Biden and Putin kick off Geneva summit 5:38
(CNN) -
The long-awaited summit in Geneva between US President Joe Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday came at a time when both leaders say bilateral relations are at a low point.
So perhaps unsurprisingly, a joint press conference after the summit is probably not among the plans.
The summit comes about six months into Biden's term in office, and offers him the opportunity to set the tone for relations with the Russian leader in person after a controversial start to their relationship.
The private meetings on Wednesday give the president, who has sometimes stumbled in his messages in front of the press, the opportunity to confront Putin directly and without cameras.
Later, Biden will deliver his own message to reporters about the conversations without the pressure of speaking alongside an adversary.
Rather than potentially confront the press with grieving messages about US-Russian relations, Biden and Putin will hold solo press conferences after the summit.
Minute by minute: Biden and Putin meet in Geneva
Biden reiterates the importance of Europe as an ally 3:10
The decision not to hold a joint press conference was something that White House officials had lobbied for.
Officials have said that Russia pushed for a joint press conference during negotiations on the summit.
But the United States resisted because they did not want to give Putin a platform like the one he had after a 2018 summit with former President Donald Trump in Helsinki.
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Officials said they were aware of Putin's desire to appear like he had beaten a US president and wanted to avoid a situation that became a tit-for-tat in public.
The decision also comes on the advice of a group of Russian experts who met with the president earlier this month, according to sources familiar with the discussion.
"This is not a contest about who can do better in front of a press conference or trying to embarrass each other," Biden said Sunday, explaining the decision.
The talks between the United States and Russia take place in a lakeside villa in Switzerland and are expected to last about five hours or more, according to a US official.
Despite their extensive schedule, leaders are not expected to eat together.
ANALYSIS |
Biden's meeting with Putin has historical echoes
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| This 1988 photo shows the Vice President of the United States, George HW Bush, President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev on Governors Island in New York in the late 1980s. See the meetings of the presidents in this gallery US and Russian leaders throughout recent history (Credit: Corbis Historical / Getty Images)
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| The leaders of the United States and Russia have met many times over the past century, sometimes as allies, sometimes as adversaries, and matters are always highly anticipated. This photo shows Soviet leader Joseph Stalin shaking hands with Sarah Churchill, daughter of British Prime Minister Winston Churchill. There's also US President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1943. Stalin, Roosevelt, and Churchill, right, were meeting at the Soviet embassy in Tehran, Iran, to discuss strategy during World War II. They were allies against the Axis powers. (Credit: Hulton Deutsch / Corbis Historical / Getty Images)
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| From left to right, Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin attend the Yalta Conference in the Soviet Union in 1945. They discussed a postwar plan for Europe and how it would reorganize after the fall of Nazi Germany. Today, many historians conclude that Stalin was the "winner" at Yalta, as much of Eastern Europe would soon enter the Soviet orbit. Churchill and Roosevelt did not win significant concessions in Poland, which was already occupied by Soviet troops. (Credit: Hulton Archive / Getty Images)
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Stalin and US President Harry Truman smile during the Potsdam Conference in Germany in 1945. The Germans had recently surrendered, and Japan's surrender would soon follow.
At the end of the conference, the Potsdam Declaration issued an ultimatum to Japan, saying that it should surrender or face "swift and total destruction."
Less than two weeks later, the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima (Credit: Library of Congress / Corbis Historical / Getty Images)
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From the left, Churchill, Truman and Stalin shake hands during the Potsdam Conference.
(Credit: AP)
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| Soviet leader Nikolai Bulganin, left, greets US President Dwight D. Eisenhower during a summit in Geneva, Switzerland, in 1955. Also attending the summit was French Prime Minister Edgar Faure, second from the right, and Prime Minister of Great Britain, Anthony Eden, on the right. (Credit: Archive / Getty Images)
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| Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, left, shares a Pepsi toast with U.S. Vice President Richard Nixon, right, and President Eisenhower's brother Milton, second from right, who were visiting Moscow as part of a cultural exchange in 1959. It was at the opening of the American National Exposition, where Khrushchev and Nixon discussed the merits of capitalism and communism. This later became known as the "kitchen debate" after the two men continued their exchange in the kitchen of an American model home. Nixon would later become president of the United States. (Credit: Bettmann Archive / Getty Images)
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Khrushchev, second from right, speaks with President Eisenhower before a state dinner at the White House in 1959. On the left are Khrushchev's wife, Nina Khrushcheva, alongside the United States' first lady, Mamie Eisenhower.
