It took until close to midnight on Friday for a handful of leading developing countries to propose their compromise. Accept this, was the pitch, or bear the consequences of a fractured G20.
After five days of gruelling discussions, the western delegates took the deal. When their bosses assembled the next day at the summit in New Delhi, the scale of their concession was made stark.
The US, EU and other western allies had agreed to remove condemnation of Russian president Vladimir Putin’s war against Ukraine from the meeting’s communique, in exchange for pledges from all 20 states — including Russia and China — to respect territorial integrity and work towards a “just peace” for Kyiv.