No sign of thaw between Russia and US ahead of Geneva summit
On the 24-hour Russian state news channel, Thursday began as any other might: with a segment about the ageing president of the United States battling back cicadas and then giving a “confused” speech about his upcoming summit in Geneva with Vladimir Putin.
“I’ll let [Putin] know what I want him to know,’” said Biden after a cutaway shot of him swatting his neck before boarding Air Force One this week.
Signs of a thaw between Russia and the US ahead of Wednesday’s summit are not immediately evident on state TV, but then again that is the last place that they would be.
For years, bellicose news segments about the west and especially Ukraine have been outdone only by the even shoutier news debate shows, where Russian experts compete to give the loudest, most hawkish review of recent political developments. The rare liberals who join them are ritually squashed.
Not quite a mirror of the Kremlin’s thinking, Russia’s TV pundits are keener to flatter the leadership from all angles: painting Biden as a doddering grandfather, then as an elder statesman bowing to the need to meet with Putin, then as a schoolboy fearing his upcoming clash with the Russian president. “Poor and unhappy [Biden],” simpered the host of one show, 60 Minutes, mocking remarks by the White House about his preparations for the talks.
Biden’s team has made little secret of his rigorous preparations; indeed, his wife, Jill, declared him “over-prepared”.
The White House insists the president has no illusions about a “Russian reset”, but Biden argues that there are some issues – such as arms control and possibly the climate emergency – that the two leaders have to discuss, and is pressing to reestablish a routine strategic dialogue between US and Russian officials.
“We’re not looking for conflict,” the president said on Sunday. “We are looking to resolve those actions which we think are inconsistent with international norms, number one. Number two, where we can work together, we may be able to do that in terms of some strategic doctrine that - that may be able to be worked together. We’re ready to do it.”
In an NBC News interview broadcast on Monday, Putin said he would consider establishing such a dialogue, depending on how Wednesday’s summit went.
In the real world, the last week has given little inkling of a coming breakthrough. A Russian court’s decision on Thursday evening to outlaw Alexei Navalny’s organisation as “extremist” will reassert the issue of human rights in Russia on the summit’s agenda. And Russia’s backing for Alexander Lukashenko will also lead to a battle over what Moscow claims as a sphere of influence in Belarus and Ukraine, despite the breakup of the Soviet Union more than 30 years ago.
“I don’t know how you get around that,” said Melinda Haring of the Atlantic Council during a recent roundtable hosted by the Center for National Interest, a Washington thinktank. “Ukraine, Belarus, Russia’s domestic politics, Nato expansion, all revolve around who owns what. Do Belarusians get to decide their future, do Ukrainians get to decide their future, or does Vladimir Putin? I think it’s an insurmountable problem.”
Analysts suggested that the upcoming summit would be “boring” and a carefully-controlled “snoozefest” as both sides attempted something of a reboot following a catastrophic meeting between Putin and Donald Trump
in Helsinki in 2018, which Trump insisted on holding without any aides. Top US aides were apoplectic as Trump emerged from one-on-one talks with Putin and rejected his own FBI’s assessment that Russia had interfered in the 2016 elections. “President Putin says it’s not Russia. I don’t see any reason why it would be,” he told reporters. One advisor later said she considered faking a medical emergency to end the press conference.
In a statement on Thursday, Trump repeated that he had more faith in Putin than in US intelligence, and asked
Biden to send the Russian leader his “warmest regards”. In his NBC interview, Putin returned the compliment, describing Trump as an “extraordinary, talented individual”.
The White House does not want a joint press conference this time. Biden told reporters: “This is not a contest about who can do better in front of a press conference to try to embarrass each other.”
Other than avoiding a scandal, there appears to be little that Moscow and Washington can agree on. Relations between Russia and the US are at their worst in recent memory, littered with conflicts over Russian aggression in
Ukraine, alleged elections interference in the US, and cyber-attacks. Russia has accused the US and Nato of meddling in neighbouring countries in eastern Europe, while Putin has sought to equate the Trump supporters who stormed the US Congress in January with a crackdown on Russia’s street opposition.
