US-Russia standoff to take centre stage as Biden and Putin agree meeting

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Rozina Sabur
·4 min read
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Biden, who has sought to take a tougher line on Russia than his predecessor, met Putin in Moscow in 2011 - AP
Biden, who has sought to take a tougher line on Russia than his predecessor, met Putin in Moscow in 2011 - AP

Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin will meet in Geneva next month, the White House said on Tuesday, setting the stage for a new chapter in the fraught US-Russian relationship.

The meeting will be on June 16, Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, said.

"The leaders will discuss the full range of pressing issues, as we seek to restore predictability and stability to the US-Russia relationship," she said.

The day-long summit in the Swiss city is expected to focus on nuclear proliferation, Russian interference in US elections, climate change and the pandemic.

Geneva was also the site of the 1985 meeting between Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and US president Ronald Reagan, which also focused on the nuclear arms race.

It was the US President who suggested a summit to Putin earlier this year - AFP
It was the US President who suggested a summit to Putin earlier this year - AFP

The face-to-face meeting represents one of the most significant of Mr Biden's early presidency after vowing to take a an aggressive stance on Russia and comes at a time of deteriorating relations between Washington and Moscow.

Mr Biden has spoken over the phone with Mr Putin twice since taking office in January.

During the call, Mr Biden said he made clear to the Russian leader that he would be taking a radically different approach to Moscow than his predecessor Donald Trump, who enjoyed warm personal relations with Mr Putin.

Mr Biden took Mr Putin to task over Russian interference in last year's US presidential election in what White House officials described as a tense first exchange.

Mr Biden also cited allegations that the Kremlin was behind a hacking campaign - commonly referred to as the SolarWinds breach - in which Russian hackers infected widely used software with malicious code, enabling them to access the networks of at least nine US agencies.

The US president has also critcised Russia for the arrest and jailing of opposition leader Alexei Navalny.

In March, the Biden administration announced sanctions against several mid-level and senior Russian officials, along with more than a dozen businesses and other entities, over a nearly fatal nerve-agent attack on Mr Navalny and his subsequent jailing. Mr Navlany returned to Russia days before Mr Biden's January 20 inauguration and was quickly arrested.

Last month, the administration announced it was expelling 10 Russian diplomats and sanctioning dozens of Russia companies and individuals in response to the SolarWinds hack and election interference allegations.

But even as Mr Biden moved forward with the latest round of sanctions, he acknowledged that he held back on taking tougher action - an attempt to send the message to Putin that he still held hope that the US and Russia could come to an understanding for the rules of the game in their adversarial relationship.

In fact, he brought up the idea of holding a third-country summit in an April 13 call in which he notified Mr Putin that a second round of sanctions was coming.

In March, Mr Biden in an ABC News interview responded affirmatively when asked by interviewer George Stephanopoulos whether he thought Mr Putin was "a killer."

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Mr Biden's comment demonstrated he "definitely does not want to improve relations" with Russia and that relations between the countries were "very bad."

However, the Biden administration has sought to calm some tensions with Moscow and recently agreed to waive sanctions on the company behind Russia's Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline to Germany.

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Mr Biden has previously said he opposes the $11bn (£7.8bn) pipeline and the decision was met with fierce criticism by Republicans, and even some Democrats, in Congress.

It will not be the first time Mr Biden has met with the Russian president. While serving as Barack Obama's Vice President he was set to meet with Mr Putin in Moscow in 2011.

Mr Biden later famously declared that he had told Mr Putin to his face: "I don't think you have a soul."

In Mr Biden's telling, Mr Putin smiled and responded: “We understand one another.”

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