US President Joe Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin have agreed at a “pragmatic” first summit to resume arms control talks and to return ambassadors to each other’s capitals after they were withdrawn earlier this year.
The discussions at the lakeside Villa La Grange in Geneva lasted less than four hours – far less than Mr Biden’s advisers had said they expected.
Mr Putin called Mr Biden, 78, a constructive, experienced partner, and said they spoke “the same language”, but added that there had been no friendship, rather a pragmatic dialogue about their two countries’ interests.
He said it was “hard to say” if relations with the United States would improve, but that there was a “glimpse of hope” regarding mutual trust. There were no invitations to Washington or Moscow.
The scheduling of separate news conferences meant there was none of the joviality that accompanied a 2018 meeting in Helsinki between Mr Putin and Mr Biden’s predecessor, Donald Trump. At that appearance, Mr Putin had presented Mr Trump with a soccer ball.
There was also no shared meal.
Mr Putin, 68, who was first to brief reporters, said the meeting had been constructive, without hostility, and had showed the leaders’ desire to understand each other.
He also said Russia and the US shared a responsibility for nuclear stability, and would hold talks on possible changes to their recently extended New START arms limitation treaty.
But he showed little appetite for compromise on a range of other issues, dismissing Washington’s concerns about the arrest of opposition figurehead Alexei Navalny, about Russia’s increased military presence near Ukraine’s eastern border, and about US suggestions that unidentified Russians are responsible for a series of cyber-attacks in the United States.
Mr Putin said Mr Navalny had ignored the law and had known what would happen if he returned to Russia from Germany, where he had received treatment for an attempt inside Russia to kill him with poison.
He also accused Kyiv of breaking the terms of a ceasefire agreement with pro-Russian rebels in eastern Ukraine.
The Kremlin leader said Washington and Moscow would start consultations on cybersecurity, adding that most cyber-attacks on Russia came from the US.
He said Mr Biden had raised human rights issues and also the fate of US citizens jailed in Russia. Putin said he believed some compromises could be found, although he gave no indication of any prisoner exchange deal.
Arms control is, however, one domain where progress has historically been possible despite wider disagreements.
In February, Russia and the United States extended for five years the New START treaty, which caps the number of strategic nuclear warheads they can deploy and limits the land and submarine-based missiles and bombers to deliver them.
Both sides had said in advance of the summit that they hoped for more stable and predictable relations, even though they were at odds over everything from arms control and cyber-hacking to election interference and Ukraine.
Mr Putin and Mr Biden shook hands on arrival before going inside, and Mr Biden flashed a ‘thumbs-up’ to reporters as he left the villa and got into his limousine.
Relations between Moscow and Washington have been deteriorating for years, notably with Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea from Ukraine, its 2015 intervention in Syria and US charges – denied by Moscow – of meddling in the 2016 election that brought Donald Trump to the White House.
They sank further in March when Mr Biden said he thought Mr Putin was a “killer”, prompting Russia to recall Antonov to Washington for consultations. The United States recalled its ambassador in April.
Mr Putin said on Thursday morning (Australian time) that he had been satisfied by Mr Biden’s explanation of the remark.
Mr Trump’s summit in 2018 with Mr Putin in Helsinki had included a meeting accompanied only by interpreters. Mr Biden and Mr Putin had no solo talks.
Standing beside Mr Putin in Helsinki in 2018, Mr Trump refused to blame him for meddling in the 2016 US election, casting doubt on the findings of his own intelligence agencies and sparking a storm of domestic criticism.
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