Khrushchev's visit was the first time a Soviet leader was in the White House.
(Credit: Bob Schutz / AP)
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Eisenhower sits among the Khrushchevs as they mobilize in a car in Washington in 1959. (Credit: Harry Harris / AP)
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| Khrushchev speaks at the 1960 Paris Summit, which was interrupted by the political fallout of a downed American spy plane on a mission over the Soviet Union. After the Soviets announced the capture of pilot Francis Gary Powers, the United States retracted earlier claims that the plane was on a meteorological research mission. (MPI / Archive Photos / Getty Images)
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Khrushchev shakes hands with US President John F. Kennedy as they meet for a two-day summit in Vienna, Austria, in 1961. Historians agree that Kennedy did poorly in his negotiations, which occurred two months later. of the failed Bay of Pigs invasion in Cuba.
A year later, it was discovered that the Soviets had deployed nuclear missiles in Cuba, just 75 miles from the United States.
(Credit: Ron Case / Hulton Archive / Getty Images)
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US President Lyndon B. Johnson, right, talks to Soviet leader Alexei Kosygin during the Glassboro Summit in Glassboro, New Jersey, in 1967. Sitting with them is interpreter Alexander Akalovsky.
(Credit: Bettmann Archive / Getty Images)
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Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev shares a toast with US President Richard Nixon after they signed some agreements during a summit in Washington, DC, in 1973. The two men also held productive meetings in Moscow in 1972, signing important arms control treaties. .
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Nixon and Brezhnev hold another summit in Moscow in 1974. (Charles Tasnadi / AP)
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Nixon, escorted by Brezhnev, greets embassy staff members and families after arriving in Moscow in 1974. On the left is first lady Pat Nixon.
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Brezhnev meets with US President Gerald Ford at a meeting in Vladivostok, USSR, in 1974. During the summit, the two sides reached more agreements to limit their weapons.
(Credit: David Hume Kennerly / Hulton Archive / Getty Images)
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Ford and Brezhnev travel together on a train in Vladivostok during their 1974 summit. (FPG / Archive Photos / Getty Images)
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Ford joins Brezhnev outside the Soviet embassy in Helsinki, Finland, in 1975. They were among the leaders who attended the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe.
The Helsinki Final Act, signed by the US, the Soviet Union and almost all European countries, was intended to revitalize the policy of "detente" or relaxation of tensions during the Cold War.
(Vesa Klemetti / AP)
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Brezhnev kisses US President Jimmy Carter while still holding the SALT II treaty documents they signed in Vienna, Austria, in 1979. The SALT treaties put limits on nuclear weapons.
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US President Ronald Reagan, left, and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev have a fireside chat at a boathouse during a summit in Geneva, Switzerland, in 1985. Gorbachev ushered in an era of reform economic under perestroika and greater political freedoms under glasnost.
(Credit: David Hume Kennerly / Getty Images)
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Gorbachev and Reagan signed an arms control agreement in Washington in 1987. This came a few months after Reagan delivered his famous speech on the Berlin Wall, saying "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!"
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Reagan greets a boy as he walks through Moscow's Red Square with Gorbachev in 1988. (Credit: Pete Souza / The White House / Getty Images)
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US President-elect George HW Bush points out sights for Gorbachev as Reagan watches as they pass through New York Harbor from Governors Island in 1988. (Credit: Boris Yurchenko / AP)
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Bush watches Gorbachev leave the White House after the two leaders held talks in 1990. (Credit: Marci Nighswander / AP)
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Bush, Gorbachev, and some of their key advisers spent time at Camp David, Maryland, in 1990. (Credit: White House Photo / DPA / AP)
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Bush and Gorbachev laugh together at a Moscow summit in 1991. Later that year, the Soviet Union dissolved and the Cold War ended.
(Credit: Peter Turnley / Corbis Historical / VCG / Getty Images)
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Russian President Boris Yeltsin finishes a glass of vodka in Moscow during a reception for world leaders in 1995. On the right is US President Bill Clinton.
