US President Joe Biden on Sunday praised Germany's Chancellor Olaf Scholz for his role in the wake of the war in Ukraine and urged the West to stay united. 

"We have to stay together," Biden told Scholz at a meeting ahead of the G7 summit in the German Alps. 

Biden said that Russian President Vladimir Putin had been hoping "that somehow NATO and the G7 would splinter," but "we haven't and we're not going to." 

The US President met his German host in the picturesque Elmau Castle where the G7 - Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and the US - was holding a three-day summit dominated by the Ukraine war.

Biden addressed Scholz, telling him: "I want to compliment you for stepping up as you did when you became chancellor." 

"The way you had a great impact on the rest of Europe to move, particularly relating to Ukraine," the US President said.

A senior US official said that Washington has been "investing very heavily" in the relationship with Germany since Biden took office almost two and a half years ago. 

Their talks Sunday were “a good opportunity to affirm the deep and enduring ties between our two countries. In terms of the meeting agenda, expect that Russia and Ukraine are going to be at the top of the list, including our continued close coordination on the political and diplomatic front,” the official indicated.

It is noteworthy that earlier, four G7 countries - the UK, Canada, Japan, and the US, banned Russian gold imports in a new bid to force Moscow into fully absorbing the repercussions of the sanctions imposed on the country in light of the Ukraine war by stopping it from buying the metal to avoid the brunt of the restrictive measures, London said.