MOSCOW (REUTERS) - The Kremlin said on Tuesday (June 11) that a US idea for President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin to meet at the Group of 20 (G-20) summit in Japan later this month was hanging in the air and that there were no discussions on specifics yet.

Mr Trump appeared to take the Kremlin by surprise last month when he said he planned to meet Mr Putin at the G-20 in Osaka, though Moscow was quick to say it was open to such a meeting and hoped it would happen.

Russia has long been keen to try to start rebuilding battered US-Russia relations, which remain strained by everything from Syria to Ukraine and allegations of Russian interference in US politics, which Moscow denies.

But the Kremlin has also made clear it is expecting to receive a formal proposal for such a meeting from the United States and has noted that the last planned session between Mr Putin and Mr Trump was cancelled at Washington's initiative.

Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov told reporters on Tuesday that the details of a G-20 meeting between Mr Putin and Mr Trump had not yet been agreed or even discussed.

"The idea of a Putin-Trump meeting in Osaka within the framework of the G-20 is hanging in the air," said Mr Ushakov.

"Having raised the idea, the American side has not elaborated and we have not yet discussed the specifics and important elements - that is, the time, place and agenda - via any channels."

Mr Ushakov complained that the signals the Kremlin was getting from the United States were unclear.

Mr Dmitri Trenin, director of the Carnegie Moscow Centre, said the Kremlin's stance looked pathetic.

"While the US is coercing China to agree to meet with Trump at the G-20, the Kremlin is pleading for a Putin-Trump encounter in whatever format the US would suggest," he wrote on social media.

"It's both humiliating and at best useless, if not counterproductive."