The luxury lakeside Villa La Grange in Geneva's biggest park has hosted landmark international agreements, including the First Geneva Convention in 1864, but the one on Wednesday – a historic meeting between US President Joe Biden and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin – will probably be the most high-profile.
The 18th-century mansion is expected to foster an atmosphere of compromise in the first encounter between the two men since Biden ascended to the presidency earlier this year. Close advisers from both sides will join the event, including US State Secretary Antony Blinken and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.
The meeting with Putin is the last – but far from the least – in Biden’s tight schedule on his overseas tour of Europe. Before Putin, the American president has already reconnected with G7 and NATO allies, and held meetings with EU leaders, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron.
The upcoming negotiations are to consist of three parts: narrow-format talks and two rounds of extended discussion with a coffee break. The meeting, which will be held under enhanced coronavirus measures, is expected to last 4-5 hours. The presidents will not, however, hold a joint press conference. Putin's presser will take place before the press conference of his counterpart. While the White House says that a conference in such a format would be most suited, media claimed that Biden made his decision based on the allegedly unfavorable impression Donald Trump left after his summit with Putin in 2018.
Both the White House and the Kremlin have announced that the leaders are to touch on plenty of topics, ranging from strategic stability, information security and cybercrime, the Arctic, climate change, and the fight against COVID-19. Prospects of trade and investment cooperation between the two countries are also planned to be discussed during the meeting.
They will also discuss the Middle East, Syria, Libya, Afghanistan, the situation on the Korean Peninsula, as well as the Iranian nuclear program. Special attention is planned to be paid to Nagorno-Karabakh and Belarus.
The Ukraine crisis will undoubtedly come up during the meeting. The US is also likely to raise the situation with Russia's jailed opposition activist, Alexey Navalny.
US-Russia relations have been in a downward spiral since 2014, after the Obama administration placed sanctions on Russia over Ukraine and Crimea. Washington later accused Moscow of meddling in the 2016 US presidential election. Russia has repeatedly denied interfering in Ukraine and in US politics.
Matters were under threat of total collapse this spring after Biden was asked in an ABC News interview if he considers the Russian president a "killer" and he replied in the affirmative. Putin reacted by saying that he would just "wish him well" and invited Biden to a live debate.
In April, Washington ordered 10 Russian diplomats out of the country, and forbade American financial institutions to buy Russian government bonds at their initial offering, starting 14 June. Russian ambassador Anatoly Antonov and US ambassador John Sullivan returned to their home countries in the wake of the tensions. They will both be present at the summit in Geneva.
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