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When Was the Last Time Putin Visited the U.S?

Since Vladimir Putin 's inauguration as president on May 7, 2000, five U.S. presidents have been in the White House, but not all have had a meeting with their Russian counterpart on American soil. The last such encounter occurred more than seven years ago.

Putin has made a total of seven American visits as president, according to the State Department's Office of the Historian. His first trip took place on September 6 and 7, 2000, when he met then-President Bill Clinton at the Millennium Summit at the United Nations headquarters in New York City. Putin's last visit to the U.S. was in 2015.

Putin's full-scale invasion of Ukraine this year may have caused relations between Moscow and Washington to descend to an all-time low, but there have been some seemingly cordial moments between the heads of state.

Between November 12 and 15, 2001, Putin went to Washington, D.C, and visited Ground Zero in New York City. He also stayed in Crawford, a small rural town in central Texas where Bush owned a ranch nearby. They paid a visit to Crawford High School where Bush said the pair had enjoyed some "Texas barbecue and pecan pie," NPR reported.

Putin met Bush again nearly two years later at the 58th session of the United Nations General Assembly in September 2003. The Russian leader also went to the presidential retreat at Camp David, in Maryland.

Putin's fourth visit to the U.S. occurred between June 8 to 11, 2004, for the G8 meeting of the world's biggest economies and also to attend the funeral of former U.S. President Ronald Reagan.

In September the following year, the Russian leader was stateside again, this time for the UN General Assembly, the 2005 World Summit. That time, he also paid a visit to Bayonne, New Jersey, to unveil a memorial to the 9/11 terror attacks.

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Putin had offered his full support to Bush in the wake of 9/11, and his successor Barack Obama also initially tried to forge strong ties when he came into office.

But ties between the Russian and American presidents have waxed and waned, said William Muck , professor of political science, North Central College, in Naperville, Illinois.

"The relationship between Vladimir Putin and the five post-Cold War presidents has ranged from cautious optimism to frosty mistrust, to even open admiration during the Trump presidency," he told Newsweek .

"At no point were any of these relationships particularly warm, yet early in his tenure Putin was more careful about not alienating U.S. presidents," he added.

During a visit in July 2007, Putin was again on Bush's home turf as a guest at the family home in Kennebunkport, Maine, where, according to CBS News, he enjoyed local seafood and blueberries and took a speedboat ride with the president and his father, George H.W. Bush .

In 2008, Putin had to stand aside as president in keeping with the Russian constitution, which restricted him to two consecutive terms. Dmitry Medvedev took over as head of state and Putin became prime minister. The constitution has since been changed

In his four years as head of government, Putin did not make any official visits to the U.S., according to the Office of the Historian, though during that period, Medvedev did make seven American trips.

Putin returned to the presidency in 2012 but it was three years before he came to the U.S. again. In his last known visit to American soil, he spoke at the U.N. General Assembly on September 28, 2015, on a trip in which he met with then-President Barack Obama.

"The negative relationship between Putin and U.S. presidents stands in stark contrast to the deep and meaningful relationship that Bill Clinton built with Boris Yeltsin and George H.W. Bush and Ronald Reagan developed with Mikhail Gorbachev," Muck said, referring to the Russian leader's predecessors.

While Putin had highly publicized meetings with Donald Trump when the latter was president, and their relationship was the focus of scrutiny, no meeting took place on American soil.

Uncommon Knowledge

Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.

About the writer

Brendan Cole is a Newsweek Senior News Reporter based in London, UK. His focus is Russia and Ukraine, in particular the war started by Moscow. He also covers other areas of geopolitics including China. 

Brendan joined Newsweek in 2018 from the International Business Times and well as English, knows Russian and French.

You can get in touch with Brendan by emailing [email protected] or follow on him on his X account @brendanmarkcole.

To read how Newsweek uses AI as a newsroom tool, Click here.

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US informed Russia of Joe Biden’s Kyiv visit hours before departure

Details emerge of how White House planned ‘unprecedented’ visit and meeting with Volodymyr Zelenskiy

The White House notified the Kremlin of Joe Biden’s intention to visit Kyiv hours before he departed for Ukraine, it has been revealed, as the details began to emerge of how the US president pulled off his high-profile diplomatic coup.

Meticulously planned over several months by a tight circle of key advisers, Biden’s visit was described as “unprecedented in modern times” by his national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, on the grounds that it was the first time a US president had visited “the capital of the country at war where the United States military does not control the critical infrastructure”.

“We did notify the Russians that President Biden will be travelling to Kyiv,” Sullivan said. “We did so some hours before his departure for deconfliction purposes, and because of the sensitive nature of those communications I won’t get into how they responded or what the precise nature of our message was, but I can confirm that we provided that notice.”

The US informed Moscow to avoid any misunderstanding or misjudgment between the two nuclear-armed powers, according to accounts from Washington.

Biden crossed into Ukraine at about 10pm on Sunday night, having quietly boarded a train in the Polish town of Przemyśl. His motorcade pulled up alongside his carriage allowing him to board unseen. His security detail took up most of the train’s eight carriages.

According to a pool reporter on board, the journey through the night was uneventful with a few stops, at least one of which was to take on additional security guards. The train arrived at Kyiv-Pasazhyrskyi station at 8am on Monday.

Biden took the final decision to go on Friday after huddling with his top aides in the Oval Office. Much of the trip until the final train ride had been shrouded in subterfuge.

