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Putin To Attend World War I Commemorations In Paris Next Month


French President Emmanuel Macron (right) drives an electric golf cart with Russian President Vladimir Putin through the garden of the Versailles Palace following their meeting in May 2017.

Russian President Vladimir Putin will attend a ceremony in Paris next month marking 100 years since the armistice ending World War I, the Kremlin says.

"On November 11 we are planning to fly to Paris. We will take part in the ceremony on the Champs Elysees," Putin's foreign-policy aide, Yury Ushakov, said on October 16.

The ceremony will be attended by other heads of state, including U.S. President Donald Trump, who has confirmed his attendance at the event.

Asked whether the Russian and U.S. presidents could hold talks in the French capital, Ushakov told journalists that there had been no discussion about a possible encounter.

He said Putin will go to a working breakfast organized by French President Emmanuel Macron and later lay flowers at a monument to Russian soldiers in Paris.

Ushakov also confirmed that U.S. national security adviser John Bolton will be in Moscow at the start of next week for talks with Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev.

Relations between Moscow and the West have deteriorated to a post-Cold War low over issues including Russia's seizure of Crimea in March 2014, its role in wars in Syria and eastern Ukraine, its alleged election meddling in the United States and Europe, and the poisoning of a Russian double agent and his daughter in Britain in March.

Trump's July meeting with Putin in Helsinki failed to turn relations around, with the U.S. administration continuing to impose new sanctions against Russia.

Bolton met with Patrushev in Geneva in August, and warned his Russian counterpart that the United States "wouldn't tolerate meddling" in upcoming elections.

Based on reporting by AFP and AP
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