Brisbane: Russian President Vladimir Putin left the G20 summit in Brisbane early after coming under intense pressure from the West.
The two-day summit, which gathered the leaders of the world’s largest economies in Brisbane, ended on Sunday evening, with Putin exiting the Australian city hours earlier.
Putin said his decision to fly home had nothing to do with tensions over Ukraine – where Moscow is allegedly supporting separatist fights – saying he had a long flight and wanted to catch up on some sleep ahead of a full day’s work on Monday.
“We need nine hours to fly from here to Vladivostok and another nine hours from Vladivostok to Moscow,” he said in comments reported by the RIA Novosti news agency.
“Then we need to get home and return to work on Monday. There is a need to sleep at least four to five hours.”
The agenda of the summit focused on economic growth but was, to some extent, overshadowed by the tension over Ukraine.Â
Leaders at the event, who included US President Barack Obama and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping, committed to reform measures aimed at lifting their collective growth by an extra 2.1 percent by 2018.
“This will add more than $2 trillion to the global economy and create millions of jobs,” the leaders said in the summit communiqué.
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