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Russia’s ambassador to Indonesia Lyudmila Vorobieva recently announced that President Vladimir Putin will attend the 17th Group of 20 (G20) summit to be hosted in Bali, Indonesia on October 30. Although Vorobieva gave not much detail on the plan, it is a decision that has raised a lot of interest.

With the announcement, Putin has also taken the moral high ground in the Russia-Ukraine conflict. By October, it is expected that G20 members will have assessed the situation critically and will discuss the issue. Addressing a captive audience of global leaders at the G20 will be a diplomatic victory for Putin.

Ukraine Presdent Volodymyr Zelensky’s persuasive speeches to Western Parliaments could be seen in the light of Putin’s expected visit. He has used these opportunities to put his case across and poison the waters in the run up to the G20 meeting. 

Putin’s agenda on his Ukraine offensive is bound to change a couple of times as the fluid situation continues flowing. However, there is the bigger agenda that he will push through. He will definitely condemn moves like the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO’s) covert eastern encroachment towards Russia. While countries have the right to decide the kind of geopolitical blocs they would like to join, they must also take into consideration certain pertinent factors that would make this untenable.

Ukraine understands very well the undercurrents between Russia and NATO over the years. Therefore, there was need for the country to consult its neighbor of its long held intentions and consider Russia’s feelings. May be Russia would have given some preconditions for such a relationship.

Still, Putin must be cognisant of the fact that he will be putting his point across in front of various allegiances and interests. But while the G20 comprises an assortment of countries from all corners of the world, it is top heavy with the Group of 7 (G7) – the most powerful countries led by the US, the European Union and the United Kingdom.

As the core of the Western world, the G7 has generally been Russia’s ideological antagonists. Moreover, the G7 also hold sway in NATO, which is one of the main issues that has unsettled Putin.

Unsurprisingly, Western leaders led by US President Joe Biden and Australia’s Prime Minister Scott Morrison, have expressed their unreserved opposition to the invitation, with Morrison saying this would be would be “a step too far”.

It would not be surprising either if some of these countries start withdrawing their participation if Putin is on the final list of attendees. The Russian President is, therefore, aware of the massive opposition that awaits him during the October meeting. But he has no choice. He has to face them, and let them get his case straight from his mouth.

In terms of venue, Putin is in luck. Russia and Indonesia have shared cordial diplomatic relations between Moscow and Jakarta since 1950 during the era of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Putin also met his Indonesian counterpart Joko Widodo during the latter’s visit to Moscow in May 2016. Amid hostility from the West, the two countries have also established close trade and military ties.

While Widodo expressed his opposition to the Russia-Ukraine war as a matter of course, it would be foolhardy of him to break the close bond between the two countries.

Indeed, he has refused to join the bandwagon of slapping sanctions against both Moscow and the so called oligarchs for the sake of expediency. Moreover, if posts on social media are anything to go by, majority of Indonesian citizens are also on Putin’s side in the war.

Isolating Putin from the 2022 G20 meeting will be self-defeatist. It will also expose the double standards that has divided the world down the middle and threatening to create  nother cold war.