Biden and Putin hold key talks in Geneva
US PRESIDENT Joe Biden and Russia’s Vladimir Putin held face-toface talks yesterday in a highly anticipated summit at a time when both leaders agree that relations between their countries are at an all-time low.
Mr Biden called the talks in Switzerland a discussion between “two great powers” and said it was “always better to meet face-to-face”. Mr Putin, for his part, said he hoped the wide-ranging talks would be “productive”.
The meeting in a book-lined room had a somewhat awkward beginning, with both men appearing to avoid looking directly at each other during a brief and chaotic photo opportunity before a scrum of jostling reporters.
Mr Biden nodded when a reporter asked if Mr Putin could be trusted, but the White House quickly sent out a tweet insisting the president was “very clearly not responding to any one question, but nodding in acknowledgment to the press generally”.
Mr Putin ignored shouted questions from reporters, including if he feared jailed Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny.
The two leaders did shake hands – Mr Biden extended his hand first and smiled at the Russian leader – moments earlier when they posed with Swiss president Guy Parmelin, who welcomed them to a mansion in Geneva for the summit.
For months, Mr Biden and Mr Putin have traded sharp rhetoric.
Mr Biden has repeatedly called out Mr Putin for malicious cyberattacks by Russian-based hackers on US interests, a disregard for democracy with the jailing of Russia’s foremost opposition leader and interference in American elections.
Mr Putin, for his part, has reacted with obfuscations – pointing to the January 6 insurrection at the US Capitol to argue that America has no business lecturing on democratic norms and insisting that the Russian government has not been involved in any election interference or cyberattacks despite US intelligence showing otherwise.
In advance of yesterday’s meeting, both sides set out to lower expectations.
Even so, Mr Biden said it was an important step if the US and Russia were able to ultimately find “stability and predictability” in their relationship, a seemingly modest goal from the president for dealing with the person he sees as one of America’s fiercest adversaries.
“We should decide where it’s in our mutual interest, in the interest of the world, to co-operate, and see if we can do that,” Mr Biden told reporters earlier this week. “And the areas where we don’t agree, make it clear what the red lines are.”
Mr Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said that no breakthroughs were expected and that “the situation is too difficult in Russian/ American relations”. He added that “the fact that the two presidents agreed to meet and finally start to speak openly about the problems is already an achievement”.