Toppmöte mellan Trump och Putin

The White House has invited Russian President Vladimir Putin to Washington, U.S. National Security Advisor John Bolton said on Friday.

Putin and Trump have met several times on the sidelines of multilateral gatherings, but had only one bilateral summit, in the Finnish capital in July.

“We have invited president Putin to Washington,” Bolton said. It was not immediately clear if Putin had accepted the invitation.

NEW YORK (AP) — The shadow of Helsinki lingers. Uncertainties about Russia’s past and future election interference continue. And tensions are high over hot spots from Iran to Venezuela.

When President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin meet this week on the sidelines of an international summit in Japan, it will mark a new chapter in a much scrutinized relationship that crackles with questions and contradictions. Even as Trump places a premium on establishing close personal ties with Putin, his government has increased sanctions and other pressures on Moscow.

The agenda remains a mystery, as still does the outcome of their last meeting, nearly a year ago in Finland.

“The whole world was watching in Helsinki when President Trump sided with Putin over his own intelligence community and we still, all this time later, don’t know what they discussed in their private meeting,” said Michael McFaul, U.S. ambassador to Russia under President Barack Obama. “And now, I suspect, they will bond over the end of the Mueller probe and push the narrative, individually and together, that there was nothing there. It will feel like a vindication to them both.”

The Group of 20 summit in Osaka will be the leaders’ first meeting since special counsel Robert Mueller ended his investigation with no finding that the Trump campaign in 2016 conspired with Russia. That question long had shadowed Trump’s presidency.