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Aug 26, 2023Liked by Andrew Korybko

Russia's elite policy-making circle??? This is very interesting. Mr.Putin wishes to communicate that this decision was not his alone, but was a group decision? It was a wise decision, of course. The new convention center sounds fascinating. I wonder if it is now possible to attend the G20 in Delhi without ever leaving air conditioning? I was in Delhi in June in 2004, just before I flew to Moscow and then to St.Petersburg (a flight path that was brought to mind this week, especially since when we landed in St. Petersburg we found out that as we flew in one direction from Moscow a plane flying in the opposite direction (toward Chechnya) was blown up by Chechen terrorists). In India in June the heat and humidity outdoors were almost unbearable. I don't know if that is the case in September.

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Yes, policy is formulated through the Foreign Ministry and sometimes other structures depending on the subject, with VVP's input of course being considered. He's the final decisionmaker and can therefore do whatever he wants, but he usually defers to his advisors.

Something like this wouldn't have been done unilaterally by him without advice from the Foreign Ministry at the very least. Furthermore, if we look at the timing of this announcement, Peskov had hitherto been noncommitted either way for months.

The fact that he shared the final decision just one day after the BRICS Summit ended strongly suggests that the event played a major role in this. Accordingly, it can be intuited that it tipped the scales in favor of those advisors who thought it better for him to sit the G20 out.

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