On the margin of the G20 summit later this month Russia's new (but also old) president, Vladimir Putin, will meet America's Barack Obama for the first time since his election in March. The atmosphere is likely to be chilly. That is as it should be, for since his decision last autumn to return to the Kremlin, Mr Putin has been stridently negative and anti-Western, most recently over Syria (see page 51). Such behaviour demands a stiff response from the West.
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