Putin won’t be in Delhi for G20, focus on Ukraine: Kremlin

The International Criminal Court (ICC) has issued an arrest warrant for Putin accusing him of war crimes in Ukraine, something the Kremlin strongly denies.

Putin attended a gathering of leaders from the BRICS group of emerging economies in South Africa by video link this week. (AP/File)

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RUSSIAN PRESIDENT Vladimir Putin will not attend the G20 summit in-person to be held in New Delhi next month, the Kremlin announced on Friday, saying he has a “busy schedule” and the main focus is still the “special military operation” in Ukraine.

The G20 leaders’ summit is scheduled to be held in New Delhi on September 9 and 10.

So far, US President Joe Biden and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese are among the G20 leaders who have confirmed their participation.

Explained

Hardening battle lines

PUTIN'S ABSENCE from the G20 summit is an indication of the hardening of battle lines drawn between the G7 countries and Russia. This also puts a question mark on a possible G20 declaration in New Delhi, as Moscow has been objecting to the paragraph on the Ukraine conflict throughout the year in several meetings.

“No, the President has no such plans,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters in Moscow. He said the format of Putin’s participation would be determined later.

Sources in New Delhi said that it is possible that Putin will join the summit virtually, and/or send Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in his place.

After the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Putin did not attend last year’s G20 summit in Bali, Indonesia in November 2022. In this week’s BRICS summit in Johannesburg, he participated remotely. He was represented at the summit by Lavrov.

“Well… now he really has a busy schedule. And, of course, the main focus is still the special military operation. So direct travel is not on the agenda right now,” the Kremlin spokesman was quoted as saying by the official Tass news agency.

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Last year, when Putin attended the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit, Modi had met him and told him that “this is not the era of war”.

Shubhajit Roy

Shubhajit Roy, Diplomatic Editor at The Indian Express, has been a journalist for more than 25 years now. Roy joined The Indian Express in October 2003 and has been reporting on foreign affairs for more than 17 years now. Based in Delhi, he has also led the National government and political bureau at The Indian Express in Delhi — a team of reporters who cover the national government and politics for the newspaper. He has got the Ramnath Goenka Journalism award for Excellence in Journalism ‘2016. He got this award for his coverage of the Holey Bakery attack in Dhaka and its aftermath. He also got the IIMCAA Award for the Journalist of the Year, 2022, (Jury’s special mention) for his coverage of the fall of Kabul in August 2021 — he was one of the few Indian journalists in Kabul and the only mainstream newspaper to have covered the Taliban’s capture of power in mid-August, 2021. ... Read More

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