Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov told RIA news agency that Mr Putin regretted Mr Trump’s decision and said Russia is ready for contact with him.

“A cancellation means that the discussion on key international issues is being postponed indefinitely,” Mr Peskov said.

Mr Trump based his move on advice from senior advisers who have taken a harsher tone towards Russia than he has. He was briefed on Air Force One by secretary of state Mike Pompeo, White House chief of staff John Kelly and national security adviser John Bolton, White House spokeswoman Ms Sanders said.

Earlier, Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko accused Mr Putin of wanting to annexe his entire country and called for Nato to deploy warships to a sea shared by the two nations. German chancellor Angela Merkel, who was delayed after the aircraft she was travelling on made an emergency landing in Cologne because of a technical problem, also blamed Russia.

Ms Merkel accused Russia of restricting access to the Sea of Azov by building a bridge over the Kerch Strait

Speaking alongside Ukrainian prime minister Volodymyr Groysman in Berlin early on Thursday, she said the latest crisis was “entirely the doing of the Russian president” and accused Moscow of violating a 2003 agreement guaranteeing free movement in the area.

“I want the Ukrainian soldiers released,” she said. “The Ukrainian side has asked us to act wisely. There is no military solution to these problems.”

At the G20 – an annual summit between world leaders, central bank governors, and foreign ministers – President Trump is expected to keep a tight schedule.

The most important of a number of meetings include a planned dinner with Chinese president Xi Jinping. Mr Trump has attempted to exert financial pressure on China in recent months through tariffs on Chinese imports, and has suggested that a deal needs to be made in Argentina to avoid further tariffs from being imposed. As the president has ramped up those tariffs, the Chinese have responded in kind with tariffs on goods including American soybeans going into China – an important market for US farmers that is all but cut off as a result of the harsh tariffs.

In addition to that meeting with Mr Xi, Mr Trump was also expected to meet with Argentine president Mauricio Macri, Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe, Indian prime minister Narendra Modi and Ms Merkel. Meetings with South Korea president Moon Jae-in and Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan have been downgraded from formal to informal.

Support free-thinking journalism and subscribe to Independent Minds

As well as the potential trade war between the US and China, the killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the country’s Istanbul Consulate and the conflict over Ukraine threaten to overshadow the gathering, let alone Mr Trump’s “America First policies. The two-day summit beginning Friday is supposed to focus on development, infrastructure and food security, but those seemed largely an afterthought.

However, French president Emmanuel Macron, who flew into Buenos Aires on Wednesday as one of the earliest arrivers, clung to the importance of the ideal of cooperation that the G20 represents.

“I believe in our capacity to make the spirit of dialogue and cooperation triumph,” Mr Macron said at a joint news conference with Mr Macri, warning that if nations “close down”, the alternative could be trade wars or armed conflict.

Associated Press contributed to this report