state

After the first summit of the American president, Joe Biden, and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, no one spoke of declaring themselves eternal love nor were there any attempts at deception. Instead, the summit between Putin and the fifth American leader he is meeting with during his tenure was one of mutual respect, and both rulers indicated that the meeting could lead to a more predictable relationship, even as tensions continue.

(You may be interested: Joe Biden briefly confuses President Putin with Donald Trump)

After about three and a half hours of the summit between Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin, the meeting ended at around 5:05 pm (10:05 am Colombia time), according to the White House.

Among the main announcements, Moscow and Washington they agreed to the return of their respective ambassadors to the diplomatic headquarters. “They will return to their place of work. When exactly is a purely technical question“Putin told reporters after a summit in the Swiss city.

Diplomatic relations have been very degraded since the current US president came to power in January.

Still, the summit marked a distension in rhetoric, after months ago Biden called Putin a “murderer.” Rather, he called him “a worthy adversary” and said that both would seek areas of common interest.

In the other side, Putin referred to Biden as “a very experienced politician” able to speak in great detail during the “very constructive” three hours of conversations.

“Biden is generally someone who wants constructive relationships. He does not regard Putin as a friend,” said Ian Bremmer, president of the Eurasia Group consultancy. As with Chinese President Xi Jinping, Biden “does not trust them, but hopes that Russia will act in accordance with their interests, so the two countries must find common interests to work together,” Bremmer added.

(You may be interested: Tension between reporters from the US and Russia at the Biden-Putin summit)

How was the start of the meeting?

Both greeted each other with a handshake, in the first diplomatic gesture of a meeting in which this Wednesday the eyes of the world were focused.

President Putin was the first to arrive, at 1:02 pm, local time direct from Geneva International Airport.

Biden He arrived at Villa La Grange 15 minutes later, from the hotel where he is staying, escorted by an impressive procession made up of more than 30 vehicles.

Once at the mansion, both left again accompanied by the Swiss president, who said that his country is honored to host this meeting and thus favor the dialogue and mutual understanding.

The presidents appeared before the cameras seated in the great library of the Villa La Grange, where they held a meeting accompanied by their foreign ministers.

Both exchanged comments, while the photographers and cameramen tried to take the best images of the moment, not without difficulty and with many pushes by means of which they made the camera that transmitted the image of the moment to the whole world almost fell to the ground.

Then the doors closed and the presidents and their ministers were left alone, only accompanied by their interpreters.

Before starting the meeting, Putin expressed to his American counterpart his wish that his first summit be productive.

“Many issues have accumulated in Russian-American relations. I hope that our meeting will be productive,” said the Russian leader.

“Mr. President, I would like to thank you for your initiative to hold this meeting,” added the leader sitting in one of the mansion’s libraries with Biden and their respective foreign ministers.

For his part, Biden said it’s best to meet face to face.

“As I have always said outside, it is better to meet face to face,” the American told the Russian. Both leaders spoke in front of the journalists at the beginning of the meeting, before the reporters were taken from the room.

The first meeting between the presidents with their respective foreign ministers lasted almost two hours at the Villa La Grange in Geneva, reported the Kremlin.

“We have finished the reduced format” of the meeting, that is, the two presidents and their diplomatic officers, Sergey Lavrov, and Antony Blinken, said spokesman Dmitri Peskov.

In the initial program, it was scheduled around one hour and fifteen minutes.

After the break, both leaders went to the expanded format, in which, in addition to Putin and Biden, five advisers from each of the delegations participated.

What was the agenda?

On the agenda were the current state and prospects of bilateral relations, strategic stability, information security issues and the fight against cybercrime.

Likewise, it had been anticipated that other issues to be discussed were the situation in Middle East, Syria, Libya, Afghanistan, the Korean Peninsulaas well as the Iranian nuclear program.

The US leader also asked Putin about human rights and the persecution of the Russian opposition, including the imprisoned Alexéi Navalni.

