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Putin said he won’t go to the G20 in person, though he may give a speech by video, officials said.
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Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov will lead the Russian delegation in Bali, Russia said.
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Zelenskyy has said he will boycott if Putin goes. Officials said he may attend by videoconference.
President Vladimir Putin said he will not attend the G20 gathering in Indonesia and will send Russia’s foreign minister in his place, according to Russian and Indonesian officials.
While Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov will lead the Russian delegation in person, Putin may give a speech by video at the event being held in Bali later this month, state-owned news agency TASS reported. Indonesian official Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan confirmed the news that Putin wouldn’t go, CNBC Indonesia reported.
Putin’s absence from the gathering, which is slated for November 15 and 16, turns attention to the question of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s attendance.
On November 3, Zelenskyy said he would boycott the event if Putin was there. Unlike Russia, Ukraine is not a member of the G20 group of nations, but has been invited by host nation Indonesia.
Zelenskyy later said that he will attend the summit, likely via video link-up, Ukrainian state broadcaster Suspilne reported on Tuesday.
Indonesia has a tradition of neutrality, and its president, Joko Widodo, has resisted pressure from several G20 countries to rescind Putin’s invitation.
In September, Indonesia’s ambassador to Russia, Jose Tavares, told Russian state media that his government was ready to facilitate the revival of peace talks between the two leaders.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has been at the heart of considerable tension within the G20 this year, with diplomats and leaders of countries aligned with Ukraine staging multiple walk-outs, as Insider’s Marianne Guenot reported.
In July, Lavrov walked out of a G20 meeting after being confronted by leaders who accused Russia of causing a global food crisis through its blockade of Ukrainian ports, The Guardian reported at the time.
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