After difficult negotiations, India’s Prime Minister Modi announced that the participants of the G20 summit had agreed on a final declaration. It should contain the positions of the West and Russia on the war in Ukraine.
Despite major differences of opinion, representatives of the G20 countries have agreed on a joint statement. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced this on the first day of the two-day summit of leading industrialized and emerging countries. There was consensus on the summit declaration, Modi said: “I announce the adoption of the declaration.” Delegation members spoke of difficult negotiations.
Ahead of the summit, there were fears that participants would not be able to agree on a common statement. Opinions differed particularly on the Russian war of aggression in Ukraine. Russia was supported by representatives of China.
No explicit condemnation of the war
In the declaration, the text passage on the Ukraine war is now intended to address the demands of both Moscow and the West. Russia therefore achieved that the Russian war of aggression is not explicitly condemned, but only the “use of force” to achieve “gains of territory” in Ukraine. Russian aggression against Ukraine is not mentioned.
According to a formulation negotiated by Western summit participants, all states must refrain from attacks on the territorial integrity or political independence of other states. Russia’s nuclear weapons threats are criticized indirectly: “The use or threat of the use of nuclear weapons is inadmissible,” says the text.
At the G20 summit in Indonesia last year, Moscow, probably under pressure from China, agreed to the following sentence in the final declaration: “Most members strongly condemned the war in Ukraine.” Russia’s position was only depicted with the wording that there were “other views and different assessments of the situation and the sanctions.”
Call for easing of sanctions
What will be particularly important for Moscow is that the text also addresses Russian demands for easing Western sanctions. The statement calls for ensuring the “immediate and unhindered delivery of grain, food and fertilizers/additives from the Russian Federation and Ukraine”.
Russia had previously canceled an agreement for the transport of Ukrainian grain across the Black Sea. The Kremlin’s justification was that Western sanctions were hindering the export of Russian food and fertilizer.
Another point of conflict was whether the G20 summit in 2026 should be hosted in the United States or in another country. According to diplomats, the USA prevailed against China.