Most of the countries attending the G20 Summit in Bali, Indonesia, signed a communiqué strongly condemning Putin’s war in Ukraine.

However, as US site Axios notes, divisions within the G20 over Russia’s war in Ukraine could easily have made this G20 the first in the summit’s history to fail to produce a joint declaration, said John Kirton, director of G20 research at the Toronto-based Global Governance Program.

• The traditional G20 family photo this year was canceled for the first time in G20 history because numerous leaders refused to have their photo taken with any representative from Russia, Kirton told Axios.
• It only became clear on Monday evening, when a draft communique was finalized, that there was sufficient consensus among G20 leaders to produce a joint statement.
• But in the end, most countries were willing to publicly condemn the invasion. “It was really only Russia that would have been happy without a communique, because they could have said, look, no one condemned us,” Kirton said.

Six major countries, namely China, Indonesia, India, Brazil, Saudi Arabia, and South Africa (4 are BRICS members) decided to keep their distance from the rest of the leaders who had shunned Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, during his stay at the conference.

As another US media outlet, ABC notes, China and India have important trade ties with Moscow – which have even grown closer since Putin’s invasion of Ukraine – and have studiously avoided criticising Putin.

It is worth noting that most members of the G20 – the US and its allies in Europe and Asia – have imposed sanctions on Russia, but China, India, Saudi Arabia, and South Africa appear reluctant to do so. But even Brazil, despite Lula’s victory in the presidential elections, preferred not to become aggressive towards Moscow, adopting Bolsonaro’s policy.

The Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov accused Western countries from Bali of trying to “politicise” the communiqué by demanding an explicit condemnation of Russia. In the statement made public, “most members condemned the war in Ukraine and the enormous human suffering” it has caused, however, there were also “differing assessments of the situation and sanctions against Moscow,” the US press points out.

“Unconditional withdrawal from the territories of Ukraine”

The statement, which was adopted by the majority, states that most members strongly condemn the war in Ukraine and call for the “full and unconditional withdrawal” of Russia, however, as pointed out by the Guardian, there were other views.

The G20 concluded that “the use or threat of use of nuclear weapons is unacceptable. Peaceful conflict resolution, crisis management efforts, and diplomacy and dialogue are vital. In today’s age there should be no war”.

The war in Ukraine is highlighted in the statement “causes enormous human suffering and exacerbates existing weaknesses in the global economy – limiting growth, increasing inflation, disrupting supply chains, increasing energy and food insecurity, and increasing risks to financial stability.”