'No, I didn't hack your election': Trump challenges Putin over meddling in first face-to-face meeting at G20 summit

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President Donald Trump raised the simmering issue of Russian election interference in a face-to-face meeting on Friday with Russian President Vladimir Putin – and Putin denied it, according to secretary of state Rex Tillerson.

The two presidents met for the first time at the G20 in Hamburg, first with a behind-the-scenes handshake, then with a full bilateral meeting which was supposed to last 30 minutes, but went on for two and a half hours.

At the end both sides walked away with a deal for a ceasefire in part of Syria, a public victory for Trump in his first encounter with Putin, who has now dealt with face-to-face with every American president since Bill Clinton.

The bilateral meeting started warmly in public, with Trump telling Putin it was 'an honor to be with you', but when reporters had gone, the tone changed.

Tillerson, who was in the meeting with his Russian opposite number Sergey Lavrov, said election interference had been at the top of the agenda.

Bringing up the highly charged issue that his team refused to telegraph was on the table, Trump 'pressed' Putin on Russian interference in the U.S. elections.