U.S. President Joe Biden and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin may cross paths during the G-20 summit in Indonesia next month, and the White House is doing everything possible to avoid this scenario.
What Happened: The U.S. has already ruled out any formal meetings between the two leaders and is ensuring that Biden does not encounter Putin in a hallway or even in a leaders’ group photo, reported Politico.
However, the officials have not ruled out the possibility of the two leaders crossing paths at some point during the summit to attend the same large plenary gathering, the report said, citing officials.
This would be the first face-off between Putin and Biden since Moscow invaded Kyiv on Feb. 24.
This came after Biden, last week, left the door open for diplomacy with the Kremlin to end the war in Ukraine. Biden said, “Look, I have no intention of meeting with him, but look, if he came to me at the G20 and said, 'I want to talk about the release of Griner,' I would meet with him, but that would depend."
“We know what President Biden thinks about President Putin: he thinks he’s a killer, he thinks he’s a war criminal,” former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine William Taylor told the publication. “You don’t usually meet with killers and war criminals.”
Biden’s Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping will also be attending the G-20 summit, and the officials have been quietly working on setting up a meeting between the leaders.
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