The journalist and photographer accompanying the president were sworn to secrecy and notified of the rendezvous arrangements under the title: “Arrival instructions for the golf tourney.” Prior to departure they had to hand over their phones, which were not returned until arrival in Kyiv.

Eschewing the presidential Air Force One jet, Biden boarded an Air Force C-32, a modified Boeing 757 normally used for domestic trips to smaller airports with the call sign SAM060, for Special Air Mission. Prior to departure, the plane sat in a dark corner of Andrews airbase with its shades down, and it took off shortly after 4am on Sunday morning.

Refuelling at Ramstein in Germany, Biden’s plane turned off its transponder for the roughly hour-long flight to Rzeszów, Poland, an airport that has served as the gateway for billions of dollars in western arms and VIP visitors into Ukraine. From Rzeszów, the president and his entourage were taken by motorcade on the hour’s drive to the train station at Przemyśl.

Other foreign leaders who have come to Ukraine, including the former British prime minister Boris Johnson and the French president, Emmanuel Macron, have also come in by train from Poland – a route used by journalists, aid workers and diplomats, with Ukraine’s civilian airspace closed for the past year.

Biden was met by the US ambassador to Kyiv, Bridget Brink, and taken in a convoy of vehicles which sped through closed-off roads to his meeting with Zelenskiy, using armoured vehicles that appeared to have been brought in discreetly in advance.

US presidents visiting war zones is not unheard of: three visited Iraq, including Biden’s predecessor, Donald Trump, in what were seen at the time as major security operations. Barack Obama, Trump and George W Bush also visited Afghanistan.

But compared with Kabul and the US Bagram airbase, which hosted visits, Ukraine was viewed as a very different proposition.

That, White House officials are saying, is the distinction between this trip and previous presidential visits to Afghanistan and Iraq. In those countries, there was a massive US military presence, but there is none in Ukraine, and a minimal diplomatic presence.

The active war zone is surveilled by Moscow’s electronic warfare aircraft, with Ukrainian society penetrated by Russian agents.

The risks were apparent from the outset and planned for over “a period of months” by a handful of Biden’s closest aides with input from the NSC, the White House’s military office, the Pentagon, state department, and the intelligence community.

After Moscow was informed of Biden’s trip, a Russian MiG-31 flew from Belarus, triggering an air raid alarm across Ukraine.

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If that flight was deliberate, it backfired, with the sirens audible during Biden’s visit serving only to underline his resolve.

Describing the visit, Sullivan added: “That required a security operational logistical effort from professionals across the US government to take what was an inherently risky undertaking and make it a manageable level of risk.”

“But of course, there was still risk and is still risk in an endeavour like this, and President Biden felt that it was important to make this trip because of the critical juncture that we find ourselves at as we approach the one-year anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.”

The go-ahead for the trip was given only on Friday, according to White House officials, after receipt of a final security briefing. Such was the level of secrecy that the handful of US pool reporters had their mobile devices taken from them before departure.

Western surface-to-air missile systems have bolstered Ukraine’s defences, but the visit was a rare occasion when a US president has travelled to a conflict zone where the US or its allies did not have control over the airspace.

In the end, however, Biden was insistent that he should visit the Ukrainian capital, which became a symbol of resistance to the invasion during the battle of Kyiv in the early weeks of the war, when Russia tried to take the city.

“He got a full presentation of a very good and very effective operational security plan. He heard that presentation, he was satisfied that the risk was manageable and he ultimately made a determination [to travel to Kyiv],” said Sullivan.

“This was risk that Joe Biden wanted to take,” added the White House communications director, Kate Bedingfield.

“It’s important to him to show up, even when it’s hard, and he directed his team to make it happen no matter how challenging the logistics.”

While Biden was in Kyiv, the state department announced a further $460m in US aid to Ukraine, including $450m worth of artillery ammunition, anti-armour systems and air defence radars, and $10m for energy infrastructure.

The European Union’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, said the bloc would approve more sanctions before the one-year anniversary of the conflict.

After leaving Ukraine, Biden landed in the Polish capital Warsaw on Monday evening. On Tuesday he is set to deliver a speech to mark the anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

He is also scheduled to meet President Andrzej Duda, along with other leaders of countries on Nato’s eastern flank.

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Putin visits occupied Mariupol, staking claim to invaded Ukrainian lands

Russian President Vladimir Putin paid a surprise visit late Saturday to occupied Mariupol, the eastern Ukrainian city that Russia seized in May after mostly destroying it during a brutal months-long siege.

The visit was a symbolic display of bravado by Putin, just a day after the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued a warrant for his arrest over alleged war crimes and right before a state visit to Russia by Chinese President Xi Jinping, which begins Monday.

But even as Putin personally staked his claim to occupied Ukrainian territory, international condemnation of him grew louder.

Germany’s justice minister, Marco Buschmann, told the Bild newspaper that German authorities would arrest Putin, in accordance with the warrant, if he set foot in their country. President Biden on Saturday also backed the court’s decision, saying, “it’s justified.”

Officials in Russia, which, like the United States, does not recognize the international court’s jurisdiction, described the warrant as unlawful. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov called it “outrageous and unacceptable” but also “null and void” from a legal perspective.

The visit to Mariupol was Putin’s first known trip to occupied Ukrainian territory since the start of his invasion in February last year. Since then, the West estimates some 200,000 Russian soldiers have been killed or wounded in Ukraine.

Highlighting the security concerns, the Kremlin announced the visit only on Sunday morning after Putin had left. Ukraine’s Defense Ministry accused Putin of visiting at night “like a thief.”

