The Group of 20 summit follows in Florida from December 13 to 15, where it remains unclear whether Putin will attend for the first time since the invasion of Ukraine. The question hangs over a summit season that begins with the APEC gathering in Shenzhen on November 18 and 19, and it will shape the diplomacy of the year end.
Why it matters
The APEC meeting comes first, and it may be the more consequential of the two. President Donald Trump has said he will likely meet Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin in a rare trilateral meeting on the sidelines of the Shenzhen summit, and Beijing has said it is in communication with the relevant parties over the meeting. The Chinese response was careful, neither confirming the meeting nor closing the door, and it leaves room for the encounter to be confirmed, reshaped or quietly dropped before the summit.
The Abu Dhabi talks are the bridge between the two summits. Negotiators from Ukraine, Russia and the United States meet on Tuesday and Wednesday in the first such gathering in more than nine months, and President Volodymyr Zelenskyy hopes they lead to a three way meeting of leaders that includes Putin. If they do, the Florida question may answer itself, and the first Putin appearance at a Group of 20 summit since the invasion would be a signal in itself.
What happens next
The Coalition of the Willing meets around the same time in Berlin, and Europe has insisted on being involved in negotiations over its own security. The calendar is crowded for a reason: every leader wants the year to end with a process, not a vacuum, and every summit is a chance to set the terms of the next one, from Shenzhen to Florida.
What happens next will be decided in Abu Dhabi first, and in Shenzhen second. A trilateral in China would be the most watched encounter of the year, and a Putin appearance in Florida would be the first since the invasion. For now, both are possibilities, not certainties, and the diplomacy of November will decide the guest list of December.
