EDITORIAL: Washington invites Putin to Miami, and Canada must not sit there in silence

The same day in Kyiv

Wednesday, September 23, New York

Washington is inviting Vladimir Putin to the G20 summit in Miami in December. Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced it on Wednesday, September 23.

We will say it up front. It is a mistake. A seat offered too soon.

Not a slip of protocol. A mistake toward an invaded country. A mistake toward the allies who pay to keep it standing.

Canada will be at that table. It must not sit there in silence.

The same day, under the drones

That same day in Kyiv, an attack by jet-powered drones lasted from morning into the early afternoon, according to Al Jazeera, citing local authorities.

Two dead in the capital. More than 30 injured. Four dead in a village in Donetsk, under an aerial bomb.

For mothers, fear does not wait for the official statement. They count the floors between the bed and the shelter. They keep the bag by the door. They listen to the sky.

Jet-powered drones fly faster and higher. They are harder to intercept, according to Al Jazeera. Kyiv’s sky is changing weapons. Not masters.

While an invitation was being prepared, Kyiv was counting its wounded. One invitation. Six dead. The same Wednesday.

From New York, an invitation. Over Kyiv, drones.

Rubio’s words after Lavrov

An invitation at the microphone

Rubio was speaking after meeting Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on the sidelines of the General Assembly.

“We’ve invited President Putin to the G20,” he said, according to the State Department transcript.

Rubio was speaking for a president. The invitation is not some official’s idea. It is a decision of the Trump administration.

He sees it as a chance for Putin to talk with the president. And with other leaders. He hopes the invitation will be accepted.

Trump and Putin have spoken by phone at least a dozen times since Trump returned to office, he added.

On his meeting with Lavrov, he would not speak of a major breakthrough. His framing. Not ours.

He did set one condition, in passing. Another meeting would be good if there is a purpose behind it, he said. The purpose goes unnamed.

Trump National Doral

The summit opens on December 14, Newsweek writes. It is to be held at the Trump National Doral golf club in Miami, according to The Guardian.

A club that bears the host’s name. A golf course. A name. A stage.

Putin has not attended a G20 summit in person since 2019, The Guardian notes.

Seven years. A full-scale invasion in between.

For scenery, a golf course. For luggage, an arrest warrant.

The invitation before any pause

September 23, in one sentence

We stand with Ukraine, against the invitation Rubio announced on September 23. Because that day, Moscow was refusing any pause, and its drones were striking Kyiv.

We stand with those counting their dead, not with those counting their phone calls.

We stand with the allies who fund Ukraine’s defence, and who are now being asked to applaud.

The invitation went out before the ceasefire.

The ceasefire never came. The invitation did.

No pause, says Lavrov

That same Wednesday, before the Security Council, Lavrov declared that Russia would take no pause in what he calls its “special military operation,” according to Al Jazeera.

The phrase is the Kremlin’s. We call it by its name. A war of aggression.

He accused Europe of wanting a pause in order to arm Kyiv.

Rubio, for his part, hopes for a limited ceasefire on grain and energy. He acknowledges that it would not settle the war.

There is the counterpart. There is his offer. And there, the same day, is the invitation. The date says it. The calendar proves it.

Moscow promises nothing, and the invitation goes out anyway.

Seven years without a seat

2014, 2019, 2023

Russia was expelled from the G8 after the illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014, the Kyiv Independent recalls. It remained a member of the G20.

Putin last sat there in person in 2019. Since then, he has spoken by video or sent Lavrov, according to Al Jazeera.

Since the full-scale invasion of 2022, his seat has stayed empty. Not Russia’s. His.

The last time he set foot on American soil was in Alaska, in August 2025. No breakthrough on Ukraine, Newsweek recalls.

The Hague warrant

In March 2023, the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Putin. The alleged war crime: the unlawful deportation of Ukrainian children to Russia, Al Jazeera recalls.

The court’s member states must arrest him if he enters their territory. The United States is not a member.

Miami, then, obliges him to nothing. On American soil, no arrest to fear.

The empty seat meant something. It said that aggression costs a place. Not an empty seat by chance. An empty seat by principle.

An empty seat was a sanction. Filled, it becomes a pardon.

The right call on September 19

A bill both parties voted for

It must be said with the same precision. Four days earlier, Trump made the right call.

On September 19, he signed the Lindsey O. Graham sanctions law against Russia and Iran, according to Al Jazeera. A rare show of bipartisan support. 58 Democrats voted for it in the House.

The law sanctions Putin himself, his senior officials and oligarchs. The law sanctions Russian banks, energy and defence. The law sanctions the shadow fleet of tankers.

