Russian President Vladimir Putin will not attend the G20 summit of world leaders in Bali next week. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov will lead the Russian delegation to the summit, the first gathering of leaders of the world’s biggest economies since Putin launched his war in Ukraine. Moscow’s embassy in Indonesia told AFP news agency that Putin’s schedule was “still under review” and the Russian leader could attend the summit virtually. An Indonesian government official earlier told Reuters news agency that Lavrov would represent Putin and the Russian president would actually attend one of the summit meetings. Indonesian President Joko Widodo earlier this week told the Financial Times that he had a “strong impression” that the Russian leader would skip the gathering. The G20 summit, attended by the leaders of 19 countries and the European Union, is expected to be dominated by the fallout from the war in Ukraine, which has fueled global food and fuel shortages. Indonesia, the summit host, has rejected calls from Western countries and Ukraine to exclude Russia, pledging to maintain neutrality and stressing the potential for cooperation on food and energy security. Widodo lamented the geopolitical tensions surrounding the summit, which he said was supposed to focus on economic development and was “not meant to be a political forum.” At the United Nations General Assembly last month, 16 G20 members supported a resolution condemning Moscow’s attempted annexation of four regions of eastern Ukraine. G20 members China, India and South Africa abstained from the vote, while the European Union is not represented on the UN body. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who has also been invited to the summit, previously said he would not attend if Putin attended the gathering. Chinese President Xi Jinping and United States President Joe Biden are among the world leaders expected to travel to the gathering.
