OSAKA, Japan — For more than two years, friends and foes alike have pushed President Trump to tell President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia not to interfere in American democracy. As the two leaders sat side by side on Friday for their first formal meeting in a year, Mr. Trump obliged — but in his own distinctive way.
The topic did not come up in either man’s opening remarks, which in Mr. Trump’s case were filled with flowery talk about their relationship. Only when a reporter shouted out a question, asking Mr. Trump if he would tell Russia not to meddle in American elections, did the president respond, and then by making light of the matter.
“Yes, of course I will,” Mr. Trump said.
Turning to Mr. Putin, he said, with a slight grin on his face and an almost joking tone in his voice, “Don’t meddle in the election, President.”
As Mr. Putin also smiled, Mr. Trump pointed at another Russian official in a playful way and repeated, “Don’t meddle in the election.”
Once again, Mr. Trump made clear that he did not take the issue as seriously as Democrats and many Republicans back home do. And once again, he refused to publicly cross Mr. Putin with so much as a word of disagreement, much less reproach.
In doing so, he risked another domestic political backlash like the one he endured after the leaders’ last official meeting in Helsinki, Finland, when Mr. Trump, standing at Mr. Putin’s side, challenged the conclusion of his own intelligence agencies about the Russian election operation and credited the Kremlin leader’s “extremely strong and powerful” denial.
In the interim, the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, issued his report concluding that Russia mounted a “sweeping and systematic” operation to influence the last presidential election on Mr. Trump’s behalf, and he made a public plea to American leaders to pay attention to the threat. While he established no criminal conspiracy between Mr. Trump’s campaign and Russia, Mr. Mueller documented extensive contacts between the two sides and noted that they shared the same goal in 2016.
Undaunted, Mr. Trump has interpreted Mr. Mueller’s report to mean there was “no collusion.” In several recent instances, he even insisted that the special counsel’s investigation found that his campaign had “rebuffed” the Russians, which in the main it did not.
The president stirred outrage even among Republicans by saying “I’d take it” if Russia again offered incriminating information about an election opponent, and he scoffed at the idea of calling the F.B.I. about such an approach, before switching gears and saying that he would inform the authorities.
Mr. Trump hoped that the release of Mr. Mueller’s report would allow him to finally put the issue behind him and focus on improving ties with Russia. He sees the relentless talk about the 2016 campaign as an unfair, partisan scheme to undermine his legitimacy, and he argues that, regardless of what happened three years ago, it is in the interest of the United States to have a more productive, less hostile relationship with Moscow.
Mr. Trump’s encounter with Mr. Putin in Osaka, Japan, at the annual Group of 20 summit meeting, was his first opportunity to recalibrate the relationship. The two seemed in good spirits, strolling into the summit photo session together, their arms nearly touching as they chatted amiably.
During their later meeting, they shook hands, smiled and seemed to joke about the pulsing throng of journalists who were allowed in the room for less than five minutes.
“It’s a great honor to be with President Putin,” Mr. Trump said. “We’ve had great meetings,” he added. “We have had a very, very good relationship. And we look forward to spending some pretty good time together. A lot of very positive things going to come out of the relationship.”
Mr. Putin was friendly but more restrained in his comments, saying that they would discuss trade, disarmament and other issues. “All this will be built on a very good relationship that will be between us,” he said. “I think that the results of this meeting will be excellent.” Mr. Trump likewise said he wanted to discuss arms control and trade.
Mr. Trump, who has withdrawn the United States from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty of 1987, and whose national security adviser has signaled that he would not extend the New Start treaty signed with Russia in 2010, has been interested in negotiating a three-way arms pact with Russia and China. Mr. Putin has not ruled out such an accord, but he has noted that China has only a fraction of the nuclear weapons that the United States and Russia have.
The written summary of the leaders’ meeting issued by the White House indicated, without elaborating, that they had talked about that as well as Iran, Syria, Venezuela and Ukraine. The summary made no mention of election interference, nor did it say anything about two Americans who have been arrested by the Russian authorities on disputed charges.
Likewise, it said nothing about an international investigation this month that pointed to Russia in the 2014 downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 over Ukraine, which killed all 298 people on board. International prosecutors have indicted three men with ties to Russian military and intelligence agencies in the destruction of the passenger jet and implicated, without charging, a senior aide to Mr. Putin.
Nor did the summary indicate that the leaders talked about Russia’s seizure of three Ukrainian ships and several sailors last November, events that prompted Mr. Trump to cancel a scheduled meeting with Mr. Putin, and which remains unresolved. When a reporter asked about the ships and sailors on Friday, the president said, “We haven’t discussed them.”
While Mr. Putin did not address the election issue with reporters on Friday, he scoffed at the idea of Russian involvement in an interview before flying to Osaka. He advanced the same line of argument that Mr. Trump does: that he won in 2016 because he was the candidate more in touch with Americans.
“Russia has been accused, and, strange as it may seem, it is still being accused, despite the Mueller report, of mythical interference in the U.S. election,” Mr. Putin told The Financial Times. “What happened in reality? Mr. Trump looked into his opponents’ attitude to him and saw changes in American society, and he took advantage of this.”
He complimented Mr. Trump’s political skill. “I do not accept many of his methods when it comes to addressing problems,” Mr. Putin said. “But do you know what I think? I think that he is a talented person. He knows very well what his voters expect from him.”
But Mr. Putin made clear he was frustrated that Mr. Trump had not agreed to extend the New Start treaty. “They keep silent, while the treaty expires in 2021,” he said. “If we do not begin talks now, it would be over because there would be no time even for formalities.”
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