Biden, Putin Ready For Long-Anticipated Face-To-Face Summit

Biden has said it would be an important step if the U.S. and Russia were able to ultimately find “stability and predictability” in their relationship.

GENEVA (AP) — U.S. President Joe Biden and Russia’s Vladimir Putin sit down Wednesday for their highly anticipated summit in the Swiss city of Geneva, a moment of high-stakes diplomacy at a time when both leaders agree that relations between their countries are at an all-time low. For four months, the two leaders have traded sharp rhetoric. Biden repeatedly called out Putin for malicious cyberattacks by Russian-based hackers on U.S. interests, a disregard for democracy with the jailing of Russia’s foremost opposition leader and interference in American elections. Putin, for his part, has reacted with whatabout-isms and obfuscations — pointing to the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol to argue that the U.S. has no business lecturing on democratic norms and insisting that the Russian government hasn’t been involved in any election interference or cyberattacks despite U.S. intelligence showing otherwise.