Russia has responded to the Trump administration’s invitation to join the G20 summit in Miami scheduled to hold in December.
On Wednesday, the US Secretary of State Marco Rubio extended an invitation on the behalf of President Trump to Russian President Vladimir Putin to a G20 meeting in Miami, Florida where he could also hold a summit with Trump.
“We’ve invited President Putin to the G20. We think it’s an opportunity for him to engage not just with the president but with other world leaders. We hope that’s an invitation he’ll accept,” Rubio said.
In response, Russia expressed appreciation for the invitation while adding that the Kremlin will consider accepting the invitation.
According to Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov and reported by TASS news agency, “Yes, we saw the statement, and we appreciate the invitation. It will certainly be considered, and at the appropriate time, we will discuss with our American counterparts through the relevant channels the possibility of accepting the invitation.”
Earlier Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov met with Marco Rubio on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly. During the discussions, the US signalled openness to engaging with Russia on the war in Ukraine despite stalled efforts to bring an end to the conflict. Prior to the meeting, Peskov affirmed that Russia’s position on Ukraine peace talks will remain unchanged. The country is still open to peace talks but no such grounds are imminent for now.
He also raised the possibility of a Putin-Trump one-on-one meeting if both leaders considered such a meeting necessary. For such a possibility of meeting to occur, Zelenskyy would need to come to Moscow, an idea that Kyiv repeatedly rejected as unacceptable while suggesting that such talks should be held in a neutral country.
Earlier this month, the Trump administration initiated an effort to resume peace talks between Moscow and Kyiv by sending envoys to both countries. But no tangible breakthrough had been achieved. Putin and Trump met in Anchorage, Alaska in August last year, but Putin has not visited the lower 48 states since before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