The Russian president was flown into Mariupol on a helicopter. The city, on the Sea of Azov, sits about 60 miles south of active fighting. It is part of the Donetsk region, one of four Ukrainian provinces, along with Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson, that Russia claims to have annexed, in violation of international law.

Video released by the Kremlin showed Putin driving a vehicle through several neighborhoods to inspect “the coastline, the theater building, and memorable places” and reconstruction work in the city, which was badly damaged by airstrikes, according to a government readout posted Sunday.

Other videos carried on Russian state media early Sunday showed Putin sitting in an empty hall of a rebuilt philharmonic, as well as talking to a small group of residents in nighttime darkness outside a newly constructed residential complex in the Nevsky district, a project widely used by Russian propagandists to praise Moscow’s swift rebuilding of the city.

“This is a little island of paradise here,” one woman said in the video before Putin toured an apartment in the building.

In comments on Mariupol message boards on the popular Telegram messaging app, some residents complained that no one showed Putin “the empty pits that are the foundations of destroyed houses.”

On one private Telegram channel, a woman questioned why Putin did not visit “neighborhoods where people are still without heating, with broken windows, water and electricity intermittently?”

She also asked why he wasn’t shown the cemetery at Stary Krym, where thousands of new graves are marked simply with numbers instead of names.

Petro Andryushchenko, an adviser to the ousted Ukrainian mayor of Mariupol, referred to Putin as a “scarecrow,” also saying in a Telegram post that he visited at night probably to hide the scale of destruction Russian forces had caused in the city. At night, he wrote, “the true beauty of the Russian occupation design is hidden by darkness.”

Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, connected the visit and the arrest warrant for war crimes. “The criminal always returns to the crime scene,” Podolyak tweeted. “The murderer of thousands of Mariupol families came to admire the ruins of the city & graves. Cynicism & lack of remorse.”

ICC issues arrest warrant for Putin over war crimes in Ukraine

The Russian president’s trip was part of a two-day tour across occupied territories.

Earlier on Saturday, Putin visited Crimea, which Russia invaded and illegally annexed in 2014, to mark the ninth anniversary of Moscow’s absorption of the Ukrainian peninsula. The Kremlin also said Putin had visited the Russian city of Rostov-on-Don for a meeting with top military commanders at the regional Defense Ministry headquarters.

Putin’s trip seemed designed to make a muscular display of Russia’s claims to invaded Ukrainian territory and to showcase tangible gains in a war that has largely stalled after a string of Russian military defeats in the fall. In addition to the estimated 200,000 Russian fighters killed or wounded, Ukrainian military casualties are estimated at up to 120,000, and according to the United Nations, more than 8,000 Ukrainian civilians have been killed.

The visit to Mariupol also projected an image of Putin as defiant and unbowed after the ICC issued a warrant for his arrest, saying he was personally responsible for the criminal abduction and deportation of Ukrainian children taken across the Russian border.

At least 1,000 such children were relocated to Russia from Mariupol, according to Maria Lvova-Belova, Russia’s children’s rights ombudswoman. The ICC also issued an arrest warrant for Lvova-Belova on Friday, accusing her of the same crimes as Putin.

War forces thousands of disabled Ukrainians into institutions

To solidify Russia’s control over the occupied territories, Moscow has pushed to bring the population into its legal orbit by issuing Russian passports and making it easy to sign up for modest government benefits. Russia has sought to present the annexation of the four regions as a fait accompli, and the Russian constitution was even rewritten to incorporate them.

After Putin’s visit, Peskov, the Kremlin spokesman, tried to portray the president as focused on easing the transition for residents.

“In conversation with the president, residents of Mariupol raised questions related to the delay in paying salaries, obtaining Russian citizenship, and issuing Russian passports,” Peskov told the state-controlled news agency Tass. “The president will give instructions to deal with the situation.”

Mariupol became a symbol of Ukrainian resistance during weeks of relentless Russian attacks, including the bombing of a drama theater, which had been used as a shelter by hundreds of people.

It is also one of the few occupied regional hubs Moscow still firmly controls, after its troops were forced to retreat from most of the northeastern Kharkiv region and from Kherson city in the south during Ukrainian counteroffensives in the fall.

The front line has barely moved in the winter months, with the two sides engaged in a war of attrition that has cost many lives and depleted ammunition supplies.

Ukrainian forces, emboldened by new weapons supplies from its Western allies, are believed to be gearing up for an offensive in the spring, with Zelensky promising to reclaim all Russian-occupied areas, including Crimea.

Ukraine short of skilled troops and munitions as losses, pessimism grow

Putin has shown no sign that he is willing to negotiate with Kyiv and instead has sought to normalize the war in recent public speeches, apparently seeking to prepare Russians for a long fight.

Following the invasion, the West has largely shunned Moscow, imposing export controls and a vast array of economic sanctions in hopes of undermining Putin’s war machine.

But on Monday, the arrival of Xi is set to provide Beijing’s strongest show of support since the war started. China insists it is neutral in the conflict and has sought to portray itself as a potential mediator.

For Putin, Xi’s visit bolsters the Kremlin’s fundamental talking point that active support for Ukraine is limited to Western capitals, while Russia actively cultivates alliances elsewhere.

“Russia-China relations have reached the highest level in their history and are gaining even more strength,” Putin wrote in an article addressing Xi’s visit. The Kremlin posted the text to its website late Sunday.

