Russia’s Putin lands in Geneva for summit
Officials aboard Air Force One during the flight from Brussels to Geneva said US President Joe Biden would meet Russian President Vladimir Putin at 1 p.m. CET, 7 a.m. ET, at the lakeside villa where the summit is occurring.
Putin will arrive at the villa first and both will be greeted by the Swiss President before posing for a photo.
Their first meeting will contain four participants: Biden, Putin, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. Each side will have a translator, and there will be a photo-op with reporters at the start.
The meeting will then expand with five-member delegations on each side, in addition to Biden and Putin.
US officials said they expected the talks to last four to five hours, or perhaps longer. The leaders are not expected to share a meal.
No breaking of bread,” a senior administration official said.
The two leaders will conclude by convening separate press conferences.
Officials underscored the modest expectations for the talks, listing nuclear stability and other arms control agreements as a potential source of agreement. They said it was possible that areas of potential cooperation are farmed out to aides for further work.
Ransomware is expected to factor heavily in the talks, and the official said Biden would underscore US plans to respond to continued state-directed hacks.
Biden will raise human rights, the official said, but would not specify if that will include a discussion of opposition leader Alexey Navalny.
Both the US and Russian ambassadors to the respective capitals will be in Geneva for the talks.
The senior administration official said Biden has been reviewing the issues in written material and engaging with a wide variety of advisers in the lead-up to the summit.
