Polish president “doesn’t like” Trump inviting Putin to G20 but will still attend summit

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Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and is published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.

Polish President Karol Nawrocki “does not like” the fact that the Trump administration has invited Vladimir Putin to this year’s G20 summit in the United States, says his chief foreign policy aide.

However, Nawrocki, who is a close ally of Donald Trump, still plans to attend the event – which Poland has been invited to as a guest rather than a full G20 member – in order to represent Polish interests and push for full membership of the group.

The G20, a major intergovernmental forum, holds an annual summit whose location rotates among members. This year’s event will take place in December at a golf resort in Miami owned by Trump.

On Wednesday this week, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced that Trump has invited Putin to attend the summit, saying that “we think it’s an opportunity for him to engage…with other world leaders” and “we hope that’s an invitation he’ll accept”.

“If you only meet with people that you agree with, then these are very nice meetings but nothing happens,” added Rubio. “In order to solve problems, you have to meet with people that you disagree with or the people that you might have some issues with.”

Last December, Rubio also announced Poland’s invitation to the summit as a guest, saying that it would be “assuming its rightful place in the G20”. In May this year, the US also “expressed its strong support for Poland’s accession to the G20 as a permanent member”.

Poland will be represented by Nawrocki, who is a vocal critic of Putin and Russia, and is himself on a Russian wanted list for his work leading efforts to demolish Soviet-era monuments in Poland.

In an interview on Sunday with news website Wirtualna Polska, the head of Nawrocki’s international policy office, Marcin Przydacz, was asked if the US was right to invite Putin. “We don’t like it,” he replied.

“But we were invited to the G20 summit as guests, and it’s not our role to tell the participants who should be part of it,” he added, noting that Russia is a founding member of the G20. However, “if it were up to us, Russia should be isolated in all international forums.”

Nevertheless, “President [Nawrocki] is going to Miami and doesn’t intend to change his plans at this stage”, confirmed Przydacz. “Poland will be at the G20 summit because it’s in our interest…This isn’t the only format in which we sit with countries we disagree with.”

However, he also added that, “if the Russian leader actually intends to come, and is not just invited, we will discuss this with our European and Euro-Atlantic allies”.

Putin has not attended a G20 summit in person since 2019, initially due to the COVID-19 pandemic and later amid the fallout from Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and the International Criminal Court’s arrest warrant against him. The US is not a member of the ICC, so the arrest warrant does not apply on its territory.

Przydacz told Wirtualna Polska that Putin “should be held accountable for his crimes”. Asked if Nawrocki would shake hands with the Russian president at the G20, Przydacz said that he “doesn’t think any interactions will occur”.

He also emphasised that Poland’s invitation to the summit was a “major success, demonstrating our growing role”. He said that Nawrocki would use the event to push its ambition to become a full member of the group.

He added that it would also seek to “bring a Central European perspective” to the event, representing its entire region, which has so far been excluded from the G20.

Earlier this week, Polish foreign minister Radosław Sikorski said that, in his opinion, the US should make Putin’s invitation to the G20 conditional upon Russia implementing a ceasefire in Ukraine, reported news website Interia.

However, he noted that, when a G20 meeting of finance ministers took place in the US earlier this year, Poland had attended alongside Russia.

Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Poland has been one of Kyiv’s closest allies, providing extensive military, humanitarian and diplomatic support to its eastern neighbour.

Poland has also been one of the primary targets of Russia’s hybrid actions against European countries, including airspace violations, acts of sabotage, cyberattacks and disinformation.

Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.

Main image credit: Mikołaj Bujak/KPRP and Russian Presidential Office/Wikimedia Commons (under CC BY 4.0)

Daniel Tilles

Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.