Facts beyond promises

Although the reading by both leaders was well above expectations, at the end of the expected summit the bulk of tensions and mutual accusations were still there with a red line around future cyber attacks drawn by the American president.

Unlike his predecessors, Biden did not say he expects to restart the relationship and rather raised a host of concerns with Russia including intervention in elections, attacks by cybercriminals on US infrastructure, and the poisoning and imprisonment of dissident Alexei Navalni.

Noted that the litmus test of the relationship will come later. “I want to see that in the next three months we have fewer ransomware incidents and nothing on the scale of what we had against Colonial Pipeline coming from Russia. That will be absolutely critical,” he said.

Several US companies, including the Colonial Pipeline pipeline network, were the target of recent attacks using ransomware, a program that encrypts computer systems and demands a ransom to unlock them.

Prospects for the future

Putin made no promises about cybercrime at his press conference, but Biden said the Russian leader “knows there will be consequences” for his country’s actions. The rulers indicated that the ambassadors of each country would return to the capital of the other and that the diplomats will work on the liberation of prisoners.

“I’m not sure how better it could have been, but it could have been a lot worse. This could have been name calling, lecturing, ignoring each other,” said Yuval Weber, a Russian expert at the Kennan Institute and a professor at A&M University. from Texas.

Unlike the Cold WarWhen the leaders of the United States and the Soviet Union met to sign agreements on big issues such as nuclear weapons, Biden and Putin never anticipated major breakthroughs in Geneva, according to Weber.

“What they were looking for was to see if they could get along well enough in person to be able to keep talking.” Weber indicated that Putin is sensitive to what people say about him, and possibly was uncomfortable with Biden’s first comments about him. But by calling him a “worthy adversary” and referring to Russia as a powerful nation, Biden is pursuing a strategy of “saying things that Putin can fit in with,” according to Weber.

Division in the United States

Former US President Barack Obama enraged Putin by calling Russia a “regional power” acting “not out of force, but out of weakness.” But Obama came to power, like his predecessors, hoping to restore relations with Russia. Before him, George W. Bush commented after meeting Putin in 2001: “I was able to get an idea of ​​his soul.”

Donald Trump broke the mold by expressing admiration for Putin. After a 2018 summit in Helsinki, Trump was criticized even in his own Republican Party when he accepted as true Putin’s refusal to interfere in the 2016 US elections.

Still, Republicans criticized Biden for the Geneva appointment, saying it should have been more confrontational. “The summits must have results,” said Jim Risch, a Republican senator on the Foreign Relations Committee. “Knowing that there were no tangible advances with Russia on any issue is regrettable and disappointing,” he said.

But Democratic Senator Bob Menendez, chairman of that committee, praised Biden for “telling the truth frankly” to Putin. “This was a necessary reality bath for Putin, and a welcome break from Trump’s past four years of pampering with the Kremlin,” Menendez said.

The background of gifts

Joe Biden presented Vladimir Putin with a pair of his favorite sunglasses – a custom Aviator made by Randolph USA – and a glass sculpture of an American bison, while the Russian handed him a desk set.

The figure was presented on a cherry wood base, symbol of the first president of the United States, George Washington, with a plaque with an inscription commemorating the summit on Wednesday.

An official from the White House explained that the gift made by Biden to Putin is an interpretation of “one of the most majestic mammals” in the US, representing “strength, unity and resilience.”

The Russian president’s gift to his counterpart featured typical Russian motifs, Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov explained.

The summit meant that Putin missed the victory of the Russian soccer team against Finland (1-0) in Euro 2020. But when asked later, he declined to make comparisons and say what the outcome of his encounter with Biden was.
Putin called the meeting “frank and sincere.”

However, “it does not necessarily mean that we have to … promise everlasting love,” he added. “You have to look around and think to yourself: It is a wonderful world,” said the Russian by way of conclusion. In a more brusque tone, Biden said, “I’ve done what I’ve come to do.”

INTERNATIONAL DRAFTING
* With information from agencies

More news