The first summit between Biden and Putin will be held on June 16 in Geneva

The long-awaited summit between the US president, Joe Biden, and the Russian leader, Vladimir Putin, already has a date and place, on June 16 in Geneva (Switzerland).

The White House announced the first meeting between the two leaders in a brief statement in which it cited the objective of "restoring the predictability and stability of the relationship between the United States and Russia."

Nothing more and nothing less after the tension that has marked the first months of Joe Biden's Administration with respect to Moscow.

More information

• Biden charges against Putin and assumes that the Russian president is "a murderer"

On April 15, Washington imposed harsh sanctions on some thirty Russian individuals and entities, directly accusing the Russian Foreign Espionage Service (SVR) of interfering in the 2020 elections, a massive cyberattack and Moscow's alleged offer to the Taliban to attack US troops in Afghanistan. The previous month, he had already penalized another dozen high-ranking officials for the poisoning and arrest of Alexei Navalni in a coordinated action with the European Union. The Administration of Donald Trump also penalized the Kremlin for a campaign of espionage and hacking, but the Republican manifested an unusual cordiality towards Putin, which aroused enormous misgivings while the Russian leader was accused by the United States precisely of having tried to favor the electoral victory Trump in 2016.

There is no dissociation, this time, between the Administration and the president. Biden has made his critical stance on Moscow very clear. "[Vladimir] Putin seeks to erode our transatlantic alliance because it is much easier for the Kremlin to attack and threaten individual countries than to negotiate with a united alliance," he said in February at the Munich Conference, which was held in virtual mode. and it was his first speech in an international forum.

This first face-to-face between Biden and Putin will take place within the framework of the American's first international trip as president, when he will visit the United Kingdom to participate in a meeting of the G7 and Brussels for the NATO summit. Washington, for the moment, still does not want to invite Russia to the G7 forum (which with Moscow was the G8), an appointment from which it was expelled in 2014 in retaliation for the invasion of Crimea (Ukraine). Trump wanted to reopen the door for them, but that has also changed with the new Democratic president.