Russian President Putin Not Attending G20 Summit In India

Russian President Vladimir Putin will be not attending the G20 Summit in India next month, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told Russian media on Thursday.

The main emphasis now is a special military operation, the Kremlin spokesperson said. The summit will be held from September 9 to 10.

The event will be attended by many heads of state including US President Joe Biden, Chinese Premier Xi Jinping, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and French President Emmanuel Macron.

It has to be noted that Putin did not attend the summit of BRICS countries in South Africa and addressed the gathering via video link.

The G20, or Group of Twenty, is an intergovernmental forum of the world's 20 major developed and developing economies, making it the premier forum for international economic cooperation.

In March, the International Criminal Court (ICC) had issued an arrest warrant against Putin. This warrant is over alleged war crimes committed during the Ukraine conflict. It is part of a worldwide initiative aiming to ensure that both the Russian president and the Russian Federation are held responsible for the acts of brutality stemming from the extensive invasion that commenced in February 2022.

The warrant mentions him and Maria Alekseyevna Lvova-Belova, who serves as the commissioner for children's rights in the Office of the President of the Russian Federation. They are accused of orchestrating the compelled relocation of Ukrainian children from Russian-occupied regions to Russia.

The Kremlin has however refuted the allegations, noting it does not cooperate with the ICC.