EU to condemn war in Ukraine at G20 even if Putin attends

Putin has been formally invited to the G20 summit in Miami in mid-December [FILE: September 2025]Image: Alex Brandon/AP Photo/picture allianceAdvertisementThe European Union said on Thursday that it would continue to condemn Russia's war in Ukraine at the G20 summit in Miami scheduled for December.

It said that it would do this regardless of whether Russian President Vladimir Putin attends after being invited by this year's hosting country, the United States. The Kremlin has said that Putin would "consider" Washington's invitation.

The Russian leader did not attend the G20 summit in 2023 in New Delhi, India and the 2022 summit on the Indonesian island of Bali despite being formally invited by the hosting countries.

Also on Thursday, eight people were killed in a wave of Russian strikes on Ukraine.

The EU said it would continue calling for an end to the war in Ukraine.

"Since 2022, the EU has consistently and forcefully used G20 meetings to condemn Russia's full-scale invasion [of Ukraine] and to call for it to end," EU spokesman Olof Gill said.

"What I can say today is that this approach, from the European Union perspective, will continue, irrespective of the participants at any G20 meeting."

Gill said that Russia remained a member of the G20 group and that it had "the right to participate" in its meetings.

Both the European Union itself and three of its individual member states — France, Germany, and Italy — are members of the G20 group.

Ukraine's allies — including G20 members France, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom and Canada — have called for Russia's exclusion from the group since Moscow launched its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced that Washington was inviting Putin after his meeting with his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York.

"We think it's an opportunity for him to engage not just with [US President Donald Trump], but with other world leaders," Rubio said on Wednesday. "We hope that's an invitation he'll accept."

Putin's last visit to the United States was to attend a summit meeting with Trump in Anchorage, Alaska in August 15, 2025, also marking his first visit to a Western country since the start of the war in Ukraine.

At least six agricultural workers were killed and 12 others were wounded in a strike on the northeastern Ukrainian region of Kharkiv, Interior Minister Ihor Vyhivskyi said.

The regional prosecutor's office published images showing the inside of a destroyed warehouse following the attack.

Ukrainian authorities said that the warehouse had been hit by a small-sized cruise missile of the "Banderol" type.

Meanwhile, at least two people were killed across the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, Prime Minsiter Serhiy Koretsky said.

Strikes were also recorded in and around the southwestern port city of Odesa, with officials reporting they sparked a fire at a shopping mall.

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