Putin already knows where he will travel this fall — and where he almost certainly won't. On November 18-19, the Russian president will be in the Chinese city of Shenzhen for the APEC summit, but he is highly unlikely to show up at the G20 summit in Miami on December 14-15. The reason isn't scheduling — it's one specific person: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. On September 12, Zelensky said he is ready to personally sit down with Putin, provided the Russian president comes to Florida.
"Yes, of course. We need to go. We need to meet, talk and make decisions," Zelensky told Germany's Deutsche Welle. If it happens, it would be the first meeting between the two leaders since December 2019, when they met in Paris in the Normandy format alongside the leaders of France and Germany.
The Kremlin slams the door shut
The Kremlin reacted quickly and bluntly. Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said a meeting in Miami is "impossible" and that the only location Moscow accepts is Moscow itself. In other words, Putin isn't just avoiding the G20 — he's specifically avoiding a scenario in which he'd have to sit across from the Ukrainian president on foreign soil.
According to Bloomberg, there's a broader calculation behind the decision as well. For years, Putin has steered clear of large multilateral forums where he risks coming face to face not only with Zelensky but also with Kyiv's Western allies — countries from Europe, plus Canada, Japan, South Korea and Australia. That's exactly the kind of company that will be gathered at the G20 in Miami. APEC is a different story — the host there is Xi Jinping, and the risk of an awkward encounter is minimal.
Putin's first APEC appearance since 2017
If Putin does travel to Shenzhen, it will be his first in-person appearance at an APEC summit since 2017 — and his most visible appearance on the world stage since Russia launched its full-scale war against Ukraine in 2022. Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov claims for now that the trip hasn't been officially discussed, but the direction is clear.
There's also a more practical reason for Putin to avoid certain countries: in 2023, the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for him over the unlawful deportation of Ukrainian children. China does not recognize the court's jurisdiction, so the trip to Shenzhen carries no such risk. Traveling to the United States for a gathering of the world's major economies, however, is out of the question — if for no other reason than his status as a wanted man under the court's warrant.
The host is Trump himself
The venue for the G20 also matters — the host is Donald Trump, and the summit will be held at his own golf resort, Trump National Doral, near Miami. The property, which Trump bought in 2012 for $150 million, has four golf courses, a spa and a ballroom spanning more than 24,000 square meters. Trump once already backed out of hosting a major international summit there — in 2020, amid criticism over a conflict of interest — but the White House now insists the resort is hosting the summit "at cost," with no profit involved.
For now, it's unclear whether the Russian president will confirm his attendance at the G20 at all — the December summit is still nearly three months away. But everything suggests that while Zelensky is ready to fly to Florida for a direct conversation, Putin prefers the safe stage in China to the risk of standing face to face with the man whose country he has been attacking for more than three years now.