“We appreciate the well-balanced stance on the events in Ukraine adopted by the PRC,” Putin wrote, using the initialism for the People’s Republic of China. “We welcome China’s readiness to make a meaningful contribution to the settlement of the crisis.”

Siobhán O’Grady, David L. Stern, Serhiy Morgunov, and Kamila Hrabchuk in Kyiv, Ukraine, contributed to this report.

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Putin begins visit in China, underscoring Moscow's ties with Beijing

The Associated Press

Russia's President Vladimir Putin, center, arrives at Beijing Capital International Airport to attend the third Belt and Road Forum in Beijing, Tuesday, Oct. 17, 2023. Parker Song/AP hide caption

Russia's President Vladimir Putin, center, arrives at Beijing Capital International Airport to attend the third Belt and Road Forum in Beijing, Tuesday, Oct. 17, 2023.

TAIPEI, Taiwan — Russian President Vladimir Putin arrived in Beijing on Tuesday for a visit that underscores China's support for Moscow during its war in Ukraine as well as Russian backing for China's bid to expand its economic and diplomatic influence abroad.

The two countries have forged an informal alliance against the United States and other democratic nations that is now complicated by the Israel-Hamas war. China has sought to balance its ties with Israel against its relations with Iran and Syria, two countries that are strongly backed by Russia and with which China has forged ties for economic reasons as well as to challenge Washington's influence in the Middle East.

Putin's plane was met by an honor guard as the Russian leader began his visit that is also a show of support for Chinese leader Xi Jinping's signature "Belt and Road" initiative to build infrastructure and expand China's overseas influence.

In an interview to Chinese state media, Putin praised the massive but loosely linked BRI projects.

"Yes, we see that some people consider it an attempt by the People's Republic of China to put someone under its thumb, but we see otherwise, we just see desire for cooperation," he told state broadcaster CCTV, according to a transcript released by the Kremlin on Monday.

Putin will be among the highest profile guests at a gathering marking the 10th anniversary of Xi's announcement of the BRI project, which has laden countries such as Zambia and Sri Lanka with heavy debt from contracts with Chinese companies to build roads, airports and other public works they could not otherwise afford. U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres has praised the Chinese policy as bringing development to neglected areas.

Asked by reporters Friday about his visit, Putin said it would encompass talks on Belt and Road-related projects, which he said Moscow wants to link with efforts by an economic alliance of former Soviet Union nations mostly located in Central Asia to "achieve common development goals."

He also downplayed the impact of China's economic influence in a region that Russia has long considered its backyard and where it has worked to maintain political and military clout.

"We don't have any contradictions here, on the contrary, there is a certain synergy," Putin said.

Putin said he and Xi would also discuss growing economic ties between Moscow and Beijing in energy, high-tech and financial industries. China has also grown in importance as an export destination for Russia.

Alexander Gabuev, director of the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center, said that from China's view, "Russia is a safe neighbor that is friendly, that is a source of cheap raw materials, that's a support for Chinese initiatives on the global stage and that's also a source of military technologies, some of those that China doesn't have."

"For Russia, China is its lifeline, economic lifeline in its brutal repression against Ukraine," Gabuev told The Associated Press.

"It's the major market for Russian commodities, it's a country that provides its currency and payment system to settle Russia's trade with the outside world — with China itself, but also with many other countries, and is also the major source of sophisticated technological imports, including dual-use goods that go into the Russian military machine."

Gabuev said that while Moscow and Beijing will be unlikely to forge a full-fledged military alliance, their defense cooperation will grow.

"Both countries are self-sufficient in terms of security and they benefit from partnering, but neither really requires a security guarantee from the other. And they preach strategic autonomy," he said.

"There will be no military alliance, but there will be closer military cooperation, more interoperability, more cooperation on projecting force together, including in places like the Arctic and more joint effort to develop a missile defense that makes the U.S. nuclear planning and planning of the U.S. and its allies in Asia and in Europe more complicated," he added.

The Chinese and Soviets were Cold War rivals for influence among left-leaning states, but China and Russia have since partnered in the economic, military and diplomatic spheres.

Just weeks before Russia's invasion of Ukraine last February, Putin met with Xi in Beijing and the sides signed an agreement pledging a "no-limits" relationship. Beijing's attempts to present itself as a neutral peace broker in Russia's war on Ukraine have been widely dismissed by the international community.

Xi visited Moscow in March as part of a flurry of exchanges between the countries. China has condemned international sanctions imposed on Russia, but hasn't directly addressed an arrest warrant issued for Putin by the International Criminal Court on charges of alleged involvement in the abductions of thousands of children from Ukraine.

Vladimir Putin to make first foreign trip since Ukraine invasion

Putin’s last known visit outside Russia was to Beijing in early February, where he and Chinese President Xi Jinping unveiled a ‘no limits’ friendship treaty.

Vladimir Putin will visit two small former Soviet states in central Asia this week in what would be the Russian leader’s first known trip abroad since ordering the invasion of Ukraine.

Pavel Zarubin, the Kremlin correspondent of the Rossiya 1 state television station, said Putin would visit Tajikistan and Turkmenistan and then meet Indonesian President Joko Widodo for talks in Moscow.

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In Dushanbe, Putin will meet Tajik President Imomali Rakhmon, a close Russian ally and the longest-serving ruler of a former Soviet state. In Ashgabat, he will attend a summit of Caspian nations including the leaders of Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Iran and Turkmenistan, Zarubin said.

