On March 1-3, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov will pay a working visit to New Delhi, as head of the Russian delegation to the G20 Foreign Ministers Meeting, which will bring together the foreign ministers of the world's leading economies and invited participants, as well as relevant international organisations. The theme of the upcoming event is One Earth, One Family, One Future. Sergey Lavrov will meet with his Indian counterpart, Subrahmanyam Jaishankar.

Russia considers the G20 a prestigious forum for the world's leading economies, a significant discussion platform on global governance, where balanced consensus decisions should be made in the interests of all humankind. Its participants account for about 80 percent of global GDP, international trade, and greenhouse gas emissions, as well as two-thirds of the world's population.

The creation of the G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors mechanism in 1999 was a response to the Asian financial crisis and was dictated by the need to increase the coordination of economic policies between national governments. In 2008, the global financial and economic turmoil made this forum move to the national leader level. Since then, the most important decisions and recommendations on the most significant socioeconomic issues have been made at this platform.

We support India's G20 presidency in its commitment to promote a unifying agenda that will restore confidence in multilateral diplomacy and prevent the fragmentation of the global economy. We share the relevance of India's stated priorities: ensuring inclusive and sustainable economic growth; accelerating progress towards the achievement of sustainable development goals; reforming multilateral institutions; digital modernisation; and increasing women’s economic engagement.

Russia is active on all G20 ministerial tracks. We support India's effort to improve working mechanisms and create specialised processes to respond to natural disasters and launch start-ups. We are ready to make a significant contribution to making progress in all these areas. We aim to work together with our Indian colleagues to achieve the desired result, showing the greatest possible flexibility. At the same time, we will firmly defend Russia's fundamental interests and an international world order based on the central role of the UN and international law. We will strongly promote recognition of the new global realities that assert a multipolar system of relations between states.

The importance and role of the foreign ministers’ meetings in G20 activities is steadily growing. This format was launched in 2012. The key goal is to exchange views on current international issues and challenges. This year’s meeting will be concentrated on multilateralism, energy and food security, and international development. The agenda also includes counterterrorism, labour resources, humanitarian assistance and reduction of the impacts of natural disasters.

During the regular foreign ministers’ meeting we intend to firmly and openly talk about the reasons and instigators of the current serious problems in world politics and the global economy. We will focus on the attempts by the West to take revenge for the inevitable disappearance of the levers of dominance from its hands. We will also concentrate on its striving to continue receiving unilateral rent, in part, through unequal trade and violent interference in the affairs of sovereign states.

The destructive policy of the US and its allies has already put the world on the brink of a disaster, provoked a rollback in socio-economic development and seriously aggravated the situation of the poorest countries. The entire world is suffering from the cynical revelry of illegal sanctions, the artificial breakup of cross-border supply chains, the imposition of notorious price ceilings and, in effect, from attempts to steal natural resources.

The support structure of international law as a key regulator of interstate cooperation has been destroyed. The Western leaders have made it abundantly clear by disavowing the Minsk agreements and their previous promises not to expand NATO, and by launching the harassment of not only Russia but also individual Russian citizens, Russian athletes and companies.

We are set to clearly state Russia’s assessments of the current security, energy and food situation. We will present an unbiased factual picture of the act of terrorism – the bombing of the Nord Stream gas pipeline in the EU and NATO zone of responsibility, and the illegal seizing of Russian humanitarian fertiliser shipments designated for African and other needy countries. We will draw attention to the destructive barriers that the West is multiplying exponentially to block the export of goods that are of critical importance to the global economy, including energy sources and agricultural products.

We will describe in detail Russia’s actions to reduce these threats and diversify foreign economic ties and logistics corridors. We will urge our constructive colleagues in the G20 to convert to national currencies, to align clearing and settlement mechanisms, and to create independent insurance plans and transport routes.

We will emphasise the extreme demand for the Russian initiative on the Greater Eurasian Partnership (GEP) as an integration foundation for consolidating the potential of the EAEU, SCO, ASEAN and other concerned associations, and the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative. We plan to advocate serious democratisation of global economic management institutions and expansion of the role of BRICS and other developing nations in making decisions within the Bretton-Woods structures and the WTO. We will support the African Union’s application for G20 permanent member status.

We welcome the initiative of the Indian Presidency on organising a special G20 pavilion at the International Book Fair (February 25-March 5 of this year) in New Delhi. We plan to hold an exhibition at the Fair on the commonality of world outlooks and the mutual influence of Leo Tolstoy (195th birth anniversary) and Mahatma Gandhi (75th anniversary of this tragic death). We hope this cultural event will allow us to demonstrate the strong historical ties between our two countries and our similar approaches to the creation of a polycentric and just world order.

As part of the visit’s bilateral events, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar will discuss ways to further advance cooperation in key areas, as well as coordinate the schedule of upcoming contacts. The main thematic blocks include trade, investment, transport and logistics cooperation, the use of national currencies in mutual settlements, and promising projects in the energy sector.

The ministers will exchange views on topical international matters, including interaction under India’s SCO chairmanship and G20 presidency, as well as coordination of approaches in the UN, BRICS and RIC. They will also touch on a number of regional topics, including the creation of security architecture in the Asia-Pacific region, the current state of Afghanistan, and developments in Ukraine.

Sergey Lavrov will also take part in a session of the Raisina Dialogue international political conference held in the Indian capital on March 2-4.