US President Joe Biden may or may not meet his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin at the G20 summit in Indonesia next month. Biden himself did not exclude the possibility, but the State Department said Washington’s policy of boycotting Moscow over the conflict in Ukraine has not changed.

“That remains to be seen,” Biden told reporters outside the White House on Thursday, when asked about the possibility of meeting Putin at G20. The summit is scheduled for November 15 in Bali.

“I will let the White House speak to any of President Biden’s engagements, but I think the one thing you have seen be pretty clear across the interagency, including from the White House, is that it cannot be business as usual when it comes to Russia” due to the conflict in Ukraine, he said.

June 2021, in Geneva, Switzerland. A follow-up summit in December was virtual, and Ukraine was among the topics discussed – along with Russia’s proposal of security guarantees, which the US and NATO rejected the following month.

last month , the Kremlin said that the Russian president’s attendance will depend on security and other factors.

“I’ll see,” Putin said when last asked about his attendance, in mid-September. "I’ve been to Bali, it’s a nice place, beautiful, but it's not about beauty, let's see how things will go in our country, economically and in other areas.”

boycotted meetings attended or addressed by Russian representatives all year. Though Ukraine is not a member of the group, its president Vladimir Zelensky was invited to the Bali summit at Washington’s insistence.