Putin’s last known trip outside Russia was a visit to Beijing in early February, where he and Chinese President Xi Jinping unveiled a “no limits” friendship treaty hours before both attended the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympic Games.

Russia’s February 24 invasion has killed thousands of people, displaced millions more, and led to severe financial sanctions from the West, which Putin says are a reason to build stronger trade ties with other powers such as China, India and Iran.

Russia says it sent troops into Ukraine to degrade its neighbour’s military capabilities, keep it from being used by the West to threaten Russia, root out nationalists, and defend Russian speakers in eastern regions.

Ukraine calls the invasion an imperial-style land grab .

Jackets off?

World leaders, meanwhile, mocked Putin’s tough-guy image at a Group of Seven (G7) lunch in Germany on Sunday, joking about whether they should strip down to shirtsleeves – or even less.

“Jackets on? Jackets off? Do we take our coats off?” United Kingdom Prime Minister Boris Johnson asked as he sat down at the table in Bavaria’s picturesque Elmau Castle, where German Chancellor Olaf Scholz was hosting the summit of seven powerful democracies.

The leaders – from the UK, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United States and the European Union – pondered the dilemma.

Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau suggested they wait for the official picture before disrobing but then Johnson quipped, “We have to show that we’re tougher than Putin” and the joke kept rolling.

“We’re going to get the bare-chested horseback riding display,” Trudeau said, referring to Putin’s infamous 2009 photo op of himself riding shirtless on a horse.

“Horseback riding is the best,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said, without apparently weighing in on the clothing issue itself.

Johnson interjected: “We’ve got to show them our pecs.”

The leaders posed – jackets on – for photos before reporters were hustled out of the room, leaving the sartorial debate behind closed doors.

Putin dismissed US warnings about a potential terror incident as 'blackmail' just 3 days before concert hall attack

• Shooters attacked a Moscow concert hall on Friday, killing at least 60 and injuring more than 100.
• Earlier this month, the US embassy issued a security alert warning of a potential terror attack.
• Just days ago, Vladimir Putin dismissed the idea as "blackmail" from the West.

Russian President Vladimir Putin dismissed US warnings about a potential terror incident in Moscow just days before shooters attacked a concert hall in the city on Friday.

At least 60 people are dead and more than 100 are injured after multiple armed individuals stormed the Crocus City Hall in Moscow, an investigative committee reported . The state-run news agency TASS reported 40 deaths earlier in the day, citing Russia's Federal Security Service, or FSB, which called the incident a "terrorist attack."

Graphic videos posted to social media purport to show the attack unfolding. In some of the footage, gunshots and concertgoers' screams can be heard.

According to Russian state media , the unidentified attackers were armed with assault rifles and opened fire in the lobby of the building before moving into the main concern hall, where a band was scheduled to perform. It added that an explosion inside the venue sparked the fire, which engulfed at least a third of the building and spread to the roof .

Earlier this month, the US embassy in Russia issued a security alert warning that "extremists have imminent plans" for a terror attack in Moscow and urged people to avoid crowds, monitor local media for updates, and be aware of their surroundings.

"The Embassy is monitoring reports that extremists have imminent plans to target large gatherings in Moscow, to include concerts, and U.S. citizens should be advised to avoid large gatherings over the next 48 hours," the March 7 security alert said.

Putin addressed the warnings a couple of weeks later, criticizing the warning as "provocative."

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TASS reported that Putin said on March 19 the aim of "the recent provocative statements of a number of official Western structures about the possibility of terrorist attacks in Russia" was harming Russian society .

"All this resembles outright blackmail and the intention to intimidate and destabilize our society," Putin said, state media covering his remarks reported.

The US embassy issued another alert on Friday saying it was "aware" of the attack and urged Americans to avoid the area.

"We strongly condemn the horrendous attack carried out at a concert hall in Moscow," Russia's foreign ministry said in an official statement. "We express our deepest sympathies with the families of the victims."

Shortly after Friday's attack, ISIS claimed responsibility, according to a post on Telegram from a news agency affiliated with the terrorist group. US officials later confirmed that a branch of ISIS, Islamic State-Khorasan, or ISIS-K, was responsible and had been planning an attack.

The group has been known to operate in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iran and was suspected to be active inside Russia, two US officials told The Washington Post, which reported that the embassy alert was based, at least in part, on intelligence about ISIS-K activity in Russia.

A White House official shared more information Friday evening in a statement reported by multiple outlets.

"Earlier this month, the US government had information about a planned terrorist attack in Moscow — potentially targeting large gatherings, to include concerts — which prompted the State Department to issue a public advisory to Americans in Russia," Adrienne Watson, a spokesperson for the White House National Security Council, said.

"The U.S. government also shared this information with Russian authorities in accordance with its longstanding 'duty to warn' policy," Watson said, referring to the US policy in the intelligence community to notify potential victims, regardless of whether they are US citizens, of certain credible impending threats.

Watch: Why the Putin-Kim meeting has world leaders worried

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Exclusive-Russia's Putin to visit China in May - sources

By Laurie Chen, Yew Lun Tian and Guy Faulconbridge

BEIJING/MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin will travel to China in May for talks with Xi Jinping, in what could be the Kremlin chief's first overseas trip of his new presidential term, according to five sources familiar with the matter.

Western governments on Monday condemned Putin's re-election as unfair and undemocratic. But China, India and North Korea congratulated the veteran leader on extending his rule by a further six years, highlighting geopolitical fault lines that have widened since Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

"Putin will visit China," one of the sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told Reuters. The details were independently confirmed by four other sources, who also spoke on condition of anonymity.

