Trump Inviting Putin — a Legitimate War Criminal — to the U.S. Is All the Evidence We Need

All references cited in this article are part of the public record. The assertions and conclusions presented, unless otherwise noted, have not been legally contested. Characterizations identified as the author's view are opinion.

On September 23, 2026, after meeting Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced that the United States has invited Vladimir Putin to the G20 summit of world leaders in Miami, where he could also hold a summit with President Donald Trump. "We've invited President Putin to the G20," Rubio said. "We think it's an opportunity for him to engage not just with the president but with other world leaders. We hope that's an invitation he'll accept." The Kremlin said it was "grateful and appreciative for this invitation" and would consider it.¹

The summit is scheduled for December 14 and 15 at Trump National Doral, a resort owned by the President's own company.² Putin met Trump in Anchorage, Alaska in August 2025, but he has not set foot in the lower 48 states since before Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine.¹ This was not a sudden idea, either. In April, asked about reports of an invitation, Trump said, "I haven't invited Putin to the G20 summit, but if he came, it would probably be very helpful."³

Vladimir Putin is not simply a leader Washington disagrees with. He is wanted by an international court for war crimes against children. And the President of the United States wants to host him at his own resort.

The Warrant

On March 17, 2023, judges at the International Criminal Court in The Hague issued an arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin. He is alleged to be responsible for two war crimes: The unlawful deportation of children, and their unlawful transfer, from occupied areas of Ukraine to Russia. A second warrant was issued for Maria Lvova-Belova, Russia's Commissioner for Children's Rights, who has overseen the program.⁴ Putin became only the third sitting head of state ever to face an ICC arrest warrant, after Sudan's Omar al-Bashir and Libya's Moammar Gadhafi.⁴

The crimes have not stopped. As of September 18, 2026, Ukraine had verified 20,651 cases of Ukrainian children deported or forcibly transferred by Russia. Only 2,616 have been brought home. According to Bring Kids Back UA, the Ukrainian government initiative working to return them, Russia has simply changed tactics, moving children in smaller groups through "holiday camps," "education" programs, Russian guardianships and adoptions, and threatening parents who resist with the loss of their parental rights.⁵

America Said So Itself

This is not only the judgment of a court the United States does not belong to. It is America's own judgment. On March 15, 2022, the U.S. Senate unanimously passed a resolution sponsored by Republican Senator Lindsey Graham condemning Putin, his security council and his military commanders for atrocities including alleged war crimes, and encouraging the ICC to investigate.⁶ In February 2023, the United States formally determined that Russia had committed crimes against humanity in Ukraine, citing "murder, torture, rape, and deportation," including the forced deportation of children.⁷

Not one senator voted against calling Putin a war criminal. Four years later, the President is inviting him to Florida.

The Loophole, and the Choice

To be precise about the law: The United States is not a member of the International Criminal Court and has no legal obligation to arrest Putin if he lands in Miami. Trump has gone further than ignoring the court. In February 2025, he signed an executive order imposing sanctions on it, authorizing asset freezes and entry bans on its officials.⁸ Inviting Putin breaks no American law.

But other countries have treated the warrant as a line they would not cross, even friendly ones. In 2023, South Africa, a Russian partner in the BRICS group, agreed with the Kremlin that Putin would not attend its summit in Johannesburg in person. He joined by video instead.⁹ He has skipped every G20 summit since the warrant was issued, sending deputies to New Delhi in 2023, Rio de Janeiro in 2024 and Johannesburg in 2025. Before Rio, he explained that he did not want to "disrupt the work of this forum" for his friend, Brazil's president.¹⁰ When Mongolia, an ICC member, hosted him in September 2024 and failed to arrest him, the court formally found it in breach of its obligations.¹¹

So this is not a question of what the law requires. It is a question of what a leader chooses. Allies and partners of Russia alike have kept Putin at arm's length because of what he is accused of. The President of the United States is choosing to do the opposite.

Not the First Time

This would not be Putin's first welcome. On August 15, 2025, Trump met him at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage, Alaska. A red carpet was laid out on the tarmac, American F-22 fighter jets lined the route, and Trump applauded as Putin walked toward him.¹² The summit ended without a ceasefire, and afterward Trump suggested the onus was on Ukraine to give up territory to end the war.¹²

A red carpet in Alaska. An invitation to the President's own resort in Florida. Each step makes the next one feel normal. That is exactly the danger.

Reverence Is One Thing. This Is Another.

History is full of unsavoury figures who still attract admirers. A misguided person who hangs the portrait of a dictator on their wall, or insists some tyrant was misunderstood, is making a private error of judgment. It is offensive, but it harms no one beyond the conversation.

A head of state is different. When the President of the United States invites an indicted war criminal to share a stage with the world's leaders, he is not expressing a private opinion. He is lending the full weight of the most powerful office on earth to a man accused of taking children from their families. He is telling every Ukrainian parent still searching for a son or daughter that the man responsible is welcome at the table. He is telling America's allies, including Canada and every other ICC member at that summit, that the warrant they are bound to respect means nothing to the host.

Diplomacy sometimes requires talking to terrible people, and ending the war in Ukraine will eventually require talking to Moscow. But talking to an adversary is not the same as hosting him with honours at your own resort, and negotiating an end to a war is not the same as rewarding the man who started it with a seat among the world's leaders.

All the Evidence We Need

In my view, this is the ultimate disloyalty: Not only to Ukraine, not only to America's allies, but to the world, and to the idea that crimes against children should carry consequences. Every other signal about where this President's sympathies lie can be argued over, explained away or blamed on tactics. This one cannot. A leader loyal to the democratic world does not welcome, applaud and host a man wanted for deporting children.

If the question was ever whose side Donald Trump is on, the guest list for Miami answers it. That is all the evidence we need.