President Vladimir Putin intends to cut short his attendance at the G20 summit in Brisbane, a Russian source says as the strongman faces intense pressure from the West over Ukraine.

“The program of the second day (Sunday) is changing, it’s being cut short,” a source in the Russian delegation.

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Putin will attend summit sessions today but will skip an official lunch and address reporters earlier than planned, the source said, adding: “Lunch is more of an entertainment.”

The source denied that Putin was bowing out under pressure from top Western leaders, who accused him of “bullying” ex-Soviet Ukraine.

“There were no scandals,” the source said.

A Kremlin spokesman said earlier on Russian radio: “The G20 summit will be over tomorrow, Putin will certainly leave it, when all the work is completed the president will leave.”

He denied that pressure from Western leaders, who have threatened Russia with more sanctions if fighting in eastern Ukraine intensifies, forced Putin to change plans.

Putin is facing huge pressure from top Western leaders over Russia’s support for a separatist insurgency in eastern Ukraine, with British Prime Minister David Cameron accusing Russia of “bullying a smaller state in Europe.”

Putin and Cameron chose to conduct a meeting on Saturday on the sidelines of the G20 summit behind closed doors.

The Kremlin sought to put a positive spin on the meeting, saying that Putin and Cameron expressed mutual interest in seeing Russia and West mend fences.

“Vladimir Putin and David Cameron noted interest in restoring ties between Russia and the West and adopting efficient measures to settle the Ukraine crisis which will facilitate the renunciation of confrontational sentiments,” the Kremlin said.

Going into the summit, US President Barack Obama said Russia’s aggression against Ukraine was “a threat to the world” and he called the shooting down of MH17 over the rebel-held east of the ex-Soviet country in July “appalling”.

The G20 host, Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott, for his part, accused Putin of trying to relive the “lost glories of tsarism”.