G20 foreign ministers meeting, Europe criticizes Russia for refusing to share photo with Russia

The Group of Twenty (G20) Foreign Ministers' Meeting was held in Atlanta, USA on the 30th and 31st, but the originally scheduled group photo was temporarily canceled. The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) reported that the host country, the United States, finally decided to cancel the group photo because some European diplomats were unwilling to take photos with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov who was attending the meeting.

Such meetings usually arrange for a group photo of representatives from all participating countries. However, the G20 foreign ministers meeting that opened on the 30th was canceled after some European countries opposed the participation of Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov and refused to take photos with him. The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) and Agence France-Presse reported that a US official said that the final decision was made to cancel the group photo to avoid "letting a ceremonial photo shoot become a diplomatic extraneous issue."

European countries participating in the meeting also bluntly criticized Russia. According to Reuters, British Foreign Minister Ed Miliband told Lavrov directly during the meeting, "Your drone attack killed 15 people yesterday alone. You have killed countless innocent civilians in this war. We all know that you are the aggressor."

Kaja Kallas, the EU's high representative for foreign affairs and security policy, accused Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov of "lying" on issues such as the Ukraine-Russia war. "He made a lot of lies, a lot of false claims," ​​she told AFP. A British official told the BBC that since Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the UK's long-standing policy has been not to have direct bilateral contact with Russian ministers, and "we have no plans to change this policy."

Lavrov later criticized Europe's "arrogant boycott" at a press conference while praising U.S. President Donald Trump's administration for its willingness to engage with Moscow. He said that Moscow's position on the war between Ukraine and Russia remains unchanged and that Russia cannot accept that Ukraine poses a military threat to Russia's "legitimate security interests."