Zelensky called it an extremely powerful tool.

The Democratic leader in the House, Hakeem Jeffries, opposed it, fearing costs for American families and loopholes, according to Al Jazeera. The debate exists in Washington too.

One hundred percent on the buyers

It also allows tariffs of up to 100% on the five largest buyers of Russian oil and gas. China and India first among them, Al Jazeera writes.

It is the first major Ukraine-related law passed by Congress in more than two years.

It is the kind of act that strengthens the West against Moscow and Beijing. We call it good. Without reservation. The right call. We put it in writing.

And yet, four days later, the same government was offering a platform to the man the law targets.

The stick on Friday, the red carpet the following Wednesday.

Four days later

The stick, then the carpet

One could argue that the two moves form a strategy. Pressure, then the outstretched hand.

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk answered that argument in advance.

If the invitation could bring a just peace closer, he would be absolutely for it, he said on Thursday, according to The News International.

Then he added what his experience tells him. At this stage, Russia may well read it as encouragement to press on with its aggressive policy. That, he said, is what he fears.

Tusk, on Thursday

Tusk leads a country that borders Ukraine. He is not speaking from far away.

He does not reject the principle. He rejects the timing. The principle, yes. The calendar, no.

That is our position too. A meeting, yes, when it serves peace. An invitation, no, when it comes before any Russian move.

Poland sees what Washington refuses to see. The reward before the price. Tusk is right. He says it without shouting.

Warsaw does not say never. It says not now.

Meeting the people you disagree with

Rubio’s best argument

Let us give Rubio his best argument. Whole.

Meet only the people you agree with, he says, and you get “very nice meetings but nothing happens.” To solve problems, you have to meet the people you disagree with.

The president is willing to meet with virtually anyone, he adds. A businessman who relies more on common sense than on political orthodoxy.

Rubio is right about the method. He is wrong about the order.

Even Zelensky says he is ready to meet Putin. Leaders have to meet, talk and decide, he said, according to the Kyiv Independent.

What the Kremlin answers

That same day, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said there were, for now, no preconditions for peace negotiations, according to Al Jazeera.

That same day, he judged it was not the moment for a peace summit.

That same day, he repeated that Zelensky should come to Moscow to meet Putin.

On that day, too, Lavrov was refusing any pause.

And on that day, drones were striking Kyiv.

The day before, Zelensky had asked Trump for more Patriot missiles for the coming winter, according to Al Jazeera. No agreement was reached, he said. The next day, the invitation was on its way to Moscow.

Zelensky is asking for a meeting that produces a result. The invitation demands no result at all.

Talk with the aggressor, yes. Hand him the stage first, no.

Canada was already at the table

Asheville, early September

Here is the fact that bothers our own camp.

Canada does not boycott the G20 when Russia is in the room. In early September, Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne sat in Asheville, North Carolina, with Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov, CBC reports.

He spoke of “a lot of discomfort around the table.” He said Canada was making sure that discomfort was heard. He stayed in his seat. Canada remains steadfast in its support for the Ukrainian people, he added, according to CBC.

The host’s prerogative

Mark Carney himself acknowledged valid reasons to keep Putin out. But “it’s the host prerogative to invite who they invite,” he added, according to CBC.

So Canada will go to Miami. We are not asking it to do otherwise. No boycott. No silence either.

That is true, and it does not change this. Sitting across from Putin and demanding nothing means making room for him twice.

The empty seat does not depend on us. What we say across from it does.

We can stay seated. We cannot stay silent.

Carney’s sentence for Putin

Thursday, September 3

On September 3, Carney was asked what he would say to Putin if he crossed paths with him in Miami.

“Get out of Ukraine, give back all of Ukraine to Ukraine, end this war,” he answered, according to CBC.

He added that the war costs more than 30,000 Russian lives every month. His figure. We report it as his.

Then he would leave it at that, he said. Short. Clear. Canada already has its sentence. What it lacks is the place and the moment. Miami offers both.

The Kremlin had hinted as early as the spring that Putin might accept, CBC recalls. So the invitation is no surprise. It is a decision.

The echo of Harper, 2014

The sentence has a precedent. At the 2014 G20, after the illegal annexation of Crimea, Stephen Harper reportedly told Putin to get out of Ukraine, CBC recalls.

Twelve years later, the same sentence. The same war, longer.

And yet a sentence spoken in a hallway is not worth a demand laid on the table.

Harper said it. Putin stayed. Words are not enough. It takes more than a sentence. It takes a demand.

