Putin savored the global spotlight after his direct but largely fruitless meeting with Biden

• Biden and Putin's meeting ended up pretty much as expected.

• In typical Putin fashion, the Russian leader held a lengthy, rambling press conference.

• Biden sounded cautiously optimistic about improving relations, but made clear many challenges remain.

• See more stories on Insider's business page.

Russian President Vladimir Putin held a lengthy, rambling press conference after his historic meeting with President Joe Biden on Wednesday, once again exhibiting his affinity for being the center of attention before the world as Biden defended giving Putin this platform in return for laying out US priorities and red lines face-to-face.

Putin used the press conference as an opportunity to portray the US as the primary catalyst for tensions between Moscow and Washington, while downplaying the Kremlin's crackdown on dissent with an extraordinary display of whataboutism.

The Russian leader, who's been in power for 20 years, said "everything to do with the deterioration of our mutual relations was initiated" by the US and not Russia.

The Russian leader appeared to relish being in the spotlight. "Putin really seems to be enjoying this press conference," Michael McFaul, a former US ambassador to Russia, said in a tweet.

In a separate, subsequent press conference, Biden took a cautiously optimistic tone about the willingness of the US and Russia to work together on a narrow set of issues - with nuclear arms control at the top of the list. Biden's political career has in many ways been defined by foreign policy, and portrayed the summit as a success from a diplomatic standpoint.

"I did what I came to do," Biden said. "Number one: identify areas of practical work our two countries can do to advance our mutual interests and also benefit the world. Two: communicate directly, directly, that the United States will respond to actions that impair our vital interests or those of our allies. And three: to clearly lay out our country's priorities and our values so he heard it straight from me."

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

Amid criticism that he effectively rewarded Putin for bad behavior by offering up such a high-level meeting, the president underscored the advantage of holding in-person meetings with adversaries to work through differences.

"There's no substitute for face-to-face dialogue between leaders," Biden said.

Biden also said that he pressed Putin hard on human rights concerns, stating that he had an obligation to zero in on this as president of the US.

"How could I be the president of the United States of America and not speak out against the violation of human rights?" Biden said.

Biden and Putin's historic summit came with US-Russia tensions at a historic high. Relations between Washington and Moscow have deteriorated to their lowest point since the Cold War.

Putin's unilateral annexation of Crimea in 2014, the ongoing war in Ukraine involving Kremlin-backed rebels, Russian election interference, the poisoning and imprisonment of Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny, and cybersecurity issues like the SolarWinds hack have driven the contentious dynamic.

Putin has taken remarkable steps to consolidate power over that time. Biden was the fifth US president the Russian leader has met with, underscoring the extensive influence he's had.

The Russian leader has frequently scoffed at US criticism of his increasingly authoritarian leadership and aggressive foreign policy moves, routinely accusing the US and its Western allies of hypocrisy.

Putin did so again on Wednesday, justifying the Kremlin's effort to squash critics by demonizing the Black Lives Matter movement and comparing it to the US government's prosecution of people involved in the January 6 insurrection. Biden later dismissed this as a "ridiculous" comparison.

Making it clear he's not naive about how intractable Putin is, Biden said he's "not confident" Russia will dramatically alter its behavior.

"There's much more work ahead. I'm not suggesting that any of this is done," Biden added, before taking questions. "But we've gotten a lot of business done on this trip."

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