Putin won't attend G20 summit, Russian retreat from Kherson deemed a 'military failure'

Russian President Vladimir Putin will not attend the Group of 20 summit in Indonesia next week, an Indonesian government official said Thursday, avoiding a possible confrontation with the United States and its allies over his war in Ukraine.

Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan, the chief of support for G20 events, said Putin's decision not to come was "the best for all of us."

U.S. President Joe Biden, Chinese President Xi Jinping and other world leaders, including Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, are to attend the two-day summit that starts Nov. 15. The summit would have been the first time Biden and Putin were together at a gathering since Russia invaded Ukraine in February.

Indonesian President Joko Widodo is hosting the event on the island of Bali.

"It has been officially informed that Russia's President Vladimir Putin will not attend the G20 summit, and will be represented by a high-level official, and this has been discussed by President Joko Widodo and Putin in previous telephone conversations," Pandjaitan said after meeting security officials in Denpasar, the capital of Bali.

"Whatever happens with Russia's decision, it is for our common good and the best for all of us."

Pandjaitan said earlier that Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov will lead the Russian delegation.

Pandjaitan did not know why Putin decided not to come but said "maybe it's because President Putin is busy at home, and we also have to respect that." Pandjaitan confirmed the same reasons may be keeping Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at home as well.

Kherson retreat 'a full military failure': Russian analyst

Widodo earlier this year travelled to Kyiv and Moscow in an effort to get the two leaders to sit down in Bali and make peace.

The G20 is the biggest of three summits being held in Southeast Asia this week and next, and it remained unclear if Lavrov will represent Russia at all of them. The Association of Southeast Asian Nations summit began Thursday in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, followed by the G20 and then the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation (APEC) summit in Bangkok, Thailand.

Biden had ruled out meeting with Putin if he had attended the summit, and said the only conversation he could have possibly had with the Russian leader would be to discuss a deal to free Americans imprisoned in Russia.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly are expected to attend the G20, ASEAN and APEC summits.

WATCH | Some in Ukraine fear Russian withdrawl could be trap: 

Russia withdraws troops from Kherson region, its only captured Ukrainian capital

2 years ago

Duration 1:59

Russia has announced a withdrawal from the capital of the Kherson region of Ukraine, and a retreat across the Dnipro river, which would signal a major defeat. But some Ukrainian soldiers and officials are warning the world not to take Russia at its word.

Putin's decision not to attend the G20 comes as Russia's forces in Ukraine have suffered significant setbacks. Russia's military said it will withdraw from Kherson, which is the only Ukrainian regional capital it captured and a gateway to the Russian-occupied Crimean Peninsula.

Sergey Markov, a Russian political scientist who has previously advised Putin, told CBC News he was stunned by the development on the one hand, but not surprised in another sense given how the invasion has unfolded.

"The withdrawal of Russian troops from Kherson is just a full military failure because the Russian army was not able to protect the city," he said.

Markov questioned the decision to wait until September to conscript more Russians for the war, referring to the partial mobilization that Putin announced. But he said he doubts there was a groundswell of dissent in Russia that threatens Putin's authority.

"We understand now that probably we'll have to change our normal life and to start a real war instead of special military operation," he said, referring to the term the Kremlin has used to describe the invasion.

On Thursday, Ukraine's armed forces commander-in-chief, Valeriy Zaluzhny, said that "the enemy had no other choice but to resort to fleeing," since Kyiv's army has "destroyed logistical routes and supply system, disrupted the system of the enemy's military command" in the area.

Still, he said that the Ukrainian military could not confirm or deny that Russian forces were indeed withdrawing from Kherson as the Russian Defence Ministry reported Thursday. The ministry said there was a "manoeuvre of units of the Russian group" to the opposite side of the Dnipro River from where Kherson lies.

Presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak alleged Russian forces had laid mines throughout Kherson on their way out.

U.S. gives new estimate of heavy Russian losses

Russia's announced retreat from Kherson along with a potential stalemate in fighting over the winter could provide both countries an opportunity to negotiate peace, Army Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Wednesday.

He said as many as 40,000 Ukrainian civilians and "well over" 100,000 Russian soldiers have been killed or wounded in the war, now in its ninth month. "Same thing probably on the Ukrainian side," Milley said.

Meanwhile, the head of Ukraine's eastern Donetsk region, Pavlo Kyrylenko, said Thursday that three civilians had been killed in the region and another 12 wounded in the last 24 hours. Russian shelling was reported overnight in the city of Nikopol and in the neighbouring Zaporizhzhia region.