Despite Trump's repeated assertions on the campaign trail, and then again in the White House, that he would like to have improved relations with Putin, the prospect currently seems unlikely. Though the two men met on the sidelines of the Group of 20 summit in early July — and had a second, undisclosed and more informal meeting at a group dinner later than evening — Putin told the Rossiya-1 television channel in an interview Sunday that he planned to cap the number of American diplomatic and technical personnel in Russia at 455.