G20 Delhi Declaration ‘objective’ about Ukraine, geopolitics: Lavrov

UNITED NATIONS: Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has called the G20 Leaders’ Declaration adopted in New Delhi this month “objective” about Ukraine and the geopolitical situation.

“I think that the text of that summit was objective, not only when it comes to Ukraine, which is only mentioned once but it was objective about the geopolitical situation as a whole,” he said on Saturday at a news conference here.

The Declaration, which was the result of India’s consensus-building, did not mention Russia, but had elements that could be seen as critical of Moscow’s actions in Ukraine.

It said: “All states must act in a manner consistent with the Purposes and Principles of the UN Charter in its entirety. In line with the UN Charter, all states must refrain from the threat or use of force to seek territorial acquisition against the territorial integrity and sovereignty or political independence of any state.”

The Declaration also “highlighted the human suffering and negative added impacts of the war in Ukraine.”

As for geopolitics, Lavrov noted that it said that “all conflicts need to be considered not just those that one has a specific interest in.” For example, it also mentioned the Palestine situation, he said.

Lavrov contrasted the G20 Declaration with outcome documents from other forums where he said the West insisted on condemning Moscow.

“They just completely exhausted everyone with their incessant demands for the outcome documents to denounce Russia,” he said.

“It is the West that is trying to blame Russia and Russia's actions in Ukraine for all the world's problems and they're not successful in this,” he said referring to the G20 Declaration.

Lavrov criticised the working of the UN and said that Moscow supports Security Council reform to make the organisation “sustained and legitimate in nature”.

He shot down Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’ proposal for restarting the Black Sea Grain Initiative as well as the peace plan proposed by Ukraine.

He bristled at suggestions that he had “rejected” Guterres’ with a semantic twist that Moscow only said elements of it were unacceptable, citing problems with receiving payments for the grain exports because of sanctions on banking.

The Grain Deal brokered by the UN and Turkiye allowed for exports of food grains from Russia and Ukraine through the Black Sea amid naval blockades and war.

The peace plan proposed by Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky, which includes the withdrawal of Russian troops from occupied territories, and restoration of Ukraine’s territorial integrity, was unacceptable and the war will go on, he said.