The Russian embassy in Indonesia informed AFP on Thursday that Russian President Vladimir Putin will not be attending the G20 leaders’ conference on the Indonesian tourist island of Bali.
The head of protocol at the embassy, Yulia Tomskaya, said, “I can confirm that [Foreign Minister] Sergei Lavrov will lead the Russian mission to the G20. “President Putin’s itinerary is still being worked out; he might attend digitally.
The summit will be attended by US President Joe Biden, who has referred to Putin as a “war criminal” and has previously stated he had no intention of seeing Putin there.
The choice, which came after months of speculation, was made as Moscow was losing the Ukraine campaign and as the Kremlin tried to avoid being criticized by the West during the meeting on November 15–16.
Putin will be replaced by Lavrov, according to a second person familiar with Russia’s preparations for the Bali event.
The speaker claimed it was unknown if the Russian president would participate remotely.
The G20 foreign ministers’ conference in Bali in July saw the expulsion of Russia’s senior ambassador after the country was roundly criticized for its invasion of Ukraine.
Because of its impartial foreign policy, host Indonesia has defied requests from the West to exclude Russia from the meeting.
Volodymyr Zelensky, the president of Ukraine, is anticipated to participate remotely at the conference.
Putin would still be welcomed to the meeting, according to Indonesian President Joko Widodo, drawing harsh criticism from the West.
He said that Putin had accepted the offer in August.
If Putin attended, Zelensky had threatened to skip the conference.
Ukraine does not belong to the G20 group.
In recent months, French President Emmanuel Macron has had conversations with Russian President Vladimir Putin and has been successful in getting approval for a UN nuclear watchdog team to visit the Ukrainian nuclear power plant that is now under Russian occupation.
Russia describes the invasion as an unique military operation to “de-Nazify” Ukraine, and it holds subsequent Western economic sanctions responsible for the conflict’s worldwide economic unrest after it triggered food and energy problems.
The Bali conference takes place while a Ukrainian counteroffensive is causing combat defeats for Russia.
On Wednesday, Russia gave the order for its soldiers to leave Kherson in southern Ukraine.
Since the offensive’s start on February 24, it was the only regional capital that Moscow’s forces had under their control.