Another of the sources said Putin's trip to China would probably take place in the second half of May. Two of the sources said the Putin visit would come before Xi's planned trip to Europe.

The Kremlin declined to comment. China's foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

China has strengthened its trade and military ties with Russia in recent years as the United States and its allies imposed sanctions against both countries, particularly Moscow for the invasion of Ukraine. The two countries declared a "no limits" partnership in February 2022 when Putin visited Beijing just days before the invasion.

Foreign diplomats and observers said they expected Putin to make China his first stop after being re-elected. Putin's formal presidential inauguration is due to take place around May 7.

Putin told reporters on Sunday that Russia and China shared a similar global outlook, enjoyed resilient relations in part due to Putin and Xi's good personal relations and that Moscow and Beijing would develop ties further in coming years.

Xi visited Russia in his first post-pandemic overseas trip in March last year, shortly after commencing his precedent-breaking third term as Chinese president.

The two leaders have often touted their close personal friendship and have met over 40 times, most recently in October when Putin was the guest of honour at China's Belt and Road summit in Beijing.

China-Russia trade hit $218.2 billion during January-November, according to Chinese customs data, exceeding a goal to increase bilateral trade to over $200 billion by 2024 that was set by the two countries.

Xi, in a call with Putin last month, said both sides should resolutely oppose interference in domestic affairs by external forces, indicating the U.S.

Chinese vice foreign minister Sun Weidong said bilateral ties were "at their best in history" when meeting his Russian counterpart in Moscow last month, according to a Chinese foreign ministry readout.

China is considering taking part in a peace conference aimed at ending the war in Ukraine to be hosted by neutral Switzerland in the coming months, its ambassador to Bern told local media on Monday.

Beijing launched a 12-point Ukraine "peace" plan last year but so far has not taken significant steps to resolve the conflict besides attending Western-led peace talks in Jeddah last summer.

China's special envoy for Eurasian affairs Li Hui met officials in five European capitals including Moscow and Kyiv earlier this month.

(Reporting by Laurie Chen and Yew Lun Tian in Beijing and Guy Faulconbridge in Moscow; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan)

Putin's address to the nation on concert attack

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Britain's King Charles 'frustrated' by pace of cancer recovery

Britain's King Charles is "frustrated" by the pace of his recuperation from cancer, his nephew Peter Phillips said on Sunday, becoming the first member of the royal family to speak in detail about how the monarch was faring.

The Kremlin says Russia is in a 'state of war' in Ukraine

The Kremlin said Friday that Russia is in a “state of war” in Ukraine , direct language that fueled questions about whether it signaled a change in approach following the landslide election victory claimed by President Vladimir Putin to extend his rule.

“Yes, it began as a special military operation, but as soon as this group was formed there, when the collective West became a participant in this on the side of Ukraine, for us it already became a war,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in comments to the pro-Kremlin Argumenty i Fakty newspaper.

“I am convinced of this. And everyone should understand this for their own internal mobilization,” Peskov added.

The comments quickly drew attention in Russia and abroad, where observers of the war are watching for signs that the Kremlin is readying its public for deeper and prolonged involvement in Ukraine, including a second wave of mobilization to beef up its military ranks as the conflict enters a third year.

The Kremlin has insisted on calling its full-scale invasion of neighboring Ukraine a “special military operation,” and censorship laws adopted in the early days of the war have allowed authorities to arrest or even jail people who criticize Russia’s actions in Ukraine or simply use the word “war.”

Peskov’s comments would appear to be a departure from that language, which sought to cast the invasion as a limited endeavor and play down its increasingly dominant role in Russian life.

As the remarks drew headlines across the world, analysts were divided over whether they signaled a dramatic shift from the Kremlin.

Peskov’s point that everyone in Russia should understand that the country is in a state of war “for their own internal mobilization” was noted as a particular sign that authorities may soon be asking for more from the Russian public. A new recruitment drive has long been seen as a possibility once Putin secured re-election.

“Now it’s official: the SMO (special military operation) is recognized as a war. Of course, the SMO de facto became a war a long time ago,” said Tatiana Stanovaya, a nonresident scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the founder and head of the political analysis firm R.Politik.

“But this is a certain psychological boundary, beyond which both the population and the elites will be faced with different demands than during the period of the special military operation,” she wrote on Telegram.

However, others noted that Kremlin officials regularly allude to a wider “war” in their remarks.

“This is not new: The idea that the SMO is just one front, albeit the most bloody, in a wider political-economic-cultural war with the West has long been established, not least by Putin in his state of the federation speech last month, in which he used the w-word,” said Mark Galeotti, head of the consultancy Mayak Intelligence and an honorary professor at University College London.

Peskov’s mention of “internal mobilization” is actually key, Galeotti said. “The Kremlin’s demand that every Russian get into a wartime mindset, and realise there is now no middle ground between being a patriot and a traitor (as Putin defines these),” he wrote on X . “But it’s also important to stop sometimes and not think that there’s going to be a ‘gotcha’ moment when Putin’s mask is ripped off.”

Peskov sought to clarify his comments later Friday.

“This is not related to any legal changes,” Peskov said in his daily briefing with reporters, when asked if they signified a legal change in the status of the “special military operation.”

“This is a special military operation de jure. But de facto, in fact, it has turned into a war for us after the collective West has been directly increasing the level of its involvement in the conflict more and more.”

