Tuesday, June 15, 2021
Meeting with Biden is on
Putin adviser senses “weak optimism”
The signs are not particularly good ahead of the Geneva summit. Presidents Putin and Biden have made headlines with less pleasant words about each other in the recent past. The Russian diplomat Ushakov is therefore keeping expectations low.
The foreign policy advisor to Russian President Vladimir Putin currently sees relations between Moscow and Washington as “a dead end”. The situation is “almost critical,” said Russian diplomat Yuri Ushakov in an interview with journalists. “You have to do something”. The summit between Putin and US President Joe Biden on Wednesday in Geneva could be a first step.
He sees “this meeting with a practical but weak optimism,” said Ushakov. “It is a first meeting under difficult conditions.” If the summit goes well, a return of the Russian and US ambassadors is conceivable. “It would be a great success if the ambassadors got back to work,” stressed Ushakov. After Biden called Putin a “killer” in an interview in March, Moscow, in an unusual step, called its ambassador back for consultations and asked the US ambassador to Russia to return to Washington.
Numerous conflicts on the agenda
Putin and Biden will meet in a villa in Geneva on Wednesday to discuss numerous issues. According to the Putin advisor, the agenda includes questions of strategic stability and IT security, the fight against cybercrime, the climate, the Arctic and numerous regional conflicts such as in Eastern Ukraine, Syria, Libya, Afghanistan and the situation in Iran and North Korea.
Biden is likely to address, among other things, the imprisonment of the Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny and Putin’s support for the Belarusian ruler Alexander Lukashenko. Washington also accuses Moscow of meddling in the US elections and large-scale hacker attacks.
Ushakov confirmed that each president would hold a press conference following the summit. This had already become known on the weekend. Putin will meet the Swiss President Guy Parmelin after the conversation with Biden.
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