Russian President Vladimir Putin, who will not participate in the meeting of the leaders of the Group of Twenty (G20) at the end of the week, it will not intervene even via video conference, the Kremlin said today.

“No, that’s not planned,” his spokesman replied Dmitri Peskov to a journalist’s question for any speech that will be broadcast remotely. “All the work will be done by Foreign Minister” Sergei Lavrov, he added.

For the second year in a row, Vladimir Putin has not responded positively to the invitation to represent Russia at this date, which this year will take place on Saturday and Sunday in India, a country with which Russia maintains rather cordial relations.

Last year, it was held in Bali, Indonesia.

The Russian head of state, who has an arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court accusing him of war crimes over the transfer of children from Ukraine to Russia, was represented by the foreign minister and at the BRICS summit in South Africa on last month.

Kremlin calls Hague charges ‘invalid’ and, in any case, India is not a member of the ICC.

Much to Washington’s chagrin, New Delhi refused to isolate Russia after the invasion of Ukraine because of its close historical ties with Moscow. Russia remains India’s most important arms supplier.

The G20, whose summit Chinese President Xi Jinping will not attend either, is made up of 19 countries and the European Union, which alone account for around 8% of global GDP.