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US President Donald Trump arrived in Helsinki on Sunday, 15 July for the first summit with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin after he lashed out at the media for being critical of his Russian policy.
Air Force One touched down at Helsinki Airport at 20:55 (local time) carrying Trump ahead of the historic meeting with Putin scheduled for Monday.
He was greeted by the US Ambassador to Finland Robert Pence before travelling to his overnight lodgings, media reports said.
Earlier, he had tweeted before leaving for the capital of Finland.
“Unfortunately, no matter how well I do at the Summit, if I was given the great city of Moscow as retribution for all of the sins and evils committed by Russia... over the years, I would return to criticism that it wasn't good enough – that I should have gotten Saint Petersburg in addition!” he said.
“Much of our news media is indeed the enemy of the people and all the Democrats know how to do is resist and obstruct! This is why there is such hatred and dissension in our country – but at some point, it will heal!” Trump said in a series of tweets.
Trump’s meeting with Putin comes days after a federal grand jury indicted 12 Russian intelligence officials on charges of hacking the servers of the Democratic National Committee and that of its 2016 presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.
Trump arrived with his wife First Lady Melania Trump and a host of other dignitaries, including White House Chief of Staff John Kelly, National Security Advisor John Bolton and his chief of staff Fred Fleitz, Policy Advisor Stephen Miller, Social Media Director Dan Scavino and Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders.
Trump also congratulated France for winning the Football World Cup for the second time and congratulated Putin for a "truly great" tournament.
The president is our most experienced negotiator elected president in recent years. Putin similarly is a very experienced negotiator. He's an intelligence operative. That's how he approaches all of his subjects, thinking in terms of an intelligence operation. They're both very experienced and wise to the world, US Ambassador to Russia Jon Huntsman said.
Responding to a series of questions, Huntsman said Trump's chief negotiator and he had a good sense of what these issues were.
"He has a good sense of where he wants to go. He wants to improve this bilateral relationship and he wants to find ourselves on the same page and some of these common interest areas," he said.
But at the same time there is no guarantee that this is going to work out, Huntsman cautioned.
In his tweet, Trump said that the hacking of the servers took place during the Obama Administration.
"The stories you heard about the 12 Russians yesterday took place during the Obama Administration, not the Trump Administration. Why didn't they do something about it, especially when it was reported that President Obama was informed by the FBI in September, before the Election?" he asked.
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