The sentence is right. It lacks a demand.

The children behind the warrant

A deportation, a warrant

Back to The Hague warrant. It does not target a territory. It targets children.

Ukrainian children deported to Russia. Torn from a school, from a grandmother, from a language.

Foreign Minister Anita Anand announced at the UN, on September 26, that Canada will co-host a conference on detained Ukrainian children, according to the text published by Global Affairs Canada.

She also called for a just and lasting peace in Ukraine.

Two dead in Kyiv, four in Donetsk

On September 23, while Rubio was talking, Kyiv was counting its dead.

A drone hit a nine-storey non-residential building, a business centre and warehouses, according to Mayor Vitali Klitschko, quoted by Al Jazeera. A gas station was hit. A railway worker was injured.

Russia keeps turning civilian infrastructure into targets, Zelensky said. Pharmaceutical facilities, gas stations, rail lines, shopping centres.

Nobody gives back the dead. Nobody gives back a childhood spent in a country that is not one’s own. No invitation gives back a child.

That is what Miami risks covering with a handshake.

I admit to a simple fear. That we get used to it. That a photo at Doral makes us forget a list of children.

A warrant for children does not wash away on a golf course.

What Moscow makes of it

White noise

The Kremlin lets it be known that it appreciates the invitation and will consider it, according to The News International.

The Kremlin takes its time. It is premature to talk about it, and no decision has been made yet, Peskov said, according to The News International.

A Kremlin-controlled daily, Moskovsky Komsomolets, calls the trip useless and even harmful without a settlement of the war, Newsweek reports. It dismisses the diplomatic flurry as white noise.

Peskov also said Putin was ready to meet Trump one-on-one, if both judged it necessary, according to Al Jazeera.

The paper prints about a million copies a day, according to Newsweek. This is not a fringe voice. It is a signal.

Analyst Elina Beketova, quoted by Newsweek, considers it unlikely that diplomacy alone will stop Russian attacks.

Washington holds out its hand. Moscow looks at it.

Kaja Kallas

The European Union’s top diplomat, Kaja Kallas, calls it the wrong path, one that normalizes those who start wars, according to Newsweek.

Envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner had met Putin at the Kremlin on September 5, Newsweek recalls.

Moscow gave nothing. Moscow gets an invitation. Moscow answers that it will see. Not yes. Not no. Waiting, as a weapon.

And yet it is the host who waits.

The guest plays hard to get. The host waits patiently.

A list of children on the table

Before December 14

We are not asking Canada to slam the door on Miami. We are asking it not to walk in empty-handed.

We demand that Carney’s sentence be spoken before December. In public. Not only in a hallway at Doral.

We demand that the question of deported Ukrainian children be raised at the table, in Canada’s name, since Canada is co-hosting a conference on them.

We demand that Ottawa tell Washington, ally to ally, that a seat is earned by a Russian gesture. Not by a phone call.

The list, not the photo

This is not hostility toward Americans. It is loyalty to what the West promised Ukraine.

The September 19 law shows that Washington knows how to hit the Kremlin. The invitation of the 23rd shows it also knows how to hold out its hand too soon.

On Saturday, at the UN, Anita Anand said it in her own way. Canada can no longer afford to depend too heavily on a single partner, according to her text. The Miami invitation supplies the reason.

Between the two, Canada has a voice. Let it use it.

A voice costs nothing. It commits everything. A sentence. A list. A voice.

Earning a seat means bringing a list.

A seat, a voice

Doral, in December

Putin’s seat, empty at summits for years, could be filled at Doral.

If it is, Canada will be across the table. It will have the choice between politeness and the sentence. It will not choose who sits down. It will choose its own words.

Eleven weeks remain. Enough to prepare a list. Enough to say it out loud. Enough for Washington to hear it before Moscow does.

What our seat is worth

What good will our seat at that table do, if we do not raise the question of the children there?

December 14 is coming. The war takes no holiday. Neither do the drones.

The invitation left without a ceasefire. Our voice will leave with us.

Sources:

Primary Sources:

• State Department — Marco Rubio’s press remarks in New York, September 23, 2026
• Al Jazeera (Reuters) — Russian strikes on Kyiv and Donetsk, Peskov, September 23, 2026
• Global Affairs Canada — Anita Anand’s address to the UN, September 26, 2026

Secondary Sources:

• CBC News — Carney ready to tell Putin to get out of Ukraine, September 3, 2026
• The News International — Tusk fears encouragement for Moscow, September 24, 2026
• Newsweek — Russian reaction to the G20 invitation, September 25, 2026