Biden wants Russia out of G-20

After meeting in Brussels with world leaders on a day of rare and intense global diplomacy focused on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, President Joe Biden said Russia should be removed from the G-20 group of industrialised and developing nations, a move that would further isolate the Kremlin from the international community.

However, he said that if the group’s member nations did not agree to the expulsion, then Ukraine should be allowed to participate in the group's meetings.

The removal of Russia from the G-20 would be a potent symbolic step that would deny Russia a seat at the table with the world’s largest economies at a time when Moscow has already been shattering decades of ties with the west.

Also Read — EU agrees on Russia sanctions so far, but energy divides

The president’s comments, at a news conference Thursday, came after he and the leaders of 30 other nations participated in back-to-back summits of NATO and the Group of 7, and just before a third summit, with the European Union. All three meetings were aimed at expressing solidarity in confronting Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Ejecting Russia would echo the 2014 decision of the G-8, a smaller group of the world’s largest economies, after Russia’s invasion and seizure of the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine appeared via video link at the closed-door NATO meeting that started the day and made another urgent plea for help. “I am sure you already understand that Russia does not intend to stop in Ukraine,” he said, according to a transcript of his remarks released by the Ukrainian government. “Does not intend and will not. It wants to go further.”

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