Vladimir Putin will participate in the virtual G20 summit hosted by India on Wednesday

Back, but through interposed screens. Russian President Vladimir Putin, who skipped the meeting of G20 leaders in September in India, will participate by videoconference in the virtual summit of the Group of Twenty scheduled for Wednesday, Russian state television announced on Sunday September 19. “Vladimir Putin will participate in the virtual G20 summit”, reported the Vesti television channel in a press release which specifies the Russian president’s program this week. However, the channel did not specify in what format the Russian leader would take part.

In September, for the second year in a row, Vladimir Putin did not respond favorably to the invitation to physically represent Russia at the G20 summit, while the leader was ostracized from the international scene for the assault on his army in Ukraine in February 2022. Targeted by an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court, which accuses him of war crimes for the deportation of Ukrainian children, which Moscow denies, the Russian head of state had also let his Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov, represent him at the BRICS summit in South Africa in August.

Very rare trips since the pandemic

Since the Covid-19 pandemic, and even more so since the start of the conflict in Ukraine, Vladimir Putin very rarely travels abroad, as in China in October, where he spoke with Xi Jinping, his ally for counter what they present together as American hegemony. At the beginning of October, the Russian president assured that he would not physically go to international summits so as not to “cause trouble” to the organizers.

India, which is organizing the virtual G20 summit on Wednesday, holds the presidency of the Group of Twenty until the end of November. New Delhi holds close historical ties with Moscow, with Russia remaining India’s largest arms supplier.