The Kremlin said on Thursday that Russian President Vladimir Putin does not intend to deliver a video message at the upcoming G20 conference in New Delhi this weekend.
The crisis in Ukraine has produced tense relations between Moscow and the West, which led to significant tensions during the summit in Bali last year.
Dmitry Peskov, a spokesman for the Kremlin, responded when asked if Putin will deliver a separate video speech, “No, there are no plans.”
Sergei Lavrov, the foreign minister of Russia and the head of the team, will be in charge of “all the work,” he claimed.
A disagreement about whether South Africa would be required to detain Putin in accordance with an International Criminal Court warrant led to Lavrov’s representation of Russia at the BRICS meeting in Johannesburg in August.
Putin eventually delivered a speech via video link in which he attributed the turmoil in Ukraine to the West.
Some Western countries, who have attempted to paint Putin as a pariah over Moscow’s activities in Ukraine, have taken offense at Putin’s invitation to international meetings.
Any deals reached at the two-day meeting in New Delhi are likely to be hampered by intense differences about the conflict, the phase-out of fossil fuels, and debt restructuring.
At a time when tensions are high with both the United States and India, with whom it shares a disputed border, China’s Xi Jinping, president of the second-largest economy in the world, will also be absent from the conference.
