Kremlin accuses US of pressuring other countries to remove Russia from G20

The Kremlin on Wednesday accused the United States of pressuring other countries to remove Russia from the G20 forum, a group that brings together 19 countries and the European Union, but said some members of the bloc were resisting.

The United States and its Western allies are weighing whether Russia should remain in the G20, sources told Reuters on Tuesday.

A G7 source, however, said it was unlikely that Indonesia – currently leading the G20 – or members such as India, Brazil, South Africa and China would agree to remove Russia from the group.

“It is well known that the United States exerts open and undiplomatic pressure on all countries in terms of general opposition to our country,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on a conference call.

“It is clear that the Americans will continue to put pressure on different countries (G20), but as we see, several states prefer to adhere to their independent and sovereign views.”

Earlier on Wednesday, Russia’s ambassador to Indonesia, which will host the G20 summit in Bali this year, said Putin plans to attend.

The G20, along with the G7, made up of just the United States, France, Germany, Italy, Canada, Japan and Great Britain, is an important international platform for coordinating actions on issues such as climate change and international debt.

The G7 was expanded into a new format, dubbed the “G8”, which included Russia in the late 1990s. Moscow was indefinitely suspended from that club following the annexation of Crimea from Ukraine in 2014.

Russia sent thousands of troops to Ukraine on February 24 in what it called a “special operation” to degrade its southern neighbor’s military capabilities and eradicate people it called “dangerous nationalists.”

Ukrainian forces mounted strong resistance and the West imposed sweeping sanctions on Russia in an effort to force it to withdraw its forces.