Putin to visit Belarus, France and Germany

Russian President Vladimir Putin will On June 1 make visits to Germany and France, the Kremlin said on Friday. The Russian president will arrive in these countries on the invitation from German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande. Putin will pay his first foreign visit as President to Belarus on May 31. The Russian president and his Belarus counterpart, Alexander Lukashenko, agreed on the visit during their meeting in the Kremlin on Tuesday. The meeting took place on the sidelines of an informal summit of the Commonwealth of Independent States, an alliance of former Soviet republics, in Moscow. Putin was sworn in as president on May 7. The Russian media earlier reported he was considering paying his first foreign visit after inauguration to either Kazakhstan or Belarus.he tex