The first face-to-face meeting between U.S. President Joe Biden and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin will take place next month in Switzerland, the White House said Tuesday.
At the moment, Biden's administration and the Kremlin are finalizing arrangements for the summit, CNN reported Tuesday.
"President Biden will meet with President Putin in Geneva, Switzerland on June 16, 2021. The leaders will discuss the full range of pressing issues, as we seek to restore predictability and stability to the U.S.-Russia relationship," the White House said in a statement.
The long-anticipated meeting will come at the conclusion of Biden's first international trip since taking office.
The White House dispatched national security adviser Jake Sullivan to Geneva this week to meet with his Russian counterpart, officials said, as details are being hammered out for the meeting between Biden and Putin.
Read alsoKuleba says Lavrov shuns Normandy ministers' meetingThe high-stakes meeting comes nearly three years after Putin met then-President Donald Trump in Helsinki, Finland. The officials said the meeting with Biden will look very different from that July 2018 summit, during which Trump sided with Putin and openly dismissed U.S. intelligence about Russian interference in the 2016 election.
It would be Biden's first meeting with Putin since taking office. But Biden has previously met with Putin during his time as vice president, including a 2011 meeting during which Biden said he looked into Putin's eyes and declared: "I don't think you have a soul."
Background
- On April 13, 2021, Putin and Biden had a phone call. According to the White House's press service, Biden put forward the idea of holding a Russian-American summit "in a third country in the coming months." Later, the American leader clarified that he had invited his Russian counterpart to meet in Europe this summer.
- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky praised a possible meeting between the leaders of Russia and the United States.
- Ukraine's Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said the summit would not radically change the situation in Ukraine.