Lithuanian formin: Russia is losing, will be ‘in quite chaotic situation’ for long time

VILNIUS – Russia, which wages the war in Ukraine, is losing and wants to hide that from its partners, Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis said on Friday in the run-up to the G20 summit due next week in Indonesia.

Russian President Vladimir Putin would not go to the G20 meeting because of scheduling commitments, the Kremlin announced on Friday, a day after confirming that Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov would represent Russia at the November 15-16 summit in Bali.

“One of the facts that Russia is trying to hide from its partners in the Global South is that it’s losing and it's losing a major battle that it has started itself. Not only it could not take Kyiv, it cannot hold on to the occupied territories,” he told reporters in Berlin after a meeting with his German counterpart Annalena Baerbock.

“It has just lost Kherson and I think it will continue losing. And this is what they are trying their friends not to know,” Landsbergis said when asked about his expectations for the G20 summit.

“So one of the things that could happen at G20 is a message sent to all those who still consider Russia as their partner – either a geopolitical partner, a trade partner, or an investment partner – that Russia is different, that the portrait they are in some cases seeing, this is not actual Russia. Russia is losing and will probably be in quite a chaotic situation for a very long while because of the war that Putin has himself started,” the minister added.

G20 Summit host Indonesia pursues a neutral foreign policy and had rebuffed Western calls to disinvite Russia.

Indonesian President Joko Widodo had invited Putin despite the Ukraine assault, prompting a flurry of Western criticism. In August, he said Putin had accepted that invitation.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is expected to attend virtually. He had threatened to boycott the summit if Putin attended.