Russian President Vladimir Putin, who missed the G20 leaders’ meeting in India in September, will attend the Group of Twenty virtual summit scheduled for Wednesday via video conference, Russian state television said on Sunday.
“Vladimir Putin will take part in the virtual G20 summit,” TV channel Vesti said in a statement clarifying the Russian president’s program this week.
However, the broadcaster did not provide any information about how the Russian leader would take part.
In September, for the second year in a row, Vladimir Putin did not respond positively to the invitation to physically represent Russia at the G20 summit, while the head of state was banned from the international stage over the attack on his army in Ukraine in February 2022.
In the sights of an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court accusing him of war crimes for the deportation of Ukrainian children – which Moscow denies – the Russian leader had also abandoned his Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, who represented him at the BRICS summit in South Africa last August.
Since the Covid-19 pandemic, and even more so since the start of the conflict in Ukraine, Vladimir Putin rarely travels abroad, such as in October to China, where he spoke with Xi Jinping, his ally, to counter what they were doing together as Americans represent hegemony.
In early October, the Russian president assured that he would not physically go to international summits so as not to “cause problems” for the organizers.
India, which is organizing the virtual G20 summit on Wednesday, will chair the Group of Twenty until the end of November.
New Delhi has historically close ties with Moscow, with Russia remaining India’s largest arms supplier.
The G20 consists of 19 countries and the European Union, which together account for about 85% of global GDP.