US says having Ukraine President play a role at G20 summit would be 'a good thing'

Just a day before the G20 leaders meet in New Delhi, the United States has nudged India to have Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy “play a role” in the summit, which is likely to see the West slamming Russia for its military aggression against the East European nation.

Hours before President Joe Biden arrived in New Delhi to attend the 18^th annual meeting of the G20 leaders, his National Security Advisor, Jake Sullivan, told journalists aboard Air Force One that having the Ukrainian President have a role in the summit would be a ‘good thing’.

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak also called the Ukrainian President before travelling to New Delhi to attend the G20 summit. They discussed “the impact of (Russian President Vladimir) Putin’s continued Black Sea grain blockade, both in Ukraine and for food supplies around the world”.

Sunak told Zelenskyy that the United Kingdom was committed to galvanising work with the other G20 countries on circumventing Russia’s blockade and ensuring vulnerable countries could access vital grain shipments from Ukraine, according to a press release issued by the office of the British Prime Minister.

Sunak is the fourth G20 leader to speak to Zelenskyy before travelling to New Delhi to attend the summit, which Prime Minister Narendra Modi will host on Saturday and Sunday. Prime Minister Fumio Kishida of Japan, President Emmanuel Macron of France and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada also called the Ukrainian President over the past few days. Trudeau expressed his disappointment as Zelenskyy had not been invited by India to attend the summit. He also vowed to strongly speak up for Ukraine.

Biden’s Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited Kyiv before travelling to New Delhi, where he would join the US president’s entourage for the G20 summit. He announced $ 1 billion in military and humanitarian aid for Ukraine, just after a missile strike by Russia killed 17 people in the East European nation earlier this week.

Apart from the leaders of the 19 G20 nations and the European Union, India has also invited the heads of the states or the governments of nine other nations to the summit. The Modi Government in New Delhi, however, resisted pressure from the West and did not include the Ukrainian President in the list of the “special invitees”, ostensibly to avoid annoying Russia, which shares a "special and privileged strategic partnership” with India.

Zelenskyy had addressed the G20 leaders through video-link during the intergovernmental forum’s 17th summit, which had been held at Bali in Indonesia in November 2022. He had presented his peace formula during his address to the summit, which Russian President Vladimir Putin had not attended.   

Putin would also not attend the summit to be hosted by Modi in New Delhi.

“Look, from our perspective, anytime President Zelenskyy gets the opportunity to address a body, a group is a good thing. We believe that about the G20. He addressed it last year,” Sullivan, the US National Security Advisor, said while speaking to journalists aboard Air Force One.

“But President Zelenskyy has been relentless in his capacity to engage all of the leaders who are seated at the table,” said the US NSA, as a journalist asked him if the US was disappointed that India had not invited the Ukrainian President to the G20 summit. “And we also saw in Jeddah, not long ago, many of the key countries of the G20, including from the Global South, sit with Ukrainians in the same room to talk through the principles of a just and durable peace, including sovereignty and territorial integrity.”

“So, I feel good about where we are, although the US view is very much that having Zelenskyy have a role in this G20 would be a good thing,” added Sullivan, before the Air Force One landed at Ramstein Air Base in Germany for a brief layover on its way to New Delhi.

Biden and the leaders of other western nations are likely to once again use the forum of the G20 summit in New Delhi to highlight the social and economic consequences of Russia’s military aggression against Ukraine.

With the Russia-Ukraine conflict casting a shadow over the meeting of the G20 leaders, uncertainty looms large over the ‘Delhi Declaration’ proposed to be adopted at the end of the summit.

Though the West, led by the US, has been insisting on the inclusion of the condemnation of Russia’s military aggression against Ukraine in the proposed ‘Delhi Declaration’, Beijing and Moscow have been opposing it, arguing that the G20 was a forum meant to promote international economic cooperation, and not to discuss geopolitical issues.