Marco Rubio said that Washington considers Putin’s participation in the G20 summit a good opportunity for him to engage not only with Donald Trump, but also with other world leaders. Putin has not attended G20 summits since 2019.
The day before, Trump doubted that the Russian president would come to Miami, but allowed for another in-person meeting with him. Rubio clarified that this idea has not yet been discussed.
Putin and Trump have not met since the summit in Anchorage, Alaska, in August 2025, which focused on ending the war in Ukraine.
The day before, sources close to the Kremlin told Bloomberg that Putin intends to skip the G20 summit in the USA and estimated the likelihood of his trip as extremely low. According to them, instead he plans to travel to China for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit, which will be held on November 18–19 under the leadership of Chinese President Xi Jinping.
Bloomberg also reported that Putin is trying to avoid multilateral forums where there is a risk of crossing paths with Kyiv’s European allies, as well as with the leaders of Canada, Japan, South Korea, and Australia. According to the agency, the Kremlin fears the appearance at the G20 of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who had proposed that Putin hold bilateral talks on ending the war as part of the event.
In early autumn, Russian presidential aide Yury Ushakov said that Putin and Xi Jinping discussed the possibility of a trilateral meeting with Trump on the sidelines of the APEC summit. The realization of this plan, he said, will depend on whether the American leader travels to China. On September 23, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said that Putin is ready for a new in-person meeting with Trump, but there are still no specifics on this issue. In early September, Trump also said that he was ready to hold a new meeting with Putin, but would like to do so after a deal on Ukraine.
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