MOSCOW, March 26. /TASS/. Russian President Vladimir Putin has held a phone call with French President Emmanuel Macron on Thursday. Following that, he joined the G20 summit, held in the format of a video conference, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov told TASS.

"The president has finished a phone call with Emmanuel Macron and joined the G20 summit," he said.

The G20 summit is held in the format of a video call. During the summit, the G20 leaders will discuss coordination of actions aimed to combat the spread of COVID-19 and alleviate the economic consequences of the pandemic. Saudi Arabia is this year’s chair of the G20. The annual summit of the group is set to take place in November in Saudi Arabia.

In late December 2019, Chinese authorities notified the World Health Organization (WHO) about the outbreak of a previously unknown pneumonia in the city of Wuhan, central China. Since then, cases of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) have been reported in more than 150 countries, including Russia. Russia has identified 840 cases of the virus, two people have died, 38 have recovered.

On March 11, WHO declared the outbreak of COVID-19 a global pandemic. As of now, over 450,000 people have been infected around the world and more than 21,000 have died.