If there is scope for agreement, it will likely be linked to saving the remaining nuclear arms control architecture, which saw further disintegration during the Trump administration as the U S refused to discuss renewing New START and pulled out of the Open Skies Treaty, a move that was formalised by Russia this month.
But otherwise, it is difficult to figure out the way forward.
“I think they are meeting to try to figure out why they need bilateral relations between Russia and the United States,” said Andrey Sushentsov of Russia’s Valdai Discussion Club.
The change of administration in the White House could produce a positive dynamic, he said, as could the Biden administration’s adoption of the goal of “stable and predictable” relations with Moscow, a deliberately practical agenda that he said mirrored Russia’s foreign policy.
He said the meeting could allow the two sides to do “housekeeping” to prevent the competition from devolving into a more dangerous stage.
Success from Moscow’s perspective could be judged on a modest scale, he said.
“We should look for signs that both teams respect each other as professionals,” he said. “And can this team deliver? Can Biden deliver? Because during the Trump administration, that was not the case.” by
The American novelist and philanthropist MacKenzie Scott said on Tuesday she had given a further $2.7bn (£1.9bn) to 286 organisations.
Scott, who was formerly married to Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, issued a statement regarding distribution of the latest tranche of her $57bn fortune.
It was the third round of announcements Scott has made regarding her philanthropy, which rivals the largest of foundations. In 2020, she made two similar surprise announcements and donated about $6bn to causes including Covid relief, gender equity, historically Black colleges and universities and other schools.
In a post on Medium on Tuesday, Scott said she had “felt stuck” over how to articulate her purpose.
“I want to de-emphasize privileged voices and cede focus to others, yet I know some media stories will focus on wealth,” she wrote. “The headline I would wish for this post is ‘286 Teams Empowering Voices the World Needs to Hear’.
“People struggling against inequities deserve center stage in stories about change they are creating. This is equally – perhaps especially – true when their work is funded by wealth. Any wealth is a product of a collective effort that included them. The social structures that inflate wealth present obstacles to them. And despite those obstacles, they are providing solutions that benefit us all.”
Scott, 51, said a number of “highimpact organisations in categories and communities that have been historically underfunded and overlooked” were among recipients of a total disbursement of $2.739bn.
The organisations included local arts groups and institutions, including the Motown Museum, and groups working in education.
Scott and Bezos divorced in 2019.
Last year, Scott’s charitable giving totaled $5.8bn – one of the biggest annual distributions by a private individual to working charities.
In her statement on Tuesday, she said “putting large donors at the center of stories on social progress is a distortion of their role”.
She wrote that she and her husband, Dan Jewett, a teacher, and “a constellation of researchers and administrators and advisers” were “all attempting to give away a fortune that was enabled by systems in need of change.
“In this effort, we are governed by a humbling belief that it would be better if disproportionate wealth were not concentrated in a small number of hands, and that the solutions are best designed and implemented by others.
“Though we still have a lot to learn about how to act on these beliefs without contradicting and subverting them, we can begin by acknowledging that people working to build power from within communities are the agents of change.”
As higher education was a proven pathway to opportunity, she said, she had given to institutions serving “students who come from communities that have been chronically underserved”.
She also identified organisations “bridging divides through interfaith support and collaboration” against deepening discrimination against ethnic and religious minorities.
Also included were “smaller arts organisations creating these benefits with artists and audiences from culturally rich regions and identity groups that donors often overlook”.
With more than 700 million people globally still living in extreme poverty, Scott wrote, her team “prioritised organisations with local teams, leaders of color and a specific focus on empowering women and girls”.
Beneficiaries included organisations staffed by “people who have spent years successfully advancing humanitarian aims, often without knowing whether there will be any money in their bank accounts in two months.
“What do we think they might do with more cash on hand than they expected? Buy needed supplies. Find new creative ways to help. Hire a few extra team members they know they can pay for the next five years. Buy chairs for them. Stop having to work every weekend. Get some sleep.”