MOSCOW, May 28 (RIA Novosti) – Russian President Vladimir Putin is due to discuss the situation in Ukraine with his French counterpart Francois Hollande next week in Paris, Presidential Aide Yuri Ushakov said Wednesday.
“He [Russian President] will also go to Paris June 5 where he will have an informal meeting with the French President,” Ushakov said.
Putin may meet with other leaders in Deauville in northern France at a celebration of the 70th anniversary of the landing of allied troops in Normandy, but such contacts will be spontaneous and not pre-planned, his aide said.
US President Barack Obama and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, as well as Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II, are among those who will participate in the anniversary event on June 6.
“I personally think that bilateral contacts, if they take place, won’t be [pre-] organized,” Ushakov said, answering a question on a potential meeting between Putin and the US and German leaders.
The US State Department earlier said a meeting between Obama and Putin in Deauville was not planned over the crisis in Ukraine.
Putin’s meeting with Western partners could become the first such event since the outbreak of the Ukrainian crisis and the deterioration of relations between Russia and the West.
