Putin says Biden acted ‘shrewdly’
Russian emphasizes importance of dialogue on cybersecurity
MOSCOW — Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday praised the outcome of his summit with President Joe Biden and called him an astute and shrewd negotiator.
The two leaders concluded three hours of talks Wednesday in Geneva by exchanging expressions of mutual respect but firmly restating their starkly different views on cyberattacks, the conflict in Ukraine, political dissent and other issues.
At the same time, they announced an agreement to return each other’s ambassadors and mapped more talks on arms control and cybersecurity.
Putin, who hailed Biden as a highly experienced and constructive interlocutor at a news conference in Geneva, offered more praise of the U.S. leader Thursday in a video call with graduates of a government management school.
Biden kept him on guard with his savvy negotiating skills, Putin said.
“He perfectly knows the matter,” Putin said. “He is fully concentrated and knows what he wants to achieve. And he does it very shrewdly.”
“The atmosphere was quite friendly,” he added. “I think we managed to understand each other, we managed to understand each other’s positions on key issue; they differ on many things and we noted the differences. At the same time, we established areas and points where we can possibly bring our positions closer in the future.”
Putin particularly emphasized the importance of an agreement to discuss cybersecurity, saying it would help reduce tensions.
Biden said he and Putin agreed to have their experts work out an understanding about what types of critical infrastructure would be off-limits to cyberattacks. The agreement follows a flood of ransomware attacks against U.S. businesses and government agencies that U.S. officials say originated from Russia.
Putin, who has strongly denied any Russian state role in the cyberattacks, argued Thursday that “instead of finger-pointing and bickering, we should better combine efforts to fight cybercrime.”
Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov noted the joint statement from the presidents that said the two countries will conduct a dialogue on strategic stability issues and reaffirmed that “a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought” — a principle declared by President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev at their Geneva summit in 1985.
The strategic stability dialogue would cover a wide range of issues related to nuclear and other weapons and is key to reducing the risk of conflict between the two superpowers.
The talks follow a decision this year to extend the New START, the last remaining U.S.-Russian arms control pact, and would be aimed at working out a follow-up agreement after it expires in 2026.
The negotiations will be complex and strenuous. The U.S. is worried about new destabilizing weapons developed by Russia, such as the atomic-powered, nuclear-armed Poseidon underwater drone, while Russia wants to include U.S. missile defense and potential spacebased weapons in an agreement.
Konstantin Kosachev, a deputy speaker of Russia’s upper house of parliament, hoped that talks between experts would help reduce the bad blood.
“The more often experts will meet, the less room the politicians will have for speculation and manipulation,” he said.
U.S.-Russian ties have plummeted after Moscow’s 2014 annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula, accusations of Russian interference in elections and cyberattacks, and Western criticism of the Kremlin’s crackdown on the opposition.
On Ukraine, Russia reaffirmed its view that the country’s bid for NATO membership represents a red line, while the U.S. has restated that the alliance’s door remains open.
Some in Ukraine voiced hope the summit could help ease tensions that spiked this year when Russia bolstered its forces near Ukraine.
Meanwhile, in the U.S., Republicans are accusing Biden of being weak on Russia and squandering an opportunity to reassert the country’s power on the world stage.
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said Biden had given Putin a “pass” at their summit, while former President Donald Trump said the U.S. “didn’t get anything” from the meeting.
Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, a potential contender for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination, declared, “America today is weaker than it was on the world stage just 48 hours ago.”
Calling into Sean Hannity’s Fox News Channel show, Trump said Biden’s summit had accomplished too little.
“We gave a very big stage to Russia and we got nothing,” Trump said Wednesday night.
Biden national security adviser Jake Sullivan defended the talks during a Thursday call with reporters and said Biden had challenged Putin “on a range of issues that the previous president, who Rep. McCarthy supported, strongly gave President Putin a pass on.”
“He didn’t side with Putin against the intelligence community on that, quite the contrary,” he said, adding: “I really do not believe it is hyperbole to say that Joe Biden returns from this trip as the clear and the consensus leader of the free world.”