Distaste for Russian diplomat forces US to cancel G-20 photo session

WASHINGTON – A US-hosted gathering of foreign ministers got off to an awkward start on Oct 30 when a planned group photo was cancelled after some diplomats refused to pose alongside Russia’s top diplomat, Sergey Lavrov.The ministers are in Atlanta for a two-day meeting of the Group of 20 (G-20), a forum of major nations that seek to coordinate global economic and political policy.Russia is a longtime member of the group, which also includes Brazil, Japan, Saudi Arabia, China, Japan and several European states. But many European diplomats believe that Russian officials like Lavrov should be shunned over Moscow’s war in Ukraine.Speaking to reporters in Atlanta, Poland’s deputy prime minister and foreign minister, Radoslaw Sikorski, said the photo cancellation was “the right decision”.“I am not the only one who does not want to be photographed with Lavrov,” he added.US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who is hosting the event, made the decision to cancel the traditional photo, according to a senior US official. Another US official said that after it became clear that some attendees were unwilling to participate in a joint photo, Rubio acted so the matter would not distract from substantive issues at the event.Lavrov has been under US sanctions since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022. He led his country’s talks with the United States ostensibly meant to avert the war, although Biden administration officials later concluded that those talks were not in good faith.After President Donald Trump encouraged President Vladimir Putin of Russia in September to attend a planned December meeting of G-20 leaders in Miami, 14 senators from both parties sent a letter to the White House urging that neither Putin “nor any sanctioned Russian officials be permitted at upcoming G-20 events”.Trump’s envoys have conducted extensive talks with Putin in an effort to broker a peace agreement for Ukraine. In their letter, the senators warned Trump against “legitimising and normalising a government that continues to attack Ukrainian civilian targets every day”.Asked in October about Lavrov’s expected attendance, Rubio – who as a US senator was a fierce critic of Russia but has softened his public stance since joining the Trump administration – seemed lukewarm.“Well, the Russians are invited to be a part of the G-20,” Rubio said. “The president made that decision. So obviously they’re going to be represented at each of these summits.”Russia’s foreign ministry spokesperson, Maria Zakharova, mocked the dispute over the photo on Telegram. Citing reports that Germany’s foreign minister, Johann Wadephul, had been among the diplomats most opposed to joining a group picture with Lavrov, she called him afraid and posted a photograph of a working session at the event that showed the two men, seated at a large rectangular table with other ministers, in the same frame.The photographic drama was not unprecedented. G-20 foreign ministers also skipped their traditional group photographs in 2022, 2023 and 2025 amid tensions over Russia’s participation in the gatherings, although South African officials officially attributed the 2025 omission to scheduling difficulties.Russia’s finance minister was also excluded from an equivalent photo session at a Sept 1 meeting of his G-20 counterparts in North Carolina.Trump officials said they expected the Atlanta gathering to focus on economic issues, including global energy supplies and the related question of freedom of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz, where Iran has menaced shipping since the United States and Israel launched a war against the country in February.Speaking at an opening session on the morning of Oct 30, Rubio said the world was “at a critical moment”.“We are facing a series of interconnected economic and geopolitical crises” that threaten the global economic order, Rubio said. The G-20 needs to work together, he added, to address disruptions to global energy and food supplies and “to freedom of navigation itself.” NYTIMESThis article originally appeared in The New York Times.