Bush and Putin Hold Private Meeting Near Moscow

By Don Gonyea

Published May 7, 2005 at 9:00 PM PDT

President Bush meets with Russian president Vladimir Putin in Moscow, a day before ceremonies to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany. More than 50 other world leaders will join the pair on Red Square Monday to celebrate VE Day.

The friendly meeting between the two presidents seemed to defuse a potentially tense situation. President Bush's comments on democracy in former Soviet republics like Latvia and Georgia had earned a sharp response from President Putin in the days leading up to their visit at the presidential residence just outside of Moscow.

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Don Gonyea

You're most likely to find NPR's Don Gonyea on the road, in some battleground state looking for voters to sit with him at the local lunch spot, the VFW or union hall, at a campaign rally, or at their kitchen tables to tell him what's on their minds. Through countless such conversations over the course of the year, he gets a ground-level view of American elections. Gonyea is NPR's National Political Correspondent, a position he has held since 2010. His reports can be heard on all NPR News programs and at NPR.org. To hear his sound-rich stories is akin to riding in the passenger seat of his rental car, traveling through Iowa or South Carolina or Michigan or wherever, right along with him.

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