Obama Has Discovered How to Spite Putin

After Russian President Vladimir Putin refused to attend a G-8 summit in the U.S., the White House boss decided to answer with the same. As reported today by Vedemosti, the American leader will not attend an early September meeting of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation organization held in Vladivostok. Obama will miss this event, hosted by the Russian president, with a justifiable excuse: the Democratic Party convention, the most important event in the lead-up to the presidential election, is on September 3.

As noted by Kommersant, Putin’s snub of the G-8 summit, which became known yesterday after a telephone conversation between the two leaders, was completely unexpected by Washington and has left them in “a state of shock.” According to sources close to the administration, Obama was very much looking forward to meeting with Putin. He had even arranged to move the meeting from Chicago to Camp David, so as not to put the Russian president in an uncomfortable position. The issue was that a meeting of the heads of NATO governments, which Putin declined to attend, was to happen in Chicago after the G-8 summit concluded. In order not to encourage scandal and to not force the Russian president to make a show of rushing out of Chicago after the meeting, it was decided to move the place of the meeting.

It was planned from the beginning that Putin would attend the G-8 summit, held in Camp David on March 18-19. Later, the Kremlin stated that Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev would represent Russia at the meeting, since Putin would be occupied with the task of forming a new cabinet.

The American side earlier communicated that they understood and sympathized with Putin’s decision not to attend the G-8 summit.

Now, it appears likely that the first meeting of the Russian and American leaders will only happen at a G-20 summit in the Mexican resort town of Los Cabos on June 18-19. Putin’s first foreign visit will be to China in the beginning of June.

Attempting to surmise why Putin declined to attend the G-8 summit, domestic media sources have offered up several viewpoints. Among the versions considered: the refusal to make his first foreign visit to the U.S. was a response to America’s plans to deploy a missile protector shield in Europe and its “black list” of Russian officials involved in the death of the lawyer Sergei Magnitsky.

The director of Russian and Asian programs at the World Security Institute (a U.S. think-tank), Nikolai Zlobin, stated in an interview with Kommersant that the upcoming meeting with Putin was uncomfortable for all sides. “It’s possible that they simply asked him not to attend. The West would have been obligated to pressure him, criticize his actions after inauguration, but now no one wants to do this, not one country in the G-8 wants to ruin relations with Moscow.”