The presidents of the United States, Joe Biden, and the Russian Vladimir Putin will meet for the first time face to face in a meeting to be held next June in Geneva, as confirmed in a statement by the White House spokeswoman, Jen Psaki.

“President Biden will meet with President Putin in Geneva on June 16. The leaders will discuss the full range of pressing issues, as we seek to restore predictability and stability to the relationship between the United States and Russia,” says the note released by Psaki.

The meeting will take place shortly after Biden travels to the UK for the G7 summit in Cornwall. Biden proposed to Putin to meet in person during a phone call the two had last April.

For its part, the Kremlin press office limited itself to saying that both leaders will discuss “the current state and prospects of Russian-American relations, issues of strategic stability and acute problems on the international agenda, including the interaction to make in the face of the coronavirus pandemic and the resolution of regional conflicts”.

During his campaign for the White House, Biden described Russia as the “greatest threat” “to US security and alliances, and disparaged his predecessor, Donald Trump, for his welcoming relationship with Putin.

Since Biden took office, his administration has been marked by a tension with Russia, an attitude that Trump, whose international approach was based on the Chinese enemy, did not show.

Biden has criticized Putin on allegations that Russia interfered in the 2016 US elections and that the Kremlin was behind a hacking campaign known as the SolarWinds breach in which Russian hackers infected widely used software with malicious code. gaining access to at least nine US agencies.

Democrats also point to Russia for the arrest and imprisonment of opposition leader Alexei Navalny and for intelligence information that says Russian agents offered bounties to the Taliban for targeting US troops in Afghanistan.

The friction has reached major points as last month, the US expelled 10 Russian diplomats from the country and sanctioned companies and individuals in response to SolarWinds and electoral interference.

However, the White House has said its goal is to seek a “stable and predictable” relationship with Russia.

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