Russia’s Ukraine stand change raises G20 document hopes

NEW DELHI: The government is seeing some gains after Russia reset its stance on mentioning the conflict in Ukraine in the President’s summary at 2 o’clock. G20 Ministerial meetings, but carefully watching the outcome of subsequent talks in the lead-up to the leader’s summit in about 50 days.

So far and more recently at the G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors meeting in Gandhinagar this month, the “outcome document And the Chair’s summary “acknowledged that Russia” dissociates itself from the status of this document as a joint outcome “because of the reference to war in three paragraphs.

At the meeting of Labor Ministers in Indore and Energy Ministers in Goa, the wording underwent a change as it was noted that Russia “recognizes the status of the document as the President’s Summary” with the inclusion of a paragraph (relating to the Ukraine conflict), while agreeing with the rest. Russian acquiescence to mention Ukraine conflict The footnote was significant, though, as she “expressed her distinct view on the situation in Ukraine, geopolitical tensions and sanctions during the meeting.”

And at the meeting of energy ministers in Goa, which concluded on Saturday, the same text was repeated, although Russia also expressed concern about some contents related to climate change and ways to deal with it.
Significantly, while Russia has come to agree with the reference to the war on Ukraine, China has stuck to its position that the G-20 is not the “right platform” for addressing security issues and has opposed the inclusion of geopolitical content.
While government officials still see documenting consensus as a daunting task, given the widely divergent views among some of the powerful members of the G-20 economies, they see even modest success toward collective consensus as important. In any case, they intend to continue to focus on development issues, which need attention at a time when the global economy is grappling with high inflation rates and slowing growth.

To increase the degree of convergence on geostrategic issues (read mutually acceptable statements about how to discuss the Ukraine issue and the breach of international law that it represents), the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the G20 Secretariat are in talks with other countries to find the best way forward.
“There is some movement and a lot of bilateral meetings are taking place, in light of the joint draft with Sherpa at the last meeting in Hampi. There were some amendments to the draft of the leader’s summit,” said an official.