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Putin ‘wants’ to attend G20 summit despite potential boycott
Indonesia is caught between welcoming Russian leader Vladimir Putin at the G20 Summit later this year and risking a boycott from other G20 members.
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Russian President Vladimir Putin (right) holds a bilateral meeting with Indonesia's President Joko Widodo on the sidelines of the ASEAN-Russia summit in Singapore on November 14, 2018. (AFP/Alexey Druzhinin)
Russian President Vladimir Putin intends to come to Bali for the Group of 20 (G20) Summit hosted by Indonesia later this year, the nation’s envoy in Jakarta proclaimed on Wednesday, despite growing calls from the West to kick Moscow out of the global economic forum over its ruinous war in Ukraine.
Russia sent one of its biggest deployment of troops into Ukraine on Feb. 24 in what it called a “special operation” to chip away at its neighbor’s military capabilities and root out people it said were dangerous nationalists. But Ukrainian forces have mounted stiff resistance against Moscow, followed by sweeping sanctions by the West and its allies in a bid to force Putin’s hand to retreat.
This has put first-time G20 president Indonesia in the difficult position of welcoming an increasingly isolated leader who ordered the widely criticized invasion, which has pushed global economic recovery from COVID-19 back to the brink of uncertainty, potentially taking the focus away from Jakarta’s own priorities for the club of the world’s largest economies.
Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, Russian Ambassador to Indonesia Lyudmila Vorobieva underlined the fact that Russia was still invited to the G20 Summit despite “horrible pressure” from Western countries, and said its delegation would continue to participate in various events in the lead-up to the highly anticipated meeting.
“It will depend on many things including the [improving] COVID-19 situation, but so far, yes [...] he wants to come,” Vorobieva said in response to a question from the press.
Jakarta and Moscow have been preparing for Putin’s visit to Indonesia for years, as he has yet to reciprocate President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo’s visit to Sochi in 2016. His last visit to Indonesia was during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Summit in Bali in 2013.
The two sides had also planned to cohost the biggest Russian trade exhibition to take place beyond its borders, which would have been part of Indonesia’s G20 agenda this month if it had not been postponed again.
