All eyes on Putin as Asia-Europe summit opens
The two leaders are set to meet face-to-face over a working breakfast in Friday morning on the sidelines of the ASEM summit to discuss a battered ceasefire agreement signed last month.
The truce has reduced hostilities but failed to stop all fighting between government forces and pro-Russia separatists in eastern Ukraine.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President François Hollande, British Prime Minister David Cameron and Italian leader Matteo Renzi will all sit in on the talks.
As the summit opened, Merkel put the ball firmly in Putin's court.
It was "first and foremost" Russia's responsibility to make sure a tenuous ceasefire and peace plan agreed last month with pro-Moscow rebels "really will be implemented”, said the German leader.
"We will be searching for dialogue here," Merkel said as she arrived for the summit.
The meeting could prove difficult, with relations between Russia and the West at their most fraught since the end of the Cold War.
The West has imposed a series of economic sanctions against Russia since its annexation of the Crimean Peninsula in March.
And as he readied to come to Milan, Putin bluntly accused US President Barack Obama of outright hostility towards Russia.
Warning that he would not be blackmailed by the West over Ukraine, Putin chillingly warned too of "what discord between large nuclear powers can do to strategic stability".
The Russian president will hold separate talks with Merkel, notably on ensuring "uninterrupted gas supplies for Europe," Putin's top foreign policy advisor Yury Ushakov said.
Russia cut off its gas shipments to Ukraine in June, threatening widespread disruption to supplies in Europe as winter approaches.
With security tight around the summit venue in the futuristic Milan conference centre, topless activists from the Femen group poured wine over their bare chests in front of Milan's cathedral to protest against Putin, saying it symbolised the blood being spilled in the Ukraine conflict.
Economic uncertainty, territorial disputes
Though Ukraine may steal much of the attention at the two-day summit, world leaders will undoubtedly have plenty else to discuss as the conference opens against a background of student protests in Hong Kong, escalating concerns about the Ebola virus and economic troubles.
The headline theme of the conference is promoting economic cooperation between the attending European and Asian states, who share one of the world's largest trading relationships.
But mounting problems on that front made themselves clear Thursday as markets sold off sharply once again on fears over Europe's stalled recovery and a slowdown in China, which for so long has been the driver of global growth.
Hollande said stagnation in Europe was to blame.
"There is international uncertainty, the United States is slowing down, Europe has not found a way back to growth," he said.
European Union leaders meanwhile stressed the need for ties with Asia precisely to boost both economies, given the prospect of slower growth.
"My main message... is that today more than ever European and Asian nations need each other to achieve growth and development and to guarantee security and preserve stability," EU president Herman Van Rompuy said.
Along with Ukraine, other territorial and political disputes, particularly among Asian countries, lie in wait at the 10th edition of the biannual ASEM summit.
Beijing has repeatedly clashed with Tokyo over ownership of a series of islands while Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has tried without success to arrange a summit with Chinese leaders since he came to power in December 2012.
China in turn may run into flak over its claims to almost all of the South China Sea, a vital shipping route which is also believed to hold significant oil reserves.
Thai junta leader Prayut Chan-O-Cha meanwhile sparked protests by human rights activists, angry to see ASEM offering a welcome to the former general who seized power in a May military coup which the EU condemned sharply.
(FRANCE 24 with AFP, AP)
