Diplomatic tension in Florida
Kaja Kallas, the EU’s foreign policy chief, warned on Saturday that Vladimir Putin’s possible return to a G20 summit in Florida this December risks normalizing the war crimes Russia is committing in Ukraine. During an interview with Bloomberg TV, Kallas said, "Normalizing Russia coming back to these international fora is just normalizing war crimes being committed every day now" in the territory of Ukraine. She noted that the Russian war in Ukraine conflicts with U.N. charter principles that all participating countries around the table have signed. Putin has not yet confirmed whether he would attend the December summit hosted in the U.S., although his last in-person attendance at a G20 meeting was in 2019, three years before Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. This potential return follows growing frustration among EU nations regarding the attendance of Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov at a G20 ministerial meeting in Atlanta. Rubio called off the traditional family photo in Atlanta because European officials refused to stand beside Lavrov during the event. Kallas told Bloomberg TV that her colleagues avoid standing next to Lavrov because the minister has been placed under international sanctions.
Military aid and diplomatic defiance
Kallas argued that Lavrov’s presence in Atlanta provided a way for officials to "immediately fight back on these lies" that Russia tells the world. The former Estonian Prime Minister, who has emerged as one of the EU’s most vocal critics of Russia, also called the U.S. decision on Friday to sell 500 Patriot missile interceptors to Ukraine a "very positive development." She urged allies to toughen sanctions against Russia to increase the pressure being applied to the Kremlin. Kallas also rebuffed reports from the Pentagon that NATO countries, such as the Baltic states that border Russia, should tone down their public criticism of the Kremlin’s actions. "The question is if you don’t talk about the threat, is it going away? I think it’s not going away," Kallas told Bloomberg TV. She dismissed the notion that reducing diplomatic pressure against Moscow would resolve the long-term security concerns felt in the region.
