‘G20 not for security issues’: Russian G20 Sherpa’s message to stay off Ukraine

The G20 should focus on its mandate of global economic growth instead of taking up geopolitics and security issues, Russia’s G20 Sherpa Svetlana Lukash said on Friday in the context of the Ukraine crisis that has dominated key meetings of the group of the world’s largest economies.

Lukash, who is participating in the second meeting of G20 sherpas hosted by India in the backwaters of Kerala, said any shift from the grouping’s responsibilities as the premier forum for global economic cooperation will mean that it will “not be able to reach consensus” and issue joint communique.

Russia and India have similar priorities at the G20, including green development, restoring and increasing economic growth and trade, and digitalisation, she contended during an interaction with reporters. Lukash also said Russian President Vladimir Putin is expected to attend both the G20 and Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summits in India though a final decision is yet to be made in this regard.

“As you remember, at the Bali summit, our leaders committed that G20 is not the proper forum to discuss security issues…So, unless our G7 colleagues discuss the issues that are the mandate of the G20, we will not be able to do our job as the premier forum for international economic cooperation and not be able to reach a consensus and [issue joint] communique instead of chair’s statements,” Lukash said.

She was referring to a paragraph in the joint statement issued at the summit in Indonesia last year that said the “G20 is not the forum to resolve security issues” but also acknowledged that “security issues can have significant consequences for the global economy.”

In recent weeks, China and Russia have moved away from the text used in the Bali declaration to describe the war in Ukraine, saying the situation has changed since the document was finalised last November.

Lukash said her bilateral meeting with India’s G20 Sherpa Amitabh Kant on Friday had focused on how the two sides will approach critical issues and the way forward, including measures to produce a joint communique.

She accused Western countries of making “false statements” about the situation in Ukraine and being unwilling to fulfil the provisions of the Minsk agreements of 2014-15 that were aimed at ending the fighting in Donbas. She also accused the West of using the past eight years to prepare for “military aggression from Ukraine,” including the supply of weapons and training of personnel.

“How can we still believe the situation hasn’t changed since the Bali summit?… So yes, the situation has changed and we can no longer refer to what was agreed in Bali,” she said. Hypocritical statements by Western officials are also preventing the G20 from reaching a “new agreement on formulations” to refer to the Ukraine issue, she added.

Two key meetings under the G20 framework – the finance ministers’ meeting in Bengaluru and the foreign ministers’ meeting in New Delhi – were unable to reach a consensus on joint statements because of differences between G7 states and Russia and China over text to refer to the Ukraine war.

India’s focus at the G20 on accelerating the sustainable development goals (SDGs), reviving global growth and trade, and digitalisation align with Russia’s priorities, Lukash said. The G20 should also focus on “real challenges” such as climate change, disrupted global value chains, lack of progress in implementing SDGs and high debt, she said.

Lukash contended the conflict in Ukraine “actually doesn’t affect the whole world” or countries of the Global South, which are not at the G20 table. She also described China and India as “good friends of Russia” and lauded New Delhi for acting as a “true and balanced mediator” during its G20 presidency.

India has so far refrained from publicly criticising Russian aggression in Ukraine and has stepped up purchases of discounted Russian oil and fertilisers.