Image Credits: EconomicsTimes
There was no talk about gazing into Vladimir Putin’s “soul” and therefore the Russian president didn’t attempt to gaslight a rookie US leader. Instead, Putin’s first summit with the fifth US President of his tenure, Joe Biden, was about mutual respect — and therefore the meeting in Geneva could, both of them said, cause a more predictable, if still tense relationship.
“Leo Tolstoy once said: ‘There is not any happiness in life — there are only glimmers of it,” to this Putin added, “I think that during this situation, there can’t be any quite family trust. But I feel we’ve seen some glimmers.”
Putin, who at his 2018 summit with Donald Trump in Helsinki was widely seen as dominating the truth TV star turned President, said Biden was “a very experienced politician” who was ready to speak in rare detail within the “very constructive” quite three hours of talks.
“Biden generally is someone who wants constructive relations. He doesn’t consider Putin a lover ,” said Ian Bremmer, president of the Eurasia Group political risk firm.
Similar to his view of Chinese President Xi Jinping, Biden “doesn’t trust them but he does expect Russia will act in its interest and therefore the two countries have some interests that overlap and where we should always work together,” Bremmer said. Bremmer said the test of the connection will come afterward.
“I want to ascertain that within the next three months we have materially fewer ransomware incidents and zip of the size that we had against Colonial Pipeline that comes from Russia. That’s absolutely critical,” he concluded.