Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy will address the leaders of the world’s most industrialized nations via video link and insist the nine-month war to liberate his country is one the global south must embrace and cannot remain neutral . American officials were confident that the gathering would condemn Russia’s war of aggression in the strongest possible terms. “The G20 will make clear that Russia’s war is wreaking havoc on people everywhere and the global economy as a whole,” the official said. Most G20 states agreed that the war in Ukraine was “at the root of the economic pain and instability we see in many parts of the world,” the official added. Joko Widodo, president of host Indonesia, told G20 members to “end the war” as he opened the leaders’ summit on Tuesday in Bali. “Being responsible means creating not zero-sum situations, being responsible here also means ending war. If the war does not end, it will be difficult for the world to move on,” he told leaders before the summit began. Indonesia is hosting the largest global gathering in its history and is pressing the West to tone down its criticism of Russia to prevent the summit from failing to reach agreement on broader issues. Indonesia is desperate to avoid walkouts or fights that lead to failure to agree on a joint communiqué. However, progress at the official level on the communique was made on the eve of summit talks on the rain resort on Monday. Sergei Lavrov, the veteran Russian foreign minister, is standing in for Vladimir Putin, who quit fearing he faced two days of harassment from Western leaders. Putin has also come under increasing criticism from his ally China for his frequent threats to use tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine. Ahead of the summit, the US, EU and UK issued a joint statement seeking to counter Russian claims that a deal allowing Ukrainian grain to be exported via the Black Sea has been undermined by the West’s failure to lift indirect sanctions on exports of Russian fertilizers. The grain deal, negotiated jointly by Turkey and the UN in July, was a rare diplomatic ray of sunshine but is due to be renewed on Friday. Russia and Ukraine account for about 30% of all wheat and barley exports, one-fifth of corn and more than half of all sunflower oil. The deal allowing exports beyond the Russian navy from three Ukrainian seaports has been critical to lowering grain prices. But Russia claims the deal is one-sided because Western sanctions have indirectly continued to overshadow Russian grain exports by affecting payments, insurance and shipping. Russia’s foreign ministry insisted that only ensuring unfettered access to its food and fertilizers on world markets would allow prices to stabilize and guarantee future harvests. Russia has already suspended its cooperation once. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov greets Indonesian President Joko Widodo upon his arrival for the G20 leaders’ summit in Bali Photo: Kevin Lamarque/AP Russia also claims that Ukrainian grain that has been exported has gone almost exclusively to rich European markets rather than to poorer countries. It advertises a competing plan to provide grain for free to the world’s poorest countries. Many Russian banks were disconnected from the Swift financial messaging system earlier this year, making it difficult to make direct settlements for exports. Russia wants its main agricultural lender, Rosselkhozbank, re-connected. The dispute over the future of the grain deal is part of a wider diplomatic battle between Russia and the West to convince skeptics in the global south that the right is on their side. Ukraine scored a victory when the UN general assembly voted 94 to 17 on Monday night to demand that Russia pay reparations for its invasion of Ukraine. A total of 73 abstained, showing the large constituency fears reparations will delay a peace deal. In a sign of the intensity of the diplomatic battle, French President Emmanuel Macron met with leaders from South Africa, Argentina, Mexico, Senegal and Rwanda on the sidelines of the summit in Bali. He also held talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping. He told him it was in China’s interest to push Putin back into talks. Macron again said he would be in touch with Putin after the G20 summit and wanted diplomacy to succeed. Some Western leaders tout diplomacy because they genuinely believe it can bring peace, and others because they know the global south wants to see diplomacy put to the test. Behind the scenes, relations between Ukraine and the US have been strained by mixed messages coming out of Washington on whether Ukraine’s recent military advances and the coming of winter provide an opportunity for Kyiv to open peace talks with Russia. US General Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has openly backed the suggestion that winter was the right time for talks, but US national security adviser Jake Sullivan has tried to play down the idea that the US wants Ukraine to accept settlement that leaves part of occupied Ukraine in Russian hands. Ukraine’s chief of defense staff, General Valeriy Zaluzhnyy, had a blunt exchange with Milley on Monday. Seeks US agreement to supply drones and anti-drone missiles. A rare meeting between CIA director William Burns and Sergei Naryskin, the Russian director of the Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), in Ankara has fueled suspicions that the US is using back channels to test Russian willingness to hold talks. The White House insisted after the talks were leaked from the Russian side that Burns was “not conducting any kind of negotiations. He does not discuss resolving the war in Ukraine. It conveys a message about the consequences of Russia’s use of nuclear weapons and the risks of escalation to strategic stability.” The summit itself is set to discuss food security in the morning and post-pandemic global health in the afternoon.
