Putin and Obama hold 'intense discussion'
US President Barack Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin held "an intense discussion" on Monday on Syria and Ukraine, White House spokesman Josh Earnest stated.
According to the Kremlin press service, the two sides agreed to "keep boosting the coordinated effort of the two countries in Syria, including through secret services and defense agencies… With this aim additional measures will be worked out for prompt reaction to the existing violation of the ceasefire regime.”
The Presidents exchanged their views on the situation in Ukraine, with Putin expressing hope that the new Ukrainian government “will finally start taking concrete steps towards implementing the Minsk agreements."
The two leaders did not discuss last week’s incident in which two Russian Su-24 aircraft buzzed the USS Donald Cook in the Baltic Sea.
Earnest said that such events are “destabilizing, but they’re not particularly unusual.”