The United States said Friday that the world cannot deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin as before after Indonesia invited him — as well as Ukraine’s leader Volodymyr Zelensky — to November’s Group of 20 summit.
President Joe Biden “has expressed publicly his opposition to President Putin attending the G20. We have welcomed the Ukrainians attending,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters.
“We have conveyed our view that we don’t think they should be a part of it publicly and privately,” she said.
She indicated that the United States was in touch with the Indonesians and that the invitation to Russia came before its invasion of Ukraine.
State Department spokeswoman Jalina Porter said separately that the United States did not believe it could be “business as usual” with Russia on the international stage.
She did not comment on whether the United States would still attend the summit on the resort island of Bali.
Russia, unlike Ukraine, is a member of the Group of 20 which is made up of the world’s largest economies.
Indonesian President Joko Widodo suggested that the invitation to Zelensky was a compromise following Western-led calls not to invite Putin.
