Russian President Vladimir Putin Won’t Attend G20 India Summit In Person: Kremlin

Moscow: Russian President Vladimir Putin is not planning to attend 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. Putin had also skipped the recent summit of BRICS countries in South Africa and addressed the gathering via video link. India holds the G20 Presidency this year and the G-20 Summit will be held from September 8-10 in New Delhi. The summit will have distinguished guests from all over the world.

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. The International Criminal Court (ICC) had earlier in March issued an arrest warrant for Putin and another Russian official.

The warrant is believed to be one of the first charges against Putin for war crimes in Ukraine, part of a global effort to hold the Russian president and the Russian Federation accountable for atrocities beginning with the full-scale February 2022 invasion. Putin has been accused of alleged war crimes.

The warrant cites him and Maria Alekseyevna Lvova-Belova, commissioner for children's rights in the Office of the President of the Russian Federation, for the forced deportation of Ukrainian children from Russian-occupied territory to Russia. The Kremlin has however refuted the allegations, noting it does not cooperate with the ICC.

On February 24, 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine in an escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian War which began in 2014. The invasion has killed tens of thousands on both sides. Russian forces have been accused of mass civilian casualties and of torturing captured Ukrainian soldiers. 

Earlier in July, Russia withdrew from the Black Sea Grain initiative, an agreement that had permitted Ukraine to export grain from its Black Sea ports a year ago, despite the war, to help alleviate a global food crisis.