U.S. Treasury Secretary Bessent and Russian Finance Minister Siluanov met at the G20 to talk about ending the war in Ukraine. Sources say they also talked about doing business again.

Filed 1h ago · Via Meduza · The Buffoon Desk

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The Bandit

Kevin MacLeod · incompetech.com · CC BY 4.0

Photo: UNCTAD · CC BY-SA 2.0 · via Wikimedia Commons

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent met with Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov at a G20 finance ministers summit in Asheville, North Carolina, according to Fox Business, NBC and CNBC correspondents. The two reportedly discussed President Trump's plan to end the Russia-Ukraine war, and sources told NBC they also discussed economic cooperation between the countries.

It was Siluanov's first in-person G20 appearance since Russia's full-scale invasion, and U.S. officials gave no advance notice of his attendance. European finance ministers, including Germany's Lars Klingbeil, threatened to boycott the traditional group photo over his presence, and Siluanov ultimately did not appear in it.

The full dispatch is available from the source below.

✒ FROM THE EDITORIAL DESK

Discussing peace plans and discussing 'economic cooperation' with the finance minister of the country you're supposedly pressuring are not the same conversation, and nobody in Asheville seems to have kept those topics in separate rooms. Europe's boycotted photo op says more about the optics problem than any American readout will.

Source: Read the original at Meduza → Scored: The Bandit · Kevin MacLeod · CC BY 4.0

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