NEW DELHI: India has not included Ukraine in the list of participants for the G20 summit, but the participation of its President Vlodymyr Zelenskyy through other means such as video conferencing is not a closed chapter.
Published on official website, the list has the photographs and names of all G20 leaders invited for the September 9-10 summit. It then includes the names and photographs of nine special invitees, but Zelenskyy does not figure among them.
However, the Ukrainian leader has other ways to make his presence felt with the backing of western countries in the G20 who want this economic grouping to emulate the G7 in imposing sanctions on Russia. At the previous G20 summit in Bali, Zelenskyy was permitted to give a video message. This year, he landed unannounced at the Arab League Summit on his way to the G7 summit in Hiroshima in May where he had also met PM Narendra Modi.
India recently has made several high-level contacts with the Ukrainian leadership and on Wednesday, Oleksandr Polishchuk, the Ambassador-Designate of Ukraine, presented the copy of credential letters to Anshuman Gaur, Joint Secretary in the MEA’s protocol division. Zelenskyy had sacked the previous envoy, Igor Polikha, along with several other Ukrainian ambassadors in July last year.
A joint declaration has eluded all G20 ministerials held under India’s presidency but the MEA hopes that at the September summit, G20 leaders would adopt a declaration “stating their commitment towards the priorities discussed and agreed during the respective ministerial and working group meetings”.
Though Putin’s photograph figures among the G20 leaders, there is intense western pressure to have him scratched out just as he was replaced by his Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov at Bali summit.