Russia takes tough stance against West as India hosts G20 foreign ministers

Top US diplomat Antony Blinken traveled to New Delhi on Wednesday with Russia's Sergei Lavrov for a G20 meeting, where Ukraine and tensions with China will overshadow host India's attempts to forge unity among the world's top economies.

A meeting between the two men, who have not been in the same room since the G20 meeting in Bali in July, when Western officials said Russia's foreign minister walked out, was seen as unlikely. They last met individually in January 2022, weeks before Russia invaded Ukraine. The two men have since spoken on the phone, but about other issues and not the war.

Lavrov arrived in India—which has not condemned the war—late on Tuesday and will use his attendance at the G20 to pander to the West, according to the Russian Foreign Ministry. Western countries want to “take revenge for the inevitable disappearance of the levers of dominance from its hands,” the ministry said in an English-language statement. “The destructive policies of the US and its allies have already brought the world to the brink of disaster, caused a slowdown in socio-economic development and seriously worsened the situation of the poorest countries,” he added.

Similarly, on the sidelines of the two-day G20 meeting in New Delhi was a meeting between Blinken and his Chinese counterpart Qin Gang. Blinken met with China's top diplomat Wang Yi in Germany last month after the US shot down a suspected Chinese spy balloon over its east coast on February 4.

The incident led Blinken to cancel a rare trip to China, condemning the “unacceptable violation of US sovereignty and international law” that “must never happen again,” the State Department said. Beijing, which has also been angered by Washington's stance on Taiwan, denies using the spy balloons and says the craft were for weather research.

Wang “called on the US side to change course, acknowledge and repair the damage its excessive use of force has caused to Sino-US relations,” state news agency Xinhua said. Blinken also warned Wang against providing “material support” to Russia's faltering war effort, as speculated in Washington.

Beijing denies any such intention. State news agency Xinhua last week quoted Wang as saying China was willing to “strengthen strategic coordination” with Russia after meeting Lavrov and President Vladimir Putin in Moscow. Blinken was also due to meet on Friday with his counterparts from the Quad group—Japan, Australia and India—which is seen as a bulwark against China in the Asia-Pacific region.

The Group of Twenty consists of 19 countries and the European Union, representing approximately 85 percent of the world's economy and two-thirds of its population. India wants its G20 presidency to focus on issues such as poverty alleviation and climate finance this year, but the Ukraine war and its effects are set to dominate the agenda.

Last week, a meeting of G20 finance ministers in Bengaluru failed to agree on a joint statement after Russia and China tried to tone down talk of the war in Ukraine. Hosting the G20 puts India in a tricky position because, while it shares Western concerns about China, it is also a major buyer of Russian arms and has increased oil imports. India has not condemned the invasion, although Prime Minister Narendra Modi told Putin last year that there was “no time for war” in comments that were seen as a rebuke to Moscow.

On a visit to India on Saturday, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said he did not believe the Modi government was “under any illusions that this is a war of aggression launched by Russia to gain part of its neighbour's territory.