Donald Trump to meet Russian FM after deterioration of relations between US and Russia
U.S. President Donald Trump plans to meet with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Wednesday, according to his schedule. The meeting will take place at 10:30 a.m. ET in the Oval Office and will be closed to press, according to the White House. An unnamed senior U.S. official told Reuters the war in Syria and U.S.-Russian relations will be on the agenda. It will be the highest level meeting between the U.S. and Russian administrations since Trump took office as president early this year. Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin are scheduled to meet in person for the first time during the July G20 summit in Hamburg. Relations deteriorated between the United States and Russia after U.S. air strikes against a Syrian airfield in response to a chemical weapons attack that Washington blamed on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, a Russian ally. Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin also spoke by phone last week about the war in Syria for the first time since Trump ordered a missile strike against a Syrian airbase last month.
