DNEPROPETROVSK, Ukraine Russian President Vladimir Putin began talks here Monday with his Ukrainian counterpart Leonid Kuchma, with Moscow keen to exploit the welter of scandal and popular unrest facing the Kiev strongman, AFP said.

The official agenda of the talks, which began at 9:30 a.m.(0730 GMT) at the Yuzhmash Missile Factory, was expected to focus on diverse topics from aerospace cooperation to restructuring energy debts.

However, mass rallies at the weekend demanding Kuchma's removal from office and the escalating scandal over the Ukrainian president's alleged involvement in the murder of a dissident journalist have all but hijacked the summit.

Putin flew in to Dnepropetrovsk, east Ukraine, late Sunday from Austria, where he had been on an official visit, but earlier a 5,000-strong crowd marched through the streets of the capital chanting "Kuchma Out!"

In the industrial heartland of Dnepropetrovsk nine people were reportedly still in police custody following the arrest of 11 protestors on Saturday, at what police called an unauthorized anti-Kuchma demonstration.

The wave of street protests came in the wake of long-simmering scandal sparked by a tape recording that purportedly catches Kuchma ordering the disappearance of Georgy Gongadze, 31, the founder and editor of a Russian-language on-line newspaper (www.pravda.com.ua).

Gongadze disappeared last September. His headless and charred body was discovered in November and was only formally identified in January by means of DNA analysis.