WASHINGTON – The United States will invite Russian President Vladimir Putin to a G-20 summit in Miami, a US official said on April 23, but President Donald Trump said he doubted his counterpart would come.
The invitation would mark a major easing of international pressure on Mr Putin, who has been shunned by most of the West but not Mr Trump since ordering the 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
The United States is the 2026 host of the Group of 20 major economies and Mr Trump has promised a grandiose summit in December in his adopted home state of Florida.
“All G-20 members will be invited to attend ministerial meetings and the leaders’ summit,” a senior Trump administration official said in a statement.
Mr Trump, questioned later by a reporter, seemed unaware of any invitation.
“I don’t know that he’s coming. I doubt he’d come, to be honest with you,” Mr Trump said.
But he said he supported including Mr Putin, explaining: “If he came, it would be probably very helpful.”
He renewed criticism of former president Barack Obama for booting Russia out of the then G-8 – meant as a club for wealthy democracies – in response to an earlier, more limited invasion of Ukraine in 2014.
“President Putin, he was very offended by that – rightfully,” Mr Trump said.
Mr Trump welcomed Putin in August to Alaska, the first time the Russian leader stepped on Western soil since the invasion.
Since returning to the White House in 2025, Mr Trump has sought to revive long-frozen relations with Russia in a bid to end the war in Ukraine.
Initially promising to end the war in 24 hours, Mr Trump’s attempts so far have delivered few tangible results, even as Moscow and Kyiv met multiple times for talks.
Mr Trump has repeatedly pinned the blame on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for refusing to surrender territory to Russia.
The Kremlin said earlier in the day that Mr Putin had not yet decided if he would attend.
“No such decisions have been made yet,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in Moscow.
Russia was invited at “the highest level” for the Dec 14-15 summit in Miami, the state news agency RIA Novosti quoted Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Pankin as saying.
In 2023, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant for Mr Putin over the war, leading the Russian leader to avoid travel to countries that in theory would be obliged to arrest him.
The United States is not part of the ICC, which Mr Trump has actively opposed.
Mr Putin has not participated in a G=20 summit since 2019, first because of the coronavirus pandemic and then due to the war. AFP
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