MOSCOW: Russian President Vladimir Putin discussed the issue of financial settlement problems during bilateral talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping, the RIA news agency cited Kremlin foreign policy aide Yuri Ushakov as saying on Wednesday.

Putin hosted a dinner on Tuesday for heads of states who had arrived in the Russian city of Kazan for a meeting of the BRICS countries and had one-on-one conversations with a number of them.

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Russia wants the BRICS countries to find alternative international payment solutions, hoping it can help resolve increasing problems in settling trade payments, even with friendly countries such as China, where local banks fear they could be hit by secondary sanctions by the United States.