Ukraine tensions obstruct G-20 cooperation
Daniel DePetris
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi appealed to the foreign delegations who assembled in New Delhi on Thursday: let’s make the G-20 foreign ministers meeting a success, notwithstanding differences over the war in Ukraine. “We should not allow issues that we cannot resolve together to come in the way of those we can,” Modi said.
His words largely fell on deaf ears.
CHINA DEEPENS DIPLOMATIC SUPPORT FOR RUSSIA AT G-20 MEETING
Ukraine was once again at the center of the conversation, turning a forum originally designed to focus on economic issues into a rhetorical battle between the United States and its allies on the one hand and Russia and China on the other. No substantive decisions were made.
The entire event was one big griping session for the cameras.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov blasted the U.S. and Europe for dragging out the war with weapons shipments to Ukraine. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and colleagues like Dutch Foreign Minister Wopke Hoekstra slammed Russia for invading a sovereign country.
There was a very brief, informal chat between Blinken and Lavrov on the sidelines of the summit. It’s the first time the two men have spoken to one another face-to-face since the war began. Blinken pushed the Russians into re-complying with the New START accord, the last remaining U.S.-Russia arms control agreement that Vladimir Putin suspended last week. The case of Paul Whelan, an American who has been sitting in a Russian prison colony for several years after his conviction on espionage charges (Whelan and the Biden administration dispute the charges), was brought up. And Blinken reiterated that the U.S. will support Ukraine for as long as it takes.
Still, this meeting ultimately says more about the divisions in play than it does about anything else.
As much as the U.S. and Europe would like the world to universally condemn Russia’s acts of aggression in Ukraine, join the Russia sanctions regime, and backfill Ukraine’s armory with artillery shells, munitions, and tanks, many countries outside the West just want the war to end as quickly as possible.
For India, South Africa, China, Mexico, and Brazil (among others), that means a negotiated settlement, not by helping Ukraine win the conflict militarily. The fact that talks toward a diplomatic settlement are being rejected by the combatants and that Ukraine and Russia have irreconcilable views of what a settlement should look like doesn’t seem to register.
These concerns shouldn’t be waved away as insignificant, particularly for countries in Africa who source much of their grain and wheat from the Ukraine and Russia breadbasket or those in Europe who may experience another surge in energy prices as the next winter approaches. Diplomatically, the Ukraine file is crowding out other agenda items that would normally earn attention from the United Nations and other international organizations, like the gang-infested anarchy running rampant across Haiti, the ongoing tit-for-tat, covert battle between Iran and Israel, or Afghanistan’s disastrous humanitarian situation.
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But things don’t look like they’re going to change anytime soon.
Daniel DePetris (@DanDePetris) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. His opinions are his own.