Kremlin: Putin, Trump will meet at G20 as planned

A meeting between US President Donald Trump and Russia's Vladimir Putin will take place at this week's G20 summit as planned, the Kremlin said Thursday, despite US threats to cancel over Moscow's tensions with Ukraine. "Washington has confirmed the meeting," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told journalists.

The meeting, at the Park Hyatt hotel in Buenos Aires, is expected to start at 9:30 a.m. ET and last for over two hours, RIA Novosti said Thursday.

The two leaders are expected to discuss several bilateral issues, including “ways to normalize” relations between the two countries, Ushakov said.

The meeting has not yet been publicly confirmed by the White House. But Trump had suggested in an interview Tuesday that he might cancel his get-together with the Russian leader depending on the results of a “full report” about last weekend’s maritime clash between Russia and Ukraine.

If it goes ahead as scheduled, it will be the first such sit-down between the two men since they met for more than two hours in Finland in July with only their translators present.

That much-maligned meeting saw Trump forsake the US intelligence community’s conclusions of Russian interference in the 2016 US election in favor of amplifying Putin’s denials.

National Security Advisor John Bolton told reporters Tuesday that if the two leaders did meet, Trump would discuss security, arms control and regional issues with Putin. “I think it will be a continuation of their discussion in Helsinki,” he said.

Bolton did not confirm whether the situation in Ukraine would be on the table.

Trump waited more than 24 hours after Russian ships fired on and then seized three Ukrainian vessels on Sunday before he commented on the clash. In response to reporters’ questions, the President said he was “not happy about it at all,” then indicated he might see fault on both sides, saying, “we do not like what’s happening either way.”

Other world leaders quickly issued statements condemning the clash and urging a de-escalation.

The November 25 confrontation ended with three Ukrainian ships in Russian custody and 24 Ukrainian sailors in detention. Kiev and Moscow have offered conflicting accounts of what happened, each accusing the other of violating the laws of the sea.

Amid escalating tensions, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has imposed martial law in select provinces for 30 days.