The Biden-Putin Summit: Presidents Praise Geneva Talks, Discord Remains

By Staff, Agencies

American President Joe Biden and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin praised their talks in Geneva, although they have made little concrete progress at the first such meeting since 2018.

Disagreements were stated, Biden said, but not in a hyperbolic way, adding that Russia did not want a new Cold War.

For his part, Putin said Biden was an experienced statesman, stating that the two "spoke the same language."

The talks lasted around three hours, although the summit was estimated to last between 4 to 6 hours.

Biden said they did not need to spend more time talking and there was now a genuine prospect to improve relations with Russia.

Biden brought Putin a custom-made pair of aviator sunglasses as a gift, a style favored by the US president, and a crystal sculpture of a bison. It is unclear whether Putin gave Biden a gift. In 2018, the Russian leader gave former President Donald Trump a soccer ball after a meeting in Helsinki, Finland.

The two sides agreed to begin a dialogue on nuclear arms control. They also said they would return ambassadors to each other's capitals - the envoys were mutually withdrawn for consultations in March, after the US accused Russia of meddling in the 2020 presidential election.

However, there was little sign of agreement on other issues, including cyber-security, Ukraine and the fate of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who is currently serving a two-and-a-half-year sentence in a penal colony.

Biden said there would be "devastating consequences" for Russia if Navalny died in prison.

Before the summit, both sides said relations were at rock bottom.

Putin hinted at a possible deal on exchanging prisoners, saying he believed compromises could be found.

On cyber-attacks, Putin brushed away accusations of Russia’s responsibility, saying that most cyber-attacks in Russia originated from the US.

Biden told Putin that critical infrastructure, such as water or energy, must be "off-limits" to hacking or other attacks.

Meanwhile, the two sides differed sharply on human rights, including the right to protest.

Putin dismissed US concerns about Navalny, who recently undertook a 24-day hunger strike, saying Navalny had ignored the law and knew he would face imprisonment when he returned to Russia after having sought medical treatment in Germany.

Navalny claims he was poisoned with a nerve agent on Putin's orders - an accusation Putin denies.

He said Russia did not want disturbances on its territory comparable to the Capitol riots or the Black Lives Matter movement.

Biden, however, dismissed Putin's comments about Black Lives Matter as "ridiculous", and said human rights would "always be on the table."

Asked why Russia would want to co-operate with the US, Biden said it was "in a very, very difficult spot right now."

"They are being squeezed by China. They want desperately to remain a major power," he told reporters, shortly before leaving Geneva.

At one point during his press conference, Biden appeared to nod in response to a reporter who asked if he trusted Putin. But the White House sent a tweet out soon after saying Biden was "very clearly not responding to any one question, but nodding in acknowledgment to the press generally."