Vladimir Putin and Barack Obama meet at D-day commemorations

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jun/06/vladimir-putin-barack-obama-meet-ukraine

Version 0 of 1.

Barack Obama and Vladimir Putin have met for the first time since Russia's annexation of Crimea. The informal encounter came on the sidelines of a lunch attended by world leaders to mark the 70th anniversary of the D-day landings.

A White House statement said the conversation, which was informal and lasted 10-15 minutes, happened inside the chateau where the leaders were eating. It did not say what the two discussed, but Obama has previously said he would tell Putin to engage with Ukraine's new leadership.

As leaders posed outside the building for a group photo before the lunch, Obama and Putin appeared to be avoiding each other deliberately. But once inside, they made time for their first face-to-face exchange since the Ukraine crisis began.

Before the lunch Putin also met Ukraine's president-elect Petro Poroshenko. It was the first meeting between the two leaders since Poroshenko was elected in Ukraine and came during a week of intense diplomacy aimed at resolving the crisis in his country.

The brief exchange took place after world leaders, posing for a group photograph, walked into a nearby building for lunch. But Putin, Poroshenko and the German chancellor Angela Merkel stayed outside to talk.

Reporters could not hear the conversation, which lasted about a minute. No plans have been announced for a longer, formal meeting between Putin and Poroshenko.

Obama told reporters Thursday that if and Putin ended up speaking, he would tell the Russian leader that he has a new path to engage with Ukraine through Poroshenko, who is scheduled to take office Saturday.

"If he does not, if he continues a strategy of undermining the sovereignty of Ukraine, then we have no choice but to respond" with more sanctions, Obama said.

Obama, who said he has a "businesslike" relationship with Putin, expressed hope that the Russian leader was "moving in a new direction" on Ukraine since he did not immediately denounce Poroshenko's election on 25 May. "But I think we have to see what he does and not what he says," Obama said.

Violence in eastern Ukraine was in many minds at the Normandy gathering.

In recent weeks, Ukrainian officials claim more than 200 people have died in fighting between Ukrainian government troops and pro-Russian rebels, though this figure cannot be independently verified.

This week, Putin held his first face-to-face meetings with western leaders since pro-European protesters pushed out Ukraine's Russia-friendly president in February, Russia annexed the Crimean peninsula, and the US and EU imposed sanctions in response.