(Credit: Gerard Fouet / AFP / Getty Images)
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Clinton laughs at a Yeltsin joke during a joint Posada New York press conference in 1995. (Credit: Wally McNamee / Corbis Historical / Getty Images)
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Clinton shakes hands with Russia's new president, Vladimir Putin, before the start of a G8 summit in Japan in 2000. (Credit: Hulton Archive / Getty Images)
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US President George W. Bush, left, shakes hands with Putin when they first meet at a summit in Ljubljana, Slovenia, in 2001. "I could feel his soul, a man deeply committed to his country and the best interests of his country, "Bush said.
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Putin and Bush smile after a press conference in Crawford, Texas, in 2001. Putin visited Bush's Crawford ranch.
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Bush and Putin, wearing traditional Chilean ponchos, walk with Chilean President Ricardo Lagos, left, at the APEC Summit in Santiago, Chile, in 2004. (Credit: Tim Sloan / AFP / Getty Images)
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From left to right, Putin, Bush, First Lady Laura Bush, and First Lady Lyudmila Pútina pose for a photo during a brief stop in Moscow in 2006. (Credit: Gamma-Rapho / Getty Images)
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US President Barack Obama, left, and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev sign the new START, a nuclear weapons reduction treaty, in Prague, Czech Republic, in 2010. (Credit: Getty Images)
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Obama and Medvedev had cheeseburgers in Arlington, Virginia, in 2010. They had previously met in the Oval Office of the White House.
(Credit: Martin H. Simon / Pool / Getty Images)
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US President Donald Trump talks to Putin on the sidelines of the APEC Summit in Da Nang, Vietnam, in 2017. Trump said he believed Putin when he said Russia did not try to interfere in the US presidential elections. in 2016, despite US intelligence agencies finding out it did.
(Credit: Mikhail Klimentyev / AFP / Sputnik / Getty Images)
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Putin hands Trump a World Cup soccer ball after his summit in Helsinki, Finland, in 2018. "Our relationship has never been worse than it is now. However, that changed about four hours ago. Really. I believe it, "Trump said during a joint press conference held at the end of the summit.
The meeting came just three days after the indictments, brought by special counsel Robert Mueller, accused 12 Russian intelligence agents of hacking into Democrats' computer networks and emails during the 2016 presidential race (Credit: Chris McGrath / Getty Images)
Setting the tone for relations with Putin
In his first months in office, Biden made clear that Russia would face ramifications for a series of actions against the United States.
He told a journalist in March that he agreed that Putin was a "murderer."
And in April, the Biden administration issued sweeping sanctions and diplomatic expulsions for its interference in the 2020 US elections, its SolarWinds cyberattack and its ongoing occupation and "serious human rights abuses" in Crimea.
But in issuing those new sanctions, Biden also stressed that the United States still wants "a stable and predictable relationship" with Russia.
Now he faces questions about whether his hardline rhetoric in the past will match his administration's actions at the summit.
Biden has recently had to defend his administration's decision to waive sanctions for Russia's Nord Stream 2 pipeline.
And while Biden agreed to meet with Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelensky later this summer in Washington, the White House appeared to essentially reject Zelensky's initial request for an in-person meeting before Putin's summit.
ANALYSIS |
Biden's meeting with Putin has historical echoes
This is how Vladimir Putin landed in Geneva 0:55
When asked in Brussels on Tuesday if he still believes Putin is a murderer, Biden also appeared to soften his language ahead of the summit talks.
"I think in the past, he essentially recognized that he was, there were certain things that he would do or did," Biden said.
He continued: "But look, when they asked me that question on the air, I answered it honestly… I don't think it matters much, in terms of the next meeting we're going to have."
But he also sent a tough message in other ways while answering questions in Brussels, saying that NATO members must root out corruption and "protect themselves against those who would stoke hatred and division for political gain such as fake populism."
Biden has told aides that he believes Putin will respond to bluntness during their conversations and wants to be ready to deliver a frank message.
It is also preparing to discuss areas of possible mutual interest.
During Wednesday's summit, there are also more steps that Biden can propose to establish a baseline between a new administration and a long-standing enemy, said a person familiar with the preparation.
The goal is not any kind of dramatic breakthrough, and Biden and his aides alike have been careful to make it clear that there are no expectations of anything of the sort.
Officials want Biden to be prepared for the Russian leader's tactics, including his well-known habit of turning discussions of Russia's malpractice back in the United States.
Biden has told his advisers that he believes Putin will