OREANDA-NEWS Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov will represent Russia at the G20 summit in India instead of President Vladimir Putin. This was reported in the office of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi following a telephone conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

"President Putin announced his inability to take part in the G20 summit in New Delhi on September 9-10 and announced that Russia will be represented by the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation Sergey Lavrov," the office notes.

At the same time, the Prime Minister of India thanked the Russian president for promoting initiatives in the G20 format, and also expressed understanding of Putin's decision.

Earlier, Putin had a telephone conversation with the Prime Minister of India. During the conversation, the sides discussed the development of bilateral relations between the states — in particular, the implementation of projects in the energy sector and joint work on expanding the international transport and logistics infrastructure. Among other things, Putin and Modi indicated their readiness to develop bilateral cooperation in the space sphere in the future.