On Russia Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova's personal impression of the G20 Summit

(from the briefing by Russian Foreign Ministry
Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova, September 13, 2023)

Question: Could you share your impressions of the G20 summit? First of all, I would like to ask how the declaration was received, and what was said about the Ukraine conflict on the sidelines?

Maria Zakharova: This is a lengthy subject. In all, 20 delegations worked there for two days, and I cannot give you an account of all the discussions that took place behind the scenes.

I would like all questions and answers to be more specific in the future. Principled assessment have already been made. India’s chairmanship was a success. The work of all countries was organised in a way that was constructive and effective. India presided in the G20 for 12 months, not just during the G20 summit that lasted several days when the world watched G20 heads of state meet each other. BRICS states and those representing the global majority worked in a well-coordinated manner. Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov voiced highly detailed assessments at his news conference.

It is hard to summarise all the main points. If you have seen this declaration, then you know that it has 80 clauses. It is a large and complex document. It is hard to say what is more important – environmental issues, political stability, security, economic development or coping with the existing problems. In my opinion, the most important thing is that, hopefully, the global minority’s attempts to impose its will have been finally thwarted, and that this was a genuine manifestation of the democratic essence in international relations that we have been talking about for quite a while.   

There is the global majority, and it is not just a quantitative majority as is the case with NATO, where member states have no right to vote, and where different representatives are united by one mandatory ideology. I am talking about a majority that acts in line with sovereign and independent approaches, that finds points of contact and conducts joint, constructive, effective and result-oriented work. What we saw was the democratic essence we have talked about. It is our hope that we have put an end to the global minority’s attempts to impose its will. They were doing it in the past. This ideology is not backed by anything specific, including economic indicators, their peacekeeping efforts or their experience that would demonstrate their system’s effective performance. I would single this out as the main aspect, but I cannot say that everything else is less important.