About the only thing Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin agreed on as they headed into a high-stakes summit Wednesday was that the relationship between the United States and Russia is at a low point. After close to four hours of talks at a Geneva chalet, that doesn’t appear to have changed. “There is no happiness in life,” Putin said somewhat cryptically in a press conference after discussions wrapped. “There is only a mirage on the horizon. So cherish that.”
The leaders met to discuss a wide range of issues, including Russia’s cyberattacks and the Kremlin’s treatment of dissidents like Alexei Navalny, but the overarching goal for Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken was to redraw red lines around the government’s malign behavior after four years of deference by Donald Trump, whose disastrous visit with Putin in Helsinki three years ago loomed over Wednesday’s summit. That Biden did not appear to be charmed by the Russian strongman or at any point preoccupied with a soccer ball represented a welcome departure and a reset to more traditional U.S. leadership. “I told President Putin my agenda is not against Russia or anyone else—it’s for the American people,” Biden said in a solo press conference after the meetings. “I also told him that no president of the United States could keep faith with the American people if they did not speak out to defend our democratic values.”
Putin, meanwhile, pointedly refused to answer some questions himself, including about Navalny, the jailed opposition leader who was said to be close to death in April during a hunger strike. (Should Navalny die, Biden said later, the consequences would be “devastating for Russia.”) Biden and Putin exchanged a handshake and pleasantries as the summit began—Biden also gifted Putin a pair of aviator sunglasses—but they made no secret of their disagreements. “I would like to thank you for the initiative to meet today,” said Putin, who was unexpectedly on time for the summit (his typical power move is to show up late). “Still, U.S.-Russian relations have accumulated a lot of issues that require a meeting at the highest level, and I hope that our meetings will be productive.”
“It is always better to meet face-to-face,” Biden said.
Back home, Republicans disagreed—at least now that a Democrat is in office. They saw no issue with Trump praising Putin, welcoming help from the Kremlin, accepting the Russian strongman’s denial that he interfered in the 2016 election, and disclosing classified information to Russian officials in the Oval Office. But the very act of Biden taking a meeting with Putin was met with hilarious criticism from these paragons of consistency.
It wasn’t clear if many tangibles came out of the summit. The two sides agreed to return ambassadors to their posts and discussed areas that should be considered off limits to cyber attacks. But nobody realistically expected the meeting to put an immediate stop to Putin’s malicious conduct at home and abroad. “This is not a light-switch moment,” Blinken said Monday, seeking to temper expectations. “This is about the president wanting to do two things, and he’s been very clear about it—to tell President Putin directly that we seek a more predictable, stable relationship, and if we’re able to do that, there are areas where it’s in our mutual interest to cooperate. But if Russia continues to take reckless and aggressive actions, we’ll respond forcefully.”
The mood ahead of the meeting was tense, but most of the fireworks occurred in the press pool, where an “extremely aggressive” shoving match broke out between American journalists and Russian reporters and security. The fracas made some of Biden’s opening comments difficult to make out and apparently led to a misunderstanding: Biden nodded after a reporter asked if he trusted Putin, but the White House clarified that he was acknowledging reporters, not responding to a specific question. There was a “chaotic scrum with reporters shouting over each other,” communications director Kate Bedingfield explained, and the president “was very clearly not responding to any one question.”
In his own solo press conference after the meetings, Putin called the talks “very constructive” and said there was “no hostility” between him and Biden, whom he described as an “experienced statesman” who is “very different from President Trump.” But in the end, not much appeared to have changed: He took some characteristic shots at the U.S., while deflecting questions about his own government’s actions. At one point, he was confronted by ABC News’ Rachel Scott over his treatment of dissidents. “If all of your political opponents are dead, in prison, poisoned, doesn’t that send a message that you don’t want a fair political fight?” Scott asked. Putin didn’t directly answer the question, instead seeming to suggest that his treatment of dissidents was no different than the U.S. bringing criminal charges against the pro-Trump insurrectionists who attacked the U.S. Capitol in January. Biden saw things a bit differently: “That’s a ridiculous comparison,” Biden said in his own press conference.
For the most part Biden appeared upbeat after the meeting, but seemed unable to contain his frustration when CNN’s Kaitlan Collins asked how he could be “so confident” Putin would change his behavior when he continued to downplay his human rights abuses. “I’m not confident,” an irritated Biden responded as he left the presser. “What the hell…when did I say I was confident?” He later apologized to Collins, calling himself a “wiseguy” for his answer.
— The Lab-Leak Theory: Inside the Fight to Uncover COVID-19’s Origins
— Ben Crump Is Thriving in Biden’s Washington
— Why It’s Not a Great Time to Be Matt Gaetz
— AOC’s Endorsement Could Change the NYC Mayor’s Race—But It May Never Come
— Trump Has Been Telling People He’s Going to Be President Again
— Is Juan Williams’s Exit From The Five Thanks to a Greg Gutfeld Blood Feud?
— Republicans’ Reason Not to Want to Investigate January 6: They’re to Blame
— Trump’s Inner Circle Is Scrambling at the Likelihood of Criminal Charges
— From the Archive: “60 Minutes Is Going Down”
— Not a subscriber? Join Vanity Fair to receive full access to VF.com and the complete online archive now.