SCHLOSS ELMAU, Germany - U.S. President Joe Biden thanked German Chancellor Olaf Scholz for his leadership on the response to the Ukraine crisis as they met for a bilateral talk ahead of a three-day summit of the Group of Seven rich democracies on Sunday.

Russian President Vladimir Putin had expected the West to splinter after his invasion of Ukraine but it has and will not, Biden said in a good-humoured exchange with Scholz, who is hosting the summit at a Bavarian alpine resort.

"I want to complement you on stepping up as you did when yuo became Chancellor," Biden said. "Putin's being counting on it from the beginning, that somehow NATO and the G7 would splinter, but we haven't and it's not going to," he said.

  - Reuters