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Morning Edition · Sunday, November 1, 2026Published at 1:14 AM EDT · New York
Washington and Moscow look to China's APEC summit for a leaders' meeting after G20 ministers fail to agree
The G20 foreign ministers ended in Atlanta without a joint communiqué. Japan used a rare meeting with Sergei Lavrov to demand the release of a detained Japanese national.
Japan's Jiji Press reported that the United States and Russia are exploring a meeting between their presidents at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit, which China hosts in November. The leaders' meeting will be held in Shenzhen on November 18 and 19. The Kremlin said last month that China was preparing for a possible three-way meeting of Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump and Xi Jinping. Russian daily Izvestia reported that neither a bilateral nor a trilateral format has been confirmed.
The multilateral meeting in Atlanta produced no agreement. The Group of 20 (G20) foreign ministers ended without a joint communiqué on international security, Brazil's InfoMoney reported. The host presidency issued only a statement in its own name, and it listed no agreements.
Some countries used the meeting for bilateral business. The Japan Times reported that Japan demanded the release of a detained Japanese national in a rare high-level meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. Relations between the two countries are strained over Ukraine and the long-running dispute over the southern Kuril Islands, which Japan calls the Northern Territories.
If a meeting between the US and Russian presidents takes place in Shenzhen, Beijing will be the host and facilitator of US-Russian diplomacy. European governments are not part of that format.
Part of a tracked trend
Great Powers Negotiate Ukraine Over Europe's Head
Washington, Moscow and Beijing increasingly treat the end of the Ukraine war as a bargain among themselves, so European governments and Kyiv keep losing influence over the terms while being asked to fund the outcome.
Veracity: Corroborated
80/100- If true, who benefits
Moscow gains most from a direct leaders' channel to Trump that bypasses Kyiv and Brussels, and Beijing gains standing as host. European governments, which objected to Sergei Lavrov's presence in Atlanta, lose influence over the format.
- The nuance
The three-way summit is a Kremlin proposal with no final agreement. Trump has said he would focus such a meeting on denuclearization rather than Ukraine, and Ukraine's foreign minister calls a summit without President Volodymyr Zelensky unacceptable. The Japanese detainee is a Hokkaido Shimbun journalist held on Sakhalin on suspicion of espionage, which Tokyo and the newspaper deny.
An open-source-intelligence read of how likely this story is true with its real nuance, not a judgment of any outlet. It assesses the claim, weighing independent and adversarial reporting. How we label confidence.
Synthesized from: Jiji Press · InfoMoney · The Japan Times
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