Russia slams the door of the G20

Posted Jul 8, 2022, 5:34 PMUpdated on Jul 8, 2022 at 6:21 PM

Isolated from his partners in the G20 member countries, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov ended up throwing in the towel. Even before the end of the discussions of the ministers gathered in Bali, under the Indonesian presidency, he left the debates . Faced with criticism from his partners over his country’s war in Ukraine, Sergey Lavrov accused the West of wasting an opportunity to address global economic issues through their “frenzied” criticism of the conflict.

As soon as he arrived, slogans rang out. “When will you end the war? “. “Why don’t you stop the war? “: the head of Russian diplomacy was taken to task as he greeted his Indonesian counterpart, Retno Marsudi. ‘Aggressors’, ‘invaders’, ‘occupiers’ – we heard a lot today,” the Russian minister told reporters after the first talks. “Our Western partners sought to avoid talking about global economic issues. As soon as they spoke, they almost immediately launched into a frenzied criticism of Russia on the situation in Ukraine, calling us aggressors,” he regretted.

“When will you stop the war?”
audience asks the #WarCriminalRussia’s FM Lavrov at #G20 … https://t.co/qfhDRKpfws

— Mikhail Khodorkovsky (English) (@mbk_center) July 8, 2022

Before leaving, Sergei Lavrov skipped a session in which his Ukrainian counterpart, Dmytro Kuleba, spoke online and left when his German counterpart Annalena Baerbock criticized Moscow’s war policy in Ukraine. Regretting this hasty departure, the German minister did not fail to stress that Russia is “not interested” in a dialogue with the G20.

The fact that he spent a large part of the negotiations not in the room, but outside the room, underlines that there is currently not a millimeter of willingness for dialogue on the part of the Russian government.

His departure “stresses all the more clearly that he is not interested in international cooperation or in exchanges with other partners” within the G20, she judged. “The fact that he spent a large part of the negotiations not in the room, but outside the room, underlines that there is currently not a millimeter of willingness for dialogue on the part of the Russian government”, she hammered, in particular concerning the “global food crisis”.

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“Russia was so isolated that Lavrov left the conference at midday, after speaking,” the new French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna told AFP. “We were anticipating a meeting with different dividing lines, but […] Russia found itself isolated, its responsibility was pointed out, even by certain countries which one would have thought could qualify things and give it support. No state, even among the BRICS, has “defended the Russian attitude”, she specified. “Even China began its intervention by saying that the United Nations Charter should be at the heart of international relations, or India,” noted the minister.

Also present in Bali, the American Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, had previously met with French and German ministers and a British representative to talk about this “unjustifiable and unprovoked” war. On the spot, he had just as much refused to meet his Russian counterpart separately and denounced the responsibility of Russia in the world food and energy crises, asking Moscow to authorize the exit of cereals from Ukraine. “What we have already heard today is a strong chorus from all over the world, not just from the United States for (…) that the (Russian) aggression cease,” he stressed. In response, Sergey Lavrov said he “will not run” after Washington for talks.

Thursday, the Russian minister had discussed with his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi. An interview during which he praised Beijing while the Chinese minister simply indicated that China opposed any act aimed at exacerbating the confrontation between the blocs and creating a “new cold war”. Wang Yi has an appointment on Saturday with Antony Blinken. The two officials are expected to discuss ‘safeguards’ around the high-tension bilateral relationship, but also look into possibilities for cooperation, a US East Asia official said.

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