THE LEADERS OF THE G20 nations are scheduled to gather in Florida in December at the Trump National Doral Miami resort.
asserted
LEADERS → schedule → resort
President Trump, as this year’s host, has invited Russian President Vladimir Putin to attend.
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Trump → invite → Putin
Although not formally excluded, Putin has not attended a G20 summit in person since 2019—since then, either he participated virtually (2020, 2021) or Russia has been represented by other ministers or government officials (2022, 20231, 2024, and 2025).
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Russia → exclude → ministers
His attendance at the upcoming one should be seen as a mark of shame by all the other member states and an ignominious stain on the reputation of their respective leaders.
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attendance → see → leaders
The G20 was established in 1999 “with the goal of promoting international financial stability.”
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G20 → establish → stability
Including Putin in any meeting devoted to promoting “stability” in any form of international relations is a travesty given his record of armed aggression, actively spreading disinformation around the world, and disruption, sabotage, and subversion in Europe.
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Including → include → Europe
Since his last appearance at the G20, Putin has initiated an unprovoked, premeditated, and brutal war of aggression against Ukraine, a war that has created as many as two million casualties.
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that → initiate → casualties
Russian forces under his direction deliberately ignore the laws of war, targeting and killing civilian noncombatants, indulging in widespread rape and murder, looting Ukrainian museums, abducting Ukrainian children by the tens of thousands and resettling them with families in Russia, kidnapping Ukrainian youth and forcing them into re-education camps.
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forces → ignore → camps
Despite dissembling and some occasional feints toward negotiation, he has spurned all serious efforts to reach an end to the hostilities.
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he → dissemble → hostilities
President Zelensky has said that Ukrainian intelligence has intercepted instructions from Putin to Russian commanders to ignore the laws of war.
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intelligence → say → war
Russia’s recent strikes on urban areas suggest an effort to make Ukraine’s major urban centers uninhabitable, in keeping with Russian doctrinal writings on unified strategic operations in regional or general wars.
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centers → suggest → wars
All of these constitute, separately and together, war crimes.
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All → constitute → crimes
In addition, Putin’s Russia continues to violate nine separate arms control agreements, and, as the recent case of a Russian researcher dying of what appears to be pneumonic plague in Siberia indicates, there is strong evidence that his regime, like its Soviet predecessor, is violating the Biological Weapons Convention (which bans all offensive biological warfare activities) by maintaining an active biological weapons program.
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which → continue → program
Russian assertions that all is well, apparently accepted at face value by President Trump, ring false given the extraordinary attention and measures being taken in Irkutsk and resemble nothing so much as the false denials of a laboratory accident at Sverdlovsk in 1979 that released anthrax into the general population.
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that → accept → population
Russian President Boris Yeltsin in 1992 confirmed longstanding U.S. government allegations about the incident.
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Yeltsin → confirm → incident
At home, Putin has overseen the assassination of his leading opponents (Anna Politkovskaya, Boris Nemtsov, Alexei Navalny, and Yevgeniy Prigozhin, to name just a few).
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Putin → oversee → few
Russian agents have assassinated anti-Putin emigres, placed incendiary devices and started fires in Western factories and aircraft, cut undersea communications cables in the Arctic Ocean and Baltic Sea, interfered in elections, conducted cyberattacks, violated NATO airspace repeatedly, and even sent an armed drone to Leipzig airport.
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agents → assassinate → airport
Russian officials suggest more widespread activity is in the offing, and indeed recent press reports suggest a new Russian campaign has been initiated to assassinate heads of European defense firms.
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campaign → suggest → firms
Putin’s forces, clearly under direction from the Kremlin, consistently engage in dangerous military activities at sea and in the air, which hazard the lives of Western service members.
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which → engage → members
By supplying Iran with intelligence that Iran has acted on to attack U.S. forces and facilities in the Middle East, Russia is complicit in Iranian attacks on the soil of U.S. allies.
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Russia → supply → allies
And, as if all of this were not enough to brand him an international criminal deserving of being shunned, Putin has directed a “gray area” campaign of so-called hybrid warfare against Western Europe, intending to bully NATO governments into halting their financial and military support of Ukraine.
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Putin → brand → Ukraine
He provides assistance—often through corrupt and criminal means—to extreme right- and left-wing political movements in Europe that support Russian objectives regarding Ukraine and European defense more broadly.
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that → provide → Ukraine
The leaders of America’s European allies should not be in the position of explaining to their populations why they sat around the conference table with a man directing attacks against them.
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they → explain → them
President Trump might seek to justify his invitation with reference to the recent deal he struck with Putin to facilitate Russian diesel fuel exports to the United States.
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he → seek → States
That deal, however, will do little to ease diesel costs for American consumers and will only succeed in helping fund Russia’s ongoing war in Ukraine and legitimizing Putin’s role as a respected member of the international community.
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deal → do → community
After Trump’s latest phone call with Putin, Russian officials noted that the latter had not agreed to the resumption of negotiations and was unlikely to do so.
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latter → note → negotiations
Given all the above, inviting Putin to the upcoming G20, permitting him to sit at a conference table with leaders of countries he is attacking, and pretending that he is entitled to equal status as an accepted member of the international community is simply wrong.
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he → give → community
President Trump should withdraw the invitation for Putin to attend.
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Putin → withdraw → invitation
Failing that, the leaders of the other NATO states in the G20 (Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Turkey, and the United Kingdom) should boycott the meeting.
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leaders → fail → meeting
So too should Saudi Arabia, given Russian assistance to Iranian attacks against the Kingdom.
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given → give → Kingdom
America’s Pacific allies, Australia and Japan, should withdraw as well.
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allies → withdraw → ?
Such a display of international solidarity and disgust will send a strong signal that Putin does not belong to any grouping of leaders representing civilized people around the world.
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Putin → send → world
The Aporia
