The United States has invited Vladimir Putin to take part in the G20 scheduled in Miami in December in what would be the first major summit with the Russian leader present since he launched his invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
The invitation, which marks a significant reversal by the Trump administration of Russia’s international isolation, was announced by secretary of state Marco Rubio during a press conference on the sidelines of the United Nations conference in New York.
“We’ve invited President Putin to the G20,” Rubio said in a televised press conference following a meeting with Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov. “We think it’s an opportunity for him to engage not just with [Trump] but with other world leaders. We hope that’s an invitation he’ll accept.”
The Kremlin has not yet responded publicly to the invitation, which is likely to raise concerns from Ukraine and other European leaders who have recently accused Russia of launching hybrid attacks to disrupt logistics and spread political uncertainty among Kyiv’s allies.
Russia remains a member of the G20 but Putin has not attended a summit of the body since 2019. He did attend one session virtually in 2023. The December summit is set to take place at the Trump National Doral golf club.
Rubio framed the invitation by saying that Trump was willing to meet with “virtually anyone” and that “in order to solve problems, you have to meet with people you disagree with”. He said Trump remained open to meeting with Putin one-on-one in other forums, if “there’s a purpose behind the meeting”.
The G20 is a forum of the world’s largest economies and includes the European Union, China, India, the United States, the United Kingdom, and other major countries.
European officials were upset by a decision to invite Russian finance minister Anton Siluanov to a meeting of the group’s top economic officials in August and refused to pose in a “family photo” with him at the summit.
Zelenskyy had said earlier this month that he would be ready to travel to the summit and would meet with Putin if he attended.
“We have to come. We have to meet, to speak and make decisions,” he told German broadcaster Deutsche Welle in an interview. “It’s not about words. What I will tell him or what he wants to tell me, it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter. […] Results matter. That’s it.”
The invitation comes shortly before Zelenskyy is expected to address the United Nations on Wednesday in which he is likely to seek to galvanize public opinion to maintain pressure on Russia to end its war against Ukraine.
Rubio on Wednesday also indicated that he had spoken with Lavrov about the accusations of “hybrid attacks” in Europe, saying that one concern about the war was that “it could metastasize and spread into other places”.
Trump is currently seeking to negotiate a partial ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine that would include attacks on Russian oil refineries in order to take pressure off of global energy prices.
In particular, Trump has called on Zelenskyy to halt attacks against Russian oil in order to reduce prices on diesel fuel, which have spiked to almost double of their price last year in the United States ahead of midterm elections for Congress.
Trump and Zelenskyy met on the sidelines of the United Nations on Tuesday for a rare face-to-face discussion of measures to end the war. Zelenskyy called for a trilateral meeting with Trump and Putin to end the war, but the Kremlin has declined past attempts for direct meetings with Zelenskyy.
“President Trump, our teams, and I spoke about how to end the war. This is the priority. We are ready. I’m not sure Russia is ready as of today, but anyhow, we spoke about an energy ceasefire,” Zelenskyy said on Tuesday.
Despite efforts to broker a ceasefire, however, Russia has continued to pummel Kyiv and other major Ukrainian cities with drone and missile attacks. Kyiv hit a major Russian oil refinery over the weekend in its largest attack on Russia’s capital yet.
For the past two days, Kyiv has come under particularly severe attack from jet-powered Shahed drones – swifter and harder to intercept than their predecessors. As has been the case since mid-August, the drone attacks have come in the daytime as well as at night, disrupting ordinary life, schools and kindergartens.
On Wednesday morning an acrid stench of burning filled the city centre after multiple explosions, and the clear autumnal sky was clouded with plumes of black smoke.
A petrol station, warehouses, a business centre and a transport infrastructure building were hit, according to Kyiv’s mayor, Vitali Klitschko. As of mid-morning, one person had died and eight had been injured. Explosions were seen near the capital’s main railway station.
Congress last week passed a sweeping sanctions bill against Russia that would also give Trump the authority to levy 100% tariffs against top purchasers of Russian energy exports, including China and India. Democrats, who mostly opposed the bill, said that it gave Trump too much power to levy tariffs and that they could be used against US allies as well.
In response to what has happened, the House foreign affairs committee posted on X: “Trump signed the Russia sanctions bill 5 days ago. Today Rubio makes clear the administration has no intention of isolating Russia for its war of aggression in Ukraine.”
Charlotte Higgins contributed reporting from Kyiv
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: theguardian.com
