Putin Not to Participate in Any Format at Munich Security Conference

Photo credit: Sputnik

Russian President Vladimir Putin has no plans to join this year the 35 heads of state and prime ministers, which, alongside NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg and European Commission head Ursula von der Leyen, will attend the Munich Security Conference, Russian media report.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov confirmed on Monday that the Russian President is not planning to participate either in person or via video link in the Munich Security Conference which will be held on February 18-20 at the Munich Hotel Bayerischer Hof.

Established in 1962, the Munich Security Conference usually includes numerous informal and private meetings between politicians and Russia has been part of the annual event since the late 1990s.

This year the conference will take place in a mixed format due to the COVID-19 pandemic with some of the attendees planning to join the conference online but, nevertheless, more than 600 participants – which will have to submit their vaccination certificates and get tested daily for COVID-19 – will be present at the venue.

Among high officials who are planning to participate are German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, and US Vice President Kamala Harris along with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, which will be one of the nearly 100 ministers expected to join the event.

MSC 2022, which will be opened by UN Secretary-General António Guterres, gives important decision-makers the opportunity to meet and find common approaches and peaceful solutions in view of the large number of current crises and the considerable risk of their further escalation.

Putin’s address at the conference in 2007 emphasized the need to remove double standards from global politics and the importance of multipolar world order.

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