WATCH LIVE: Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin Meet in Geneva
Presidents Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin are meeting today in Geneva, Switzerland for a high-stakes meeting on the international relationship between the United States and Russia.
The summit is not Biden’s first encounter ever with Putin, though it will be the first time they’ve met since Biden became president, and it comes after his first international visits in that role to NATO, the EU, and the G7. Biden and Putin have both commented recently that U.S.-Russian relations are currently at a low point, so the summit will be an opportunity for both presidents to address their disputes, take measure of each other, and hold diplomatic engagements on a myriad of topics.
Both leaders intend to hold solo press conferences after the summit, which they will more than likely use to provide the narrative they prefer on how it goes. This is a notable departure from the joint presser that Putin held with former President Donald Trump after their 2018 summit in Helsinki.
Among the topics that shall be addressed during the summit, one of the most likely is Russian cyberattacks against U.S. infrastructure. This has been at the forefront of international concerns ever since a group of cybercriminals based in Russia was suspected of hacking the Colonial Pipeline company and disrupting fuel supplies across the American southeast. This also comes after the SolarWinds hack of last year that resulted in numerous data breaches across the U.S. government.
Other topics likely to arise include arms control, nuclear stability, climate change, and human rights. It is under the latter that Biden will probably grill Putin on Russia’s treatment of Alexei Navalny, the noted Kremlin critic who Putin recently said he couldn’t guarantee Navalny would get to leave prison alive.
Watch above, via PBS.