Russian President Vladimir Putin is all set to launch the TurkStream gas pipeline on Wednesday, a project which will deliver Russian gas to Turkey and Europe.

On Tuesday, Putin arrived in Istanbul from Damascus where he had a meeting with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and also visited the headquarters of the Russian Armed Forces’ group in the country, TASS News Agency reported.

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The ceremony, to be hosted by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, will also be attended by Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic and Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borissov.

Putin is also expected to have a summit meeting with Erdogan over the latest developments in the region, amid rising tensions between the US and Iran.

The war in Libya, where Turkey is sending troops in support of the UN-recognized Government of National Accord, and the conflict in Syria, where Ankara and Moscow are both militarily involved, are also set to dominate the summit as well.

In 2019, Putin arrived at the G20 in Osaka, Japan, as the victor of an ideological world war. This was in part due to the Russian president’s distance from his home country: for a few hours he was able to separate himself from Russia’s social and economic problems, which he has not successfully resolved, and to forget the people who have lost trust in him.

Earlier in the month, Putin said that his 2020 agenda will include domestic and international events, but the main focus will be on the 75th anniversary of the celebration of the Soviet Unions victory over Nazi Germany in the Great Patriotic War.

In August this year, President Putin spoke to his US counterpart over the phone regarding bilateral trade and the raging wildfires in Russia’s Siberia.

Trump had also said that he would invite Russian President Vladimir Putin to the summit of the Group of Seven in 2020.

French, British, German and Canadian leaders, as well as the head of the European Union, reportedly pushed back against Trump’s suggestion, insisting that the G7 remain “a family, a club, a community of liberal democracies.”

Russia’s relations with the United States are at post-Cold War lows, but Trump and Putin have maintained the semblance of a good relationship.