Kremlin: Putin and Trump may meet at APEC Summit in China

Russian President Vladimir Putin and US President Donald Trump could meet on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in China in November 2026 if both attend the gathering, Kremlin foreign policy adviser Yury Ushakov said on Sunday.

“If the leaders are at the same event, I think they will eventually meet and talk,” Ushakov said in an interview with Russian state television broadcaster VGTRK.

According to him, there have been no signals or indications so far regarding plans for such a meeting. However, the APEC summit is still around three months away.

“We have to get to that point, although before then there is still a great deal of important international agenda to deal with,” he said.

Meanwhile, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, in a separate interview with VGTRK, said NATO countries and the European Union would not be able to openly distance themselves from providing military assistance to Ukraine and from policies he described as anti-Russian.

Lavrov said Russia would consider the actions of what he called “elites who are openly anti-Russian (Russophobic)” in Britain, Brussels, Paris, Berlin, and other NATO and EU countries.

“They know what they are doing and have tried to distance themselves from those actions openly from the start. That will not work,” he said.

The 2026 APEC summit, or the 33rd APEC Economic Leaders’ Meeting, will be held on 18-19 November 2026 in Shenzhen, China. APEC comprises 21 economic entities in the Asia-Pacific region.

They are Australia, Brunei Darussalam, Canada, Chile, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Peru, the Philippines, Russia, Singapore, Chinese Taipei, Thailand, the United States, and Vietnam.