Less Isolated, Russia's Putin Tries a Wait-and-See Approach
- President cracks jokes at relaxed annual talk with Valdai Club
- Yang calls Russia-China pairing a ‘bedrock’ of world peace
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Fresh from offering a China-scale $25 billion loan to Egypt, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin was unusually relaxed and non-combative at an annual gathering of foreign and Russian analysts in Sochi.
Cracking jokes and avoiding the angry diatribes against the West that have peppered his talks with the Valdai Club in recent years, Putin on Thursday suggested Russia can afford to wait on hot-button topics -- conflicts in Ukraine and Syria to U.S. sanctions -- until events change in its favor.