies and critics alike rued the painful global impact of nearly nine months of conflict
Nusa Dua, Indonesia - Russia faced mounting diplomatic pres
sure on Tuesday to end its war in Ukraine, as G20 allies and critics
alike rued the painful global impact of nearly nine months of conflict.
A draft communique obtained by AFP showed the world’s 20
leading economies coming together to condemn the war’s effects, but still divided on apportioning blame.
The summit has shown that even Russia’s allies have limited patience with a conflict that has inflated food and energy prices
worldwide and raised the spectre of nuclear war.
Risking diplomatic isolation, Russia was forced to agree that the ‘ war in Ukraine’ - which Moscow refuses to call a war - has ‘adversely impacted the global economy’.
It also agreed that ‘the use or threat of use of nuclear weapons’ is ‘inadmissible’, after months of
President Vladimir Putin making such threats.
The embattled Russian leader has skipped the summit, staying at home to reckon with a string of embarrassing battlefield defeats and a grinding campaign that threatens the future of his regime.
Rubbing salt in Russia’s wounds, Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky - fresh from
a visit to liberated Kherson - delivered an impassioned video appeal to G20 leaders.
Zelensky told leaders from China’s Xi Jinping to America’s Joe Biden that they could ‘save thousands of lives’ by pressing for a Russian withdrawal.
“I am convinced now is the time when the Russian destruc
tive war must and can be stopped,” he said, sporting his now-trademark army-green Tshirt.
Putin’s delegate, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, whose sum
mit preparation was disrupted by
two hospital health checks for an undiagnosed ailment, remained in the room throughout Zelen
sky’s address, diplomatic
sources said.
His most notable diplomatic victory was an acknowledgement in the communique that while ‘most members’ of the
G20 condemned Putin’s invasion, ‘there were other views and different assessments’.
“All problems are with the Ukrainian side, which is categorically refusing negotiations and
putting forward conditions that are obviously unrealistic,” Lavrov told reporters.
Leaders must now sign off on the final text before the summit
ends on Wednesday.
‘Immense’ suffering
The United States and its allies used the summit to broaden the coalition against Russia’s invasion and scotch Moscow’s claims of a war of East versus West.
Many ‘ see Russia’s war in Ukraine as the root source of immense economic and humanitarian suffering in the world’, said a senior US official.
Russia’s G20 allies China, India and South Africa refrain from publicly criticising Putin’s war, and the draft joint statement is replete with diplomatic fudges and linguistic gymnastics.
But it gives a growing sense of the worldwide impact of the war.
G20 members Argentina and Turkey are among the na
tions worst hit by food inflation worldwide, but there was scarcely a country around the table unaffected.
“The war is affecting everyone,” said Argentine Foreign Minister Santiago Cafiero.
“In the northern hemisphere the merchants of death broker lethal arms sales, but in the southern hemisphere food is costly or scarce - what kills are not bullets or missiles, but poverty and hunger.”
There was also a hint at growing Chinese unease with Russia’s prosecution of the war when presidents Xi and Biden met late on Monday.
“It’s clear that the Russians are very isolated,” said one Western official. “I think some countries engaged with Russia but... I did not see any gestures of
great solidarity.”