Biden says Putin meeting was 'frank,' but Russian leader deflects criticism

President Biden traded the warm welcome of European allies Wednesday for his first sit-down as head of state with Russian President Vladimir Putin, holding nearly four hours of talks at a time when relations between Washington and Moscow are arguably at their worst since the Cold War.

Noting the "hype" around the summit, Biden said he was frank about the Kremlin's trampling of human rights and democracy. “I told President Putin my agenda is not against Russia or anyone else; it is for the American people," Biden said at a news conference after the summit.

Biden said he raised the cases of two Americans imprisoned in Russia, along with the repression inside Moscow of several foreign media outlets.

Biden addressed Putin's increasingly brazen efforts to weaken American democracy, including election interference, and the recent cyberattacks on U.S. infrastructure — which intelligence officials say are linked to Russia.

"Bottom line, I said we need to have some basic rules of the road that we can all abide by," Biden said.

Biden said Wednesday's events did not constitute a "kumbaya moment" but that Putin, too, is interested in averting a new Cold War as he sees China on his borders, growing and increasingly asserting economic and military power.

"I think there's a real prospect to genuinely improve the relations" between Russia and the U.S. without giving up fundamental values, Biden said at his news conference, which started after the Russian leader spoke to reporters for about an hour.

Putin told reporters there was “no hostility; quite the contrary” at the summit. “We don’t share the same positions in many areas, but I think both sides showed a willingness to understand one another and to find ways to bring our positions closer together.”

But he deflected blame on military buildup at the Ukrainian border, the jailing and deaths of opponents, brought up mass shootings in the United States and accused the U.S. of human rights violations.

To the cyberattack charges, Putin said of the U.S.: "All they do is make insinuations." He said thought the U.S. was not genuinely interested in getting to the bottom of these cases.

Biden said he told his Russian counterpart that critical infrastructure has to be off limits of any attacks, cyber or otherwise, and he supplied him a list of 16 sites that Russia must never attack.

On a point of agreement, Biden said the two concurred on efforts to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon. The U.S. is engaged in negotiations in Vienna to return to the Iran nuclear accord, where Russia is one of six co-signatories.

Putin praised Biden's "moral values" as "attractive."

"It is clear to me that we did speak the same language. That certainly doesn't mean we must look into each others' eyes and find a soul," he said, alluding to a 2011 meeting with Biden, then vice president. Biden had said he looked into Putin’s eyes and told him, “I don’t think you have a soul.”

"President Biden is an experienced statesman," Putin told reporters. "He is very different from President Trump."

Biden had sought a summit soon after taking office to address the deteriorating relationship between the world's two former superpowers.

Putin's military buildup along his country's border with Ukraine — following his 2014 annexation of Crimea — has induced growing anxiety across Europe and the West. His imprisonment of opposition leader Alexei Navalny has laid bare the autocratic Russian leader's iron grip on power and indifference to the international norms Biden was eager to reaffirm. Navalny, who has called for peaceful protests, survived a poisoning with Russian nerve gas last year.

In his news conference, Putin cast Navalny — without saying his name — as part of an "unauthorized opposition" that takes foreign money and illegally calls for mass demonstrations.

He likened his opponents to those Americans who tried to take over the U.S. Congress on Jan. 6. "We sympathize with what happens in the U.S. but we do not want it to happen in Russia," Putin said.

"That's a ridiculous comparison," Biden later said in response.

Biden and Putin had opened the Geneva meeting with gestures of respect. Putin, notorious for late arrivals intended to make his rivals wait, pulled into the driveway of the summit site first and ahead of schedule.

Biden, whose armored limousine pulled up 15 minutes later at the front door of the picturesque 18th century villa, stood with Putin as Swiss President Guy Parmelin welcomed them. Biden was the first to reach out to shake hands with Putin, later gesturing for the Russian leader to enter the villa ahead of him.

Inside, Biden thanked Putin ahead of the talks. "As I said outside, it's always better to meet face to face." And in an aside that appeared to elevate Russia's positioning on the world stage, Biden referred to the U.S. and Russia as "two great powers."

When a U.S. reporter — just three made it into the room amid a physical scrum with Russian journalists outside — asked Biden if he trusted Putin, he appeared to nod. But White House communications director Kate Bedingfield tweeted quickly to clarify that the president "was very clearly not responding to any one question, but nodding in acknowledgment to the press generally."

Interpreters sat just behind the two leaders. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov sat to Putin's left. Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken sat to Biden's right.

The first session began at 1:45 and wrapped up an hour and and a half later. More aides joined an expanded meeting later: national security advisor Jake Sullivan, undersecretary of State for political affairs Victoria Nuland, U.S. Ambassador to Russia John Sullivan, as well as the National Security Council's top two Russia experts, Eric Green and Stergos Kaloudis.

The summit ended shortly after 5 p.m. and Biden left a short time later.

Biden had dismissed questions about whether he was meeting with Putin — whom he called "a worthy adversary" — too soon in his presidency, noting that NATO allies who'd spoken to him about it uniformly expressed their support.

To a certain extent, Biden's eagerness for the meeting reflected a desire to deal early on with issues related to Russia in a way that, if successful, would enable him to shift his foreign policy focus more toward the Indo-Pacific and efforts to counter China.

For Putin, the summit itself offered a major upside, as the possibility of improving relations with the U.S. could signal that democratic leaders are ready to move beyond tensions resulting from his incursions into Ukraine and meddling in U.S. elections.

Privately, however, U.S. officials had acknowledged they did not anticipate major breakthroughs.

The obvious tensions surrounding the meeting contrasted with the idyllic landscape at the summit site, a chateau tucked into towering pines on the banks of Lake Geneva. The city, which hosted the 1985 summit where President Reagan and former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev met for the first time, has adorned bridges over the glimmering blue lake with alternating flags of both countries.

Hundreds of journalists descended on the city, too, drawn by a meeting with potential geopolitical ramifications.

Hours before the leaders arrived, multiple media posts on Twitter showed a large banner with a message for Putin from an overpass above the motorcade route. "Navalny poisoned ... And still no investigation? How come President Putin?" read the sign, which featured an image of Navalny's face. Swiss police quickly took it down.

Staff writer Tracy Wilkinson contributed reporting from Washington.

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.