Russia and the US have agreed that their ambassadors will go back to their posts in Moscow and Washington, following what Vladimir Putin called “extremely constructive” talks with Joe Biden at a highly anticipated summit in Geneva.
Speaking after meeting the US president, Putin said the talks had been conducted without “hostility”. “Quite the contrary,” he said. He described Biden as a balanced and experienced politician who “spoke the same language, and who had talked fondly about his family and his mother.”
Putin added: “It showed an understanding of his moral values. That’s all quite attractive. It doesn’t mean we looked into each others’ eyes or souls. We have to represent our countries. The relationship is a pragmatic one.”
He revealed a US-Russian working group would agree a time for the ambassadors to return to their embassies. There would also be “consultations” over a wide range of issues including cyber-security and the renewal of the Start Three nuclear treaty, which is due to expire in 2024, he said.
Putin also denied Russia was behind a string of recent cyber-attacks on the US, and claimed his officials had sought to cooperate.
The Kremlin recalled its envoy to the US after Biden described Putin in a TV interview as a “killer”. His US counterpart, John Sullivan, flew home in April. Their return represents modest progress in US-Russian relations, following a long and bitter period of mutual acrimony.
Asked about the jailed Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny at a post-talks press conference, Putin said he only had himself to blame and had “broken the law” on several occasions. He refused to use Navalny’s name and described him as “this person”. He shrugged off claims he had repressed domestic critics, and accused the US Congress of supporting undesirable anti-government “political organisations” inside Russia.
Biden and Putin met earlier on Wednesday for both one-on-one talks and with their wider teams.
The Russian president’s plane flew in over a quiet Lake Geneva, touching down at 12.27pm local time (11.27 BST), the day after Biden arrived in the Swiss city. He travelled by motorcade to the summit venue, the 18th-century Villa La Grange. Uncharacteristically Putin was on time.
Biden followed minutes later and was greeted by the Swiss president, Guy Parmelin, surrounded by Russian, American and Swiss flags. Biden and Putin posed for a brief photocall in front of the mansion and shook hands. There was a glimmer of a smile from both before they went inside.
Welcoming his guests, Parmelin said he hoped the pair would have a “fruitful and productive dialogue, for the benefit of both their countries and the entire world”.
Biden and Putin reappeared together inside the mansion’s book-lined library. The Russian president said he hoped for a “productive” dialogue. In comments partly drowned out by journalists, Biden said he wanted “predictable” relations with Moscow, and to cooperate where the two great powers had mutual interests.
Biden appeared relaxed. In what has become a familiar pose, Putin leaned back into his chair, legs sprawled. Aides then evicted a large and chaotic press pack. The historic summit talks began in two by two format, with Biden flanked by the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, and Putin accompanied by his veteran foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov.
The conversation in this smaller group lasted about an hour and a half. The talks then expanded into a larger bilateral meeting, with delegations from both sides, wrapping up around 5pm local time, a White House official said.
Ahead of Wednesday’s meeting, Biden said he was seeking “stable, predictable” relations with Russia despite claims that Putin has interfered in American elections, provoked wars with his neighbours, and sought to crush dissent by jailing opposition leaders. Putin brought his own list of grievances to Geneva in his first trip abroad since the outbreak of the coronavirus in 2020. He has expressed anger about US support for Ukraine’s government and claims of opposition backing in Russia and neighbouring Belarus, as well as the expansion of Nato into eastern Europe.
Wednesday’s summit was the first meeting between US and Russian leaders since Putin met Donald Trump in Helsinki in 2018. In a meeting seen as deeply embarrassing for the US, Trump appeared to kowtow to Putin by rejecting his own FBI’s assessment that Russia had interfered in the 2016 US presidential elections. “President Putin says it’s not Russia. I don’t see any reason why it would be,” he told journalists. An aide later said she had considered faking a medical emergency to end the joint press conference.
Biden appeared to be taking no chances of a repeat on Wednesday. The two presidents brought senior diplomatic and military advisers to the villa summit. They include Russia’s chief of general staff, Valery Gerasimov, responsible for developing the doctrine of “hybrid war”. Hundreds of journalists have flown in for the talks, which shut down much of the city centre, including the picturesque coastline of Lake Geneva.
Nonetheless, Biden has been under pressure for agreeing to meet Putin without any preconditions, gifting the Russian leader the prestige of a presidential summit with little expectation of any concessions or even progress in the relationship. His advisers reportedly told him not to appear with Putin after the talks.
The talks also raised concerns among Russia’s neighbours such as Ukraine, whose president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, sought an audience with Biden to argue the country’s case for Nato membership before this week’s summit. The US has left the door open to Ukraine’s accession to the alliance, but did not take meaningful steps to speed up that process.
Putin appeared defiant in a US television interview last week, refusing to give guarantees that the opposition leader Alexei Navalny will get out of prison alive and comparing his movement to the US protesters who stormed the US Capitol on 6 January.
He also dangled the possibility of arranging a trade for two Americans imprisoned in Russia – the former US marine Trevor Reed, and Paul Whelan, a Michigan corporate executive. He said Moscow would seek the release of imprisoned Russians, including Konstantin Yaroshenko, a pilot arrested in May 2010 in Liberia on charges of conspiracy to smuggle drugs, and handed over to the Drug Enforcement Administration, which flew him to the US for trial.
“We have a saying: ‘Don’t be mad at the mirror if you are ugly,’” Putin told an NBC journalist, accusing the US of hypocrisy.
