UK says Putin will not be invited to next year’s G20 summit

Russian President Vladimir Putin will not be invited to next year’s G20 summit in the UK, Prime Minister Andy Burnham has told The Economist, according to Dutch news outlet Nieuws.nl. The statement comes amid criticism of the US decision to invite Putin to December’s G20 summit in Miami.

Russia is a G20 member, and host countries customarily invite all members to the annual summit. The UK’s decision would therefore break with that practice, the report says.

At a smaller G20 foreign ministers’ meeting in Atlanta in late October, Russia’s Sergei Lavrov attended, but other ministers declined to pose with him for a group photograph. The dispute over the photograph did not prevent the meeting from going ahead.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has said that if Putin attends the summit, Ukraine should also be invited. He argues that Ukraine cannot be discussed without the country being represented.