The Russian Embassy in Indonesia announced that Russian President Vladimir Putin will not attend the G20 leaders’ meeting in Bali next week.
The summit on Indonesia’s tourist island will be the G20’s largest meeting since the start of the Covid-19 outbreak in late 2019.
For the first time, an official Russian source has confirmed that Putin did not attend the meeting, which will be his first meeting with US President Joe Biden since the start of the war in Ukraine.
“I can confirm that Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov will head the delegation at the G20. President Putin’s agenda is still being worked on, he can attend virtually,” said Yulia Tomskaya, the embassy’s protocol director.
Analysts have been speculating for several months about whether Putin will attend the meeting in Bali on November 15 and 16.
After major military failures for Moscow in Ukraine, the Kremlin is trying to protect its leader from criticism from Western countries at a meeting of heads of state and government of the world’s 20 main economies.
Joe Biden, who once called Putin a “war criminal”, said he had no intention of meeting with the Russian president in Bali, even if he attended the event.
Another source familiar with the Russian government’s agenda told AFP that Lavrov would replace Putin and it was unclear whether the president would actually attend the meeting.
The head of Russian diplomacy left the G20 foreign ministers meeting in Bali in July after Western criticism of the invasion of Ukraine.
Indonesia faced heavy pressure from Western powers to exclude Russia from the meeting in response to the Ukraine war, but the host country defended its neutrality at the event.
Indonesian President Joko Widodo said that Putin would be invited to the meeting and announced in August that the invitation was accepted.
Although not a member of the G20, Jakarta invited Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for a virtual participation.
Analysts point out that Putin’s absence will affect the meeting, blocking the possibility of finding a solution to the war and its global economic consequences.
Western powers have imposed heavy sanctions on Moscow, but governments have a different approach to Putin.
Biden has avoided any contact with his Russian counterpart since the start of the war, but French President Emmanuel Macron has warned against completely isolating Putin on the international stage.
Also, while the sanctions affected the Russian war machine, other powers continued their relations with Moscow. India and China, both in the G20, increased their purchases of Russian oil.
Negotiations at the G20 will be eclipsed by war-related divisions in Ukraine, which has fueled a global food crisis and increased energy prices.
All G20 meetings to date have ended without joint statements, and this time no different outcome is expected in the scenario of exchange of blame for global tensions.
source: Noticias
