April 20, 2022 has every chance of going down in the history of modern international relations as the day that led to the sudden demise of the G20, which represents the leading economies of the Western and non-Western world.
The events taking place in Washington as part of the meeting – during which the finance ministers of the ‘The Big 20’, as the group is unofficially referred to, were supposed to look for collective answers to the main challenges facing the world economy – lost their meaning amid the grandiose scandal that broke out in the American capital.
US Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen and UK Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak immediately announced they would boycott any G20 events attended by Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov. Thus, the dialogue between the leading economies of the East and West – for which, in fact, the ‘20’ was created at one time – was disrupted even before it began.
For the same reason, the finance ministers of the G20 countries were forced to refuse in advance to adopt a joint final communique on the results of the Washington meeting, as this turned out to be impossible due to the presence of Russia among its participants. The Western states have categorically refused to talk to Moscow since the start of its military operation in Ukraine, and demanded that it be excluded from the G20.