Biden Says Russia Should be Ejected from G20 [View all]

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: New York Times

BRUSSELS — President Biden said that Russia should be removed from the G20 group of industrialized and developing nations because of the country’s invasion of Ukraine, but said that if the member nations do not agree to the measure, then Ukraine should be allowed to participate in the group’s meetings in the future.“I raised the possibility” of ejecting Russia from the organization, Mr. Biden said Thursday during a news conference in Brussels as he met with other world leaders.

Such a move would echo the 2014 decision of a smaller group of the world’s largest economies to eject Russia from the G8 to punish it for its invasion and occupation of Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula. Mr. Biden’s comments came after a day of rare and intense global diplomacy in which the president and the leaders of 30 other nations participated in three back-to-back summits aimed at expressing solidarity in confronting Russia. He met with NATO and the G7; one final summit for the day, with the European Union, has just begun.

The NATO and G7 leaders announced new economic sanctions on Russia, additional aid for European countries dealing with the surge of refugees fleeing the violence in Ukraine, the deployment of more forces to NATO countries in Eastern Europe and grim preparations for the possibility that Russia might use chemical, biological or nuclear weapons.Mr. Biden and the U.S. allies have moved with unexpected speed and authority over the past four weeks, rallying much of the world against President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.

But the historic gathering of leaders on Thursday underscored how the United States and its allies have in some ways reached their self-imposed limits. The sense of stalemate on the battlefield is now also felt in the halls of diplomacy, where taking any dramatic new steps has proved to be difficult. Europeans have said they were not willing to bear the consequences of new sanctions on the Russian energy they depend on. And Mr. Biden has said he was not willing to commit troops to fight against Russia, fearful of provoking a bigger war.

Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/24/world/europe/biden-russia-g20.html

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I did see several articles from yesterday that suggested that Putin had intentions to appear at the next G20 summit -

Putin still wants to attend G20 in Indonesia and ‘has China’s backing’


Shweta Sharma
13 hours ago


Vladimir Putin has reportedly expressed willingness to attend the G20 summit later this year in Indonesia as China said Russia was an “important member,” in a pushback to the potential pressure building up to expel Moscow from the Bali event for its war on Ukraine. Russia’s ambassador to Indonesia Lyudmila Vorobieva said in a news conference that Mr Putin is willing to travel to Bali in November to attend the G20 summit. She said Russia should not be expelled over the Ukraine invasion as G20 is an economic forum.

"It will depend on many, many things, including the Covid situation, which is getting better. So far, his intention is... he wants to," she said. The G20 is the group of 20 of the world’s largest economies that coordinate and plan action on issues of the global economy and climate change. Mr Putin who has mostly avoided travel due to the Covid pandemic has signalled willingness at a time when it is facing opposition and a string of sanctions over its invasion of Ukraine.

This has put traditionally neutral Jakarta which currently holds the rotating G20 chair on a spot as Moscow’s presence at the event has the potential to lead to a boycott by other countries. The US and other Western nations are considering a possible move to exclude Russia from the G20, Reuters reported, citing sources involved in the discussions.

On Tuesday, Poland said that it had suggested to the US officials that it can replace Russia in the group and that the suggestion received a "positive response". The push to expel Russia is likely to be vetoed by other key G20 nations, who are also Moscow’s allies, such as China, raising the pressure on Jakarta of a boycott of G20 by some other countries.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/putin-g20-exclude-russia-indonesia-b2042046.html

That event is not scheduled to start until the end of October, so all kinds of things can happen between now and then - https://g20.org/g20-presidency-of-indonesia/