Russia accuses West of ‘destabilising’ G20 finance chiefs’ meet in India

Russia has accused the West of “destabilising” the G20 finance chiefs’ meeting that took place in India’s southern Bengaluru city. It blamed the US, EU and G7 nations for trying to impose their “diktat” as the talks concluded with differences over the Russia-Ukraine conflict.

“We regret that the activities of the G20 continue to be destabilised by the Western collective and used in an anti-Russian... way," the foreign ministry said in statement on Saturday, reports AFP news agency.

It claimed that the Western nations "disrupted the adoption of collective decisions" by trying to impose their "diktat" with what they said was "clear blackmail".

“Their aim had been to impose their interpretation of the Ukraine conflict in the joint statement by means of lobbying and ultimatums," said the ministry statement.

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Moscow said that West should "renounce its destructive policy as soon as possible, to acknowledge the objective realities of a multipolar world".

"The G20 must remain an economic forum rather than encroaching on the security sphere," it said.

The reaction from Kremlin came hours after the conclusion of the meet where most countries condemned the ongoing conflict in Ukraine but China and Russia declined to sign the joint statement. This led India, which was hosting the two-day event to release a “chair’s summary and outcome document” which is said to simply summarise the talks and noted disagreements.

The confusion seemed to prevail over the “different assessments of the situation and sanctions” referring to the ongoing conflict.

A footnote said that the two paragraphs in the summary about the ongoing conflict “were agreed to by all member countries except Russia and China”.

(With inputs from agencies)

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