United States

The United States, September 24, 2026. Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced on Wednesday that Vladimir Putin was invited to the G20 summit scheduled for December in Miami, just hours after meeting his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York. "To solve problems, you have to meet with people you don't agree with," Rubio justified, presenting the summit as an opportunity for the Russian president to exchange with Donald Trump and other leaders, without a meeting being set. The Kremlin, through Dmitry Peskov, said it was "grateful" for the invitation, specifying that it would be handled through diplomatic channels.

The announcement comes in a busy week for Trump's personal diplomacy. Received at the White House the day before, Volodymyr Zelensky asked the American president to organize a trilateral meeting with Putin, judging that it is necessary to move "as quickly as possible" to end the war. According to Zelensky, the two sides discussed an energy truce: Kyiv is ready to stop its strikes on Russian refineries if Moscow renounces targeting Ukrainian energy, electrical, and hydraulic infrastructure in return. "I think the most important move President Trump can make – he can organize a trilateral meeting where the leaders can raise all the sensitive issues and try to end the war," Zelensky summarized, quoted by CNBC. Rubio said he was confident that such a pause, also covering grain deliveries, was achievable.

The American press is also relaying Zelensky's warning, who judged the risk of Russia attacking a European border country to be "very high", seeing it as an attempt by Moscow to divide the continent's unity to weaken support for Kyiv. At the UN, where nearly 130 heads of state spoke, Putin did not make the trip — Lavrov represented Moscow, while Trump received Xi Jinping for a separate summit in Washington on the same day.

For the US capital, the December invitation is seen less as a concession than as a demonstration of method: multiplying channels — Kyiv, Moscow, Beijing — rather than waiting for a settlement prior to any meeting. It remains to be seen whether the energy truce mentioned by Rubio and Zelensky, or the Trump-Putin meeting itself, will come to fruition before Miami.