Russia will send officials to a G20 energy meeting in Houston next week, a Russian diplomat said on Saturday (September 12, 2026), as the United States ups efforts to end the Ukraine conflict.
The United States holds this year’s presidency of the Group of 20 major economies, which comprises 19 countries plus the European Union and the African Union, and culminates in a leaders’ summit in Miami in December.. The body was established in the wake of the 1997-1998 Asian financial crisis to boost global economic and financial stability. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he would be willing to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin at the G20 summit in December, in an interview released Saturday (September 12, 2026), as efforts intensify to end the conflict.
It comes after the United States welcomed Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov to North Carolina for another G20 meeting in early September, causing discomfort among Ukraine’s European allies. Siluanov’s presence at the Asheville meeting of finance ministers caused Ukraine’s Western allies. Days after the Asheville meeting, U.S. President Donald Trump sent his envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner to Moscow and Kyiv for talks on ending the fighting.
“Russian ideas are becoming increasingly sought after regarding flexible energy mixes, technological neutrality, the role of fossil fuels in general and of natural gas and peaceful nuclear energy in particular,” he said. The announcement follows the “discomfort”, as Canadian Finance Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne put it in an interview with AFP , Mr. “We do not think now is the time to normalise Russia” or its presence at such talks, EU economy chief Valdis Dombrovskis said.
