World summits’ ‘family photos’ show Putin’s isolation
KYODO NEWS VIA AP, POOL / MAY 21
President Joe Biden, fourth from left, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, fifth from right, and other G7 leaders pose for a photo before a working session on Ukraine during the G7 Summit in Hiroshima, Japan. Other leaders from right to left, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, Britain’s Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, France’s President Emmanuel Macron, Zelenskyy, Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, Biden, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, and European Council President Charles Michel and Gianluigi Benedetti, Italian ambassador to Japan.
They’re known as “family photos,” the images of world leaders posed in faux relaxation during global summits.
And like portraits of a family that has isolated a dysfunctional member, recent “family photos” from the G7 and G8 — the world’s most industrialized nations — show how Russian President Vladimir Putin has been outcast.
The Russian president has faced unprecedented international isolation since his nation invaded Ukraine in February 2022. An International Criminal Court arrest warrant hangs over his head and clouds his prospects of traveling to many destinations, including those viewed as Moscow’s allies.
It was only 10 years ago when Putin stood proudly among his peers at the time —- former U.S. President Barack Obama, former German Chancellor Angela Merkel and former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe — at a Group of Eight summit in Northern Ireland. But Russia has since been kicked out of the group, which consists of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Britain and the United States, for illegally annexing Crimea in 2014.
Images from the G7 summit this year show leaders of the same governments, minus Putin.