When pushed on the fact that some in Russia have been put in jail for protesting with the phrase “no to war,” Peskov said it was a “completely inappropriate comparison” because “the context is different.”

Last December, Peskov told NBC News that Russia’s fight remains a “special military operation,” but said the West’s efforts against Russia were indisputably a war, citing what he called “direct” involvement of foreign countries in the conflict and U.S.-led economic sanctions. “If it’s not a war, then how would you like to call it?” Peskov said at the time. “We call it war.”

Putin has framed the war in Ukraine as Russia’s existential fight for survival against the West, which he said seeks its annihilation.

Russian propaganda frequently berates Western governments for supplying Ukraine with weapons, accusing them of effectively fighting Russia on the battlefield, if only by remote control so far.

Tensions around the West’s involvement in Ukraine have grown in recent weeks after French President Emmanuel Macron suggested that he couldn’t rule out sending Western troops on the ground in Ukraine in the future. Putin responded by saying that could precipitate a nuclear war .

Yuliya Talmazan is a reporter for NBC News Digital, based in London.

India's Modi Speaks to Putin, Zelenskiy Ahead of Top Ukraine Minister's Visit

India's Modi Speaks to Putin, Zelenskiy Ahead of Top Ukraine Minister's Visit

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi attend a meeting on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit in Samarkand, Uzbekistan September 16, 2022. Sputnik/Alexander Demyanchuk/Pool via REUTERS/File Photo

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi held separate phone calls on Wednesday with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelenskiy and discussed strengthening ties with both, ahead of a visit by the Ukrainian foreign minister to New Delhi.

India has traditionally had close economic and defence ties with Moscow and has refrained from criticising Russia over its February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, instead increasing purchases of Russian oil to record levels.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba will visit India next week as Kyiv looks to build support for its peace plan, two Indian officials aware of the matter said. It will be the first visit by a top Ukrainian official since Russia's invasion.

Modi phoned Putin to congratulate him on his victory in Russia's weekend presidential election, and the two leaders also discussed Ukraine, the Kremlin said in a statement.

The Indian government in its own statement said that Modi had reiterated India's "consistent position in favour of dialogue and diplomacy as the way forward" in the Ukraine crisis, and that the leaders agreed to deepen bilateral ties.

The Latest Photos From Ukraine

Modi later said in a post on social media platform X that he also spoke to Zelenskiy on strengthening ties between India and Ukraine and conveyed "India's consistent support for all efforts for peace and bringing an early end to the ongoing conflict."

Photos You Should See

"Ukraine is interested in strengthening our trade and economic ties with India, particularly in agricultural exports, aviation cooperation, and pharmaceutical and industrial product trade," Zelenskiy said on X, following the call.

Kuleba's visit comes at the invitation of his Indian counterpart, Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, after a phone call between Modi and Zelenskiy at the start of the year, one of the officials said.

Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity.

Kyiv's peace plan calls for the withdrawal of all Russian troops from Ukraine, restoring the country's 1991 post-Soviet borders and a process to make Russia accountable for its actions.

Zelenskiy stressed the importance of India's participation in the first peace formula summit planned for later this year in Switzerland.

Apart from talks with Indian officials, Kuleba is also set to "review the India-Ukraine inter-governmental commission," one of the officials said, referring to a panel charged with keeping up the two nations' economic, cultural and technological ties.

India's foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Zelenskiy said the commission session was to happen "in the nearest future."

One of the officials said a formal announcement of the visit was expected next week. Indian media first reported it on Tuesday.

Ukraine has also pitched for New Delhi to help rebuild its war-ravaged economy, inviting investment from Indian companies at a January business summit in India.

Modi has spoken several times to the leaders of both Ukraine and Russia, having met Zelenskiy last May on the sidelines of a G7 summit in Hiroshima, Japan.

India has insisted on the need for both sides to talk, with Modi telling Putin during a meeting in September 2022 that this is not an era of war.

(Reporting by Krishn Kaushik and Shivam Patel in New Delhi; Editing by Jamie Freed, Clarence Fernandez, Gareth Jones and Mark Porter)

Copyright 2024 Thomson Reuters .

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Putin Hails Conquests in Ukraine in Red Square Spectacle

A day after a rubber-stamp presidential election, President Vladimir Putin said he would not back down in Russia’s war against Ukraine.

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By Paul Sonne ,  Anton Troianovski and Nanna Heitmann

Paul Sonne and Anton Troianovski reported from Berlin. Nanna Heitmann reported from Moscow.

His most beloved crooner sang a nationalistic ballad with an appeal to Russians: “The Motherland is calling. Don’t let her down.”

His favorite band belted out a moody song about wartime sacrifice.

And then he took the stage, under a banner celebrating the 10th anniversary of Crimea’s seizure from Ukraine, to remind thousands of Russians gathered on Red Square that his fight to add territory to Russia wasn’t over.

President Vladimir V. Putin, a day after declaring victory in a performative election, signaled on Monday that the war against Ukraine would continue to dominate his rule and called for unity in bringing the people of eastern Ukraine “back to their home family.”

“We will move on together, hand in hand,” Mr. Putin told the crowd, boasting of a restored railroad line that he said would soon connect to Crimea through territory taken from Ukraine. “And this is precisely what really makes us stronger — not words, but deeds.”

The display of nationalistic fervor came as the capstone of a three-day election whose foregone conclusion prompted comparisons of Mr. Putin’s Russia to other authoritarian dictatorships. On Sunday night, the state news swiftly declared that he had won more than 87 percent of the vote.

