Putin not likely to travel to India to attend G20 summit, says Kremlin

Russian President Vladimir Putin will not personally attend the G20 summit in New Delhi in September, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov announced on Friday (25 August).

"No, the president has no such plans,” the official Tass news agency quoted the Kremlin spokesman as saying.

The format of Putin’s participation would be determined later, Peskov further confirmed.

Putin also did not fly to Indonesia for the G20 summit last year.

The recently concluded BRICS Summit in Johannesburg, South Africa, also saw the absence of the Russian president, who opted to deliver a video message instead. Sergey Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, represented the country in person at the summit.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) has issued arrests warrants in March for Putin and Russia's children commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova, accusing them of illegally deporting hundreds of children from Ukraine.

The Kremlin strenuously denies the accusations. Russia, which is not a member of the ICC, insists the warrant against Putin is "void".

However, the warrant means that the Russian president risks arrest if he travels abroad despite warnings that this might be considered an act of war by Moscow.