European finance ministers and central bankers have refused to appear alongside Russia in the traditional G20 “family photo” after the United States invited Moscow back to the table.
Russian finance minister Anton Siluanov attended the meeting of G20 finance ministers and central bank governors in Asheville, North Carolina, on August 31, accompanied by officials from Russia’s central bank.
It was his first in-person appearance at the forum since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. The group photograph was eventually taken without him and away from reporters.
German finance minister Lars Klingbeil said the decision to receive Siluanov sent a signal he found “quite troubling”. He said he would have wanted greater clarity from Washington that the Russian minister was not being treated as a normal guest.
Klingbeil said European delegates, including European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde and British counterpart John Healey, had agreed the previous evening that keeping a channel open was useful but that posing for a group photograph was not.
He said he had told Siluanov during a plenary session that Moscow must end the war, and that Europe stood behind Ukraine.
Poland’s finance minister Andrzej Domański said he was unhappy to see Moscow represented, though he accepted the host’s right to draw up the guest list. “We do not trust Russia. They lie constantly,” he told Reuters.
Klingbeil said Europe was preparing a further package of sanctions against Russia and hoped for close cooperation from Washington. The European Union adopted its 21st sanctions package in July, handing member states the power to confiscate and sell oil cargoes carried by detained shadow-fleet tankers.
US Treasury secretary Scott Bessent, who is hosting the two-day meeting, held bilateral talks with Siluanov on the sidelines. Russia’s finance ministry said the pair discussed financial cooperation and coordination within the G20 framework.
A source familiar with the talks told AFP that Bessent had made clear there would be no economic relief for Moscow until the war in Ukraine was over. A US official said the meeting focused on President Donald Trump’s peace plan for Ukraine.
Asked about the invitation, Trump told reporters: “We like getting along with everybody.”
Washington holds the rotating G20 presidency and set the guest list. South Africa, which hosted the group in 2025, was not invited, and Spain, which Trump has threatened with a halt to trade, was also absent.
The US Treasury separately refused accreditation to reporters from several American news organisations, drawing criticism from press freedom groups.