Underscoring the artificial nature of the election, Mr. Putin brought the three puppet competitors the Kremlin had picked to run against him onto the stage on Red Square and offered each a turn at the microphone, saying they all took “different approaches” but had “one Motherland.”

The communist candidate, whom the Russian authorities called the second-place finisher, with just over 4 percent of the vote, praised Mr. Putin for bringing Crimea back to “home port.”

The nationalist candidate said Crimea would forever be part of Russia on the maps of the world and led a cheer: “To Russia, to our great future and to the president of a great Russia!”

The last candidate, from the New People party, said he would never forget the pride he had in Mr. Putin when he annexed Crimea in 2014.

“Happy holiday!” Mr. Putin shouted. “Long live Russia!”

The crowd broke into the Russian national anthem before men in military uniforms with pro-war “Z” patches and medals took the stage and joined a singer in a war ballad. “Give him the strength to win,” went the chorus.

Mr. Putin, 71, showed little of the emotion he at times has displayed at similar events in the past, such as when he appeared to tear up during a victory speech after the 2012 election. He mouthed the words to the national anthem with relatively little enthusiasm and quickly left the event.

The celebration made clear that the war against Ukraine had come to be the organizing principle of Mr. Putin’s rule, and it was held as Russians braced for what might come next in a country still fighting on the battlefield and led by a newly emboldened leader.

The massive crowd that gathered on Red Square was made up in part of government workers, students and others who were given tickets and in some cases asked to attend, a common practice for pro-Kremlin rallies in Russia.

A 59-year-old social worker, who gave her name as Nadya and arrived waving a giant Russian flag and wearing a folk headdress known as a kokoshnik, said that she did not want war but that the West needed to stop antagonizing Russia. Russia, she said, needs to be respected, and ending the hostilities is not up to Mr. Putin.

“It doesn’t depend on us,” she said. “It’s the West. England, America — they want to divide us up and make us into little colonies.”

For many Russians, the big worry now is of another military draft, as Mr. Putin doubles down on his invasion.

A 29-year-old government analyst at the celebration, who gave his name as Maksim, said that failing to see any other candidates as strong as Mr. Putin, he had voted for him. But he expressed sympathy for the people who live in Ukraine, as well as for Russian soldiers fighting on the front, and acknowledged that he feared another draft.

“I worry about it, I worry about it every day,” he said. “We don’t know what will happen even tomorrow.”

There are other jitters as well, from the expectation of higher taxes to the possibility of greater repression. Mr. Putin, newly elected to his fifth term, could reshuffle his cabinet, a typical post-election procedure that some analysts believe he could use this time around to elevate the most hawkish members of the ruling elite.

Tatiana Stanovaya, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center, predicted that Mr. Putin would seek to renew the personnel in his “power vertical,” the common term for the political system he has honed that has turned post-Soviet Russia into an autocracy. She said he could seek to promote young, loyal, pro-war bureaucrats over the older generation of officials — mostly men born in the 1950s — who now dominate the upper echelons of his system.

“In times of war, the ‘young hawks’ are, potentially, increasingly in demand,” she wrote .

Mr. Putin is scheduled to be inaugurated in May — a moment of pomp and circumstance that the Kremlin has fashioned into a televised ritual that demonstrates his grip on the Russian state, and an occasion on which he is likely to give a speech setting out a vision for the next six years.

But in the hours after the polls closed on Sunday, Mr. Putin was quick to make clear that his top priority was to continue waging his invasion of Ukraine, until Kyiv and the West agree to a peace deal on his terms.

He said at an after-midnight news conference that Russia wanted talks to build “peaceful, neighborly relations in the long term,” not a deal that would allow Ukraine “to take a pause for a year and a half or two years in order to rearm.”

Repeating a warning he made last summer, Mr. Putin said that Russia could seek to create a “security zone” on Ukrainian territory that Russia does not currently control.

He did not offer details, but analysts believe that such a buffer zone would entail an effort to capture parts of the Kharkiv region of Ukraine — an assault that could require a new military draft.

But analysts also cautioned that, given the opacity of Mr. Putin’s government, it is hard to predict how much will really change. To the extent that Mr. Putin does replace some of his top officials, his priorities will be their “loyalty first and effectiveness second,” said Grigorii Golosov, a political scientist in St. Petersburg.

The orchestrated outpouring of support for Mr. Putin on Monday on Red Square, which was beamed over state television across the country, was designed to communicate that supporting the Russian leader was the patriotic, commonplace thing to do.

Before the invasion of Ukraine, political scientists studying Russia found that the perception of Mr. Putin’s popularity helped drive his actual support and keep him in power. Many Russians had the sense that everyone around them was supporting the Russian leader.

“People like to go along with the crowd,” said Noah Buckley, a political science professor at Trinity College Dublin and co-author of the research. “People like to be on the winning side.”

That sort of support can collapse quickly if the perception of popularity erodes, Mr. Buckley noted. But, he said, “I certainly don’t predict that around this election or anytime soon.”

Paul Sonne is an international correspondent, focusing on Russia and the varied impacts of President Vladimir V. Putin’s domestic and foreign policies, with a focus on the war against Ukraine. More about Paul Sonne

Anton Troianovski is the Moscow bureau chief for The Times. He writes about Russia, Eastern Europe, the Caucasus and Central Asia. More about Anton Troianovski