Putin leaves summit after row with Cameron

VLADIMIR PUTIN staged a walk-out at the G20 summit in Australia yesterday after the British prime minister David Cameron warned the Russian president that he risked becoming an international pariah over his aggressive foreign policy.

The two leaders held ‘frank and robust’ faceto-face talks – diplomatic code for a row.

After Mr Putin endured a barrage of criticism from other G20 leaders in Brisbane, the Kremlin said that he would leave the summit before today’s official lunch.

During their tense 50-minute encounter, Mr Cameron warned Mr Putin he was at a ‘fork in the road’ over his support for rebels waging a civil war in eastern Ukraine.

EU leaders will today hold talks with Barack Obama about imposing further sanctions against Mr Putin unless he ceases aggressive support for Russian separatists in the former Soviet republic.

Measures are already in place against his energy, defence and banking sectors.

There is also anger at Mr Putin’s refusal to accept responsibility for the shooting down of Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 over Ukraine in July, with the loss of 298 lives.

‘It’s very important Russia understands what’s at stake,’ said Mr Cameron. ‘There’s a real choice here. There’s a different and better way for Russia to behave that could lead to an easing of relations, but at the moment he’s not taking that path.’

Earlier, Mr Putin warned that sanctions against his country could backfire.

In an interview on German television, Mr Putin said cutting Russian access to capital markets would hurt Western exports.

He also said the sanctions could hurt some Russian banks, leading them to demand repayment of multibillion loans they have given to Ukraine, damaging its economy.

Mr Putin cited Russia’s state-controlled Gazprombank, which he said issued loans worth $3.2bn to Ukraine.