UK Prime Minister’s Office Confirms May’s Meeting With Putin at G20 Summit

Speaking yesterday, May and Putin expressed their mutual dissatisfaction at the current state of bilateral relations and vowed to improve ties in order to cooperate on the global fight against terrorism.

However, they agreed “to step up joint work in some spheres, namely intelligence agencies”, the message said.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is set to meet with British Prime Minister Theresa May at the G20 Summit in China next month.

Relations between the two countries have been strained, particularly following the United Kingdom inquiry which blamed the 2006 poisoning death of former spy Alexander Litvinenko on Russian agents and said it was “probably” approved by Mr Putin.

There are also tensions over what Britain says is a sharp increase in flights by long-range Russian bombers near British air space.

London has led calls for sanctions against Russian Federation over its involvement in Mr Litvinenko’s death, a subsequent spying row and the hardline stance it has taken against Ukraine over Crimea.

“[They] agreed that British and Russian citizens faced common threats, and that cooperation on aviation security in particular was a vital part of the counter-terrorism effort”, a Downing Street spokeswoman said.

Mrs May and Mr Putin will both attend a G20 summit in China in September.

During a phone call initiated by London, the two leaders “planned to hold a private meeting in the near future”, the Kremlin said in a statement, without naming a date.

The relationship between the two soured after a Turkish F-16 jet downed a Russian warplane over the Syrian border in November.