Is Putin's Decision Not to Attend the G20 Summit Indicative of Instability?

Putin can reach in and make whatever decisions he wants, but when he is not making those decisions, then actually the machine continues to do its job. Big picture policy issues are generally going to be determined by Putin, but only insofar as Putin wants to. And that means there's a lot of issues to do with macroeconomics that much of the time Putin just doesn't care about,. As long as the results don't become problematic or embarrassing for him.