G20 fails to condemn Russian invasion of Ukraine

Not every member of the powerful G20 summit of international leaders thinks the Russian invasion of Ukraine was an invasion per se. That's the only conclusion one can come to. The communique following the summit in India supported the idea that a country's territorial sovereignty was kind of sacrosanct but that wasn't a good enough reason to single out Russia for condemnation after it stamped all over Ukraine's territorial integrity on February 24, last year, and has continued to do so ever since. This failure on the part of the G20 summit leaders was supposedly all about sensitive diplomacy, with those wanting outright condemnation having to give in to those who wanted to tiptoe round the invasion issue. Summits of world leaders, which on this occasion excluded President Xi Zinping of China and Putin of Russia, have always been about compromise. Without compromise, it is always explained, a final communique could not be written. So Putin will be happy that some leaders still hope he is a nice guy and will do the right thing eventually, which of course he won't, and he will be pretty pleased with the G20 lot. But war has nothing to do with diplomacy until diplomacy ends the war. And right now there is absolutely no sgn that Putin is interested in any form of diplomacy to bring the war to a close. So, surely it would have been better for the G20 leaders to actually have mentioned Russia in the final statement, condemned outright the appalling slaughter that is going on, courtesy of Russian cruise missiles, artillery and rockets, and demanded an end to the fighting - and the total withdrawal of all Russian troops. But they knew that was never going to be possible, so they came up with a dribble of words that sounded faintly disapproving. Moscow will be smiling.