Meeting on Neutral Ground

Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin want to meet in Geneva in June, the first time in the U.S. president’s term. He and the Russian head of state have a number of issues to discuss.

Next month, U.S. President Joe Biden will attend his first summit with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin. As the White House communicated on Tuesday, the two heads of state will meet in Geneva on June 16 — on neutral ground, so to speak. The presidents “will discuss the full range of pressing issues as we seek to restore predictability and stability to the U.S.-Russia relationship,” as stated in a press briefing. The Kremlin communicated that the goal of the meeting is developing Russian-American relations. Additionally, international issues are planned to be discussed, such as the fight against the pandemic and regional conflicts.

There are many “pressing issues.” The relationship between the two nuclear powers hasn’t been this bad in decades. The United States and Russia are opposed in regard to practically every important issue and conflict. This starts with Russia’s aggression toward Ukraine, continues with Putin’s intervention in Syria and doesn’t stop with Moscow’s attempts to interfere in American elections.

The attacks on government institutions and companies by Russian hackers have also strained relations, as have the attacks on — and show trials against — Putin critics. Overall in Washington, the view abounds that Russia has developed into a dictatorship in the past years, internally repressive and externally aggressive. Putin is seen as the one chiefly responsible for this development.

Over the past few years the Kremlin was able to keep relations reasonably stable because Putin established a good personal relationship with Donald Trump. The Russian president, a trained KGB agent leader, knew the weak points of his U.S. counterpart very well: his vanity, need for admiration and paranoia. He repeatedly got Trump to take stances that served Russian interests rather than American ones, such as those concerning NATO. Occasionally, this occurred to the horror of high-ranking White House employees, who saw clearly how Putin was manipulating Trump.

Russia Is More of a Disruptive Factor than a Competitor

That has changed with Biden’s inauguration. The new U.S. president isn’t leaving any doubt that he considers Putin to be a violent autocrat. A few months ago in an interview, Biden went so far as to answer the question of whether he would call Putin a “killer” with yes. The Russian president reacted to this with visible anger.

What likely also angers Putin is the fact that in Washington relations with Moscow are still seen as secondary at best. In 2014 during the Ukraine crisis, Barack Obama referred to Russia disparagingly as a “regional power” that acts out of weakness rather than strength. Biden was vice president at the time; since then he has made it clear that he sees China, not Russia, as the biggest geopolitical, economic and ideological rival of the United States. In Washington, Russia is seen as a disruptive factor in world politics, but not as a serious competitor. When the White House says that it wants “predictability and stability” in relations, it means that the United States wants Moscow to stop constantly causing trouble.

However, there are two issues in which the United States is actually interested in cooperating with Moscow. First is nuclear disarmament, and there is progress on this front. Right at the beginning of Biden’s term, the two countries extended the New START Treaty, an important arms control agreement. Second, Biden hopes to come to a new agreement with Tehran in order to curb the Iranian nuclear program. Russia is involved in these negotiations and the United States has an interest in Moscow pressuring Tehran to reach an agreement with Washington. The fact that a few days ago Biden refrained from imposing harsh sanctions on the Russian-German Nord Stream 2 pipeline in order to spare Berlin is perhaps a part of this calculation.