President Joe Biden will meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Geneva next month to discuss strained bilateral relations, the White House announced on Tuesday.
The summit in the Swiss city will take place on June 16, White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki said. “The leaders will discuss a whole series of sensitive issues, needed to restore stability in U.S.-Russia relations,” Psaki said.
The Kremlin also confirmed the summit. “The two leaders will discuss the state of Russian-American relations and opportunities for further development, strategic stability issues, as well as topical issues on the international agenda, including cooperation in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic and the state of regional conflicts,” Putin’s office said.
Biden, on his first official foreign trip, will return from Geneva immediately after separate meetings with key Western partners in the G7, NATO, and the EU. His meeting with Putin comes as tensions between the countries continue to rise.
President Biden recently imposed new sanctions on Moscow over Russia’s role in preparing a large-scale cyber-attack in the SolarWinds hacks, and attempts to undermine the 2020 U.S. election, according to U.S. officials. Washington is also criticizing Moscow for its treatment of Putin critic Alexei Navalny.
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