Kaja Kallas, the EU's foreign policy chief, said on Saturday that a possible return by Vladimir Putin to a G20 summit in Florida in December would risk normalizing Russia's war crimes in Ukraine. She made the remarks in an interview with Bloomberg TV.
"Normalizing Russia coming back to these international fora is just normalizing war crimes being committed every day now," Kallas said. She added that Russia's war in Ukraine conflicts "with U.N charter principles that all these countries around the table have signed up to."
Putin has not yet confirmed whether he will attend the December summit, which the U.S. is hosting. His last in-person attendance at a G20 meeting was in 2019.
Kallas's comments follow frustration among EU countries over the attendance of Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov at a G20 ministerial gathering in Atlanta. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who hosted the meeting, called off the traditional family photo after European officials refused to stand beside Lavrov.
Kallas said, "we don't want to stand next to him [Lavrov] in this fora," because he has been placed under international sanctions. She added that Lavrov's presence meant "we can also immediately fight back on these lies" from Russia.
Kallas welcomed the U.S. decision on Friday to sell 500 Patriot missile interceptors to Ukraine, calling it a "very positive development." She called on allies to toughen sanctions against Russia.
In the interview, Kallas rejected reported Pentagon calls for NATO countries, including the Baltic states, to tone down their criticism of the Kremlin. She said, "The question is if you don't talk about the threat, is it going away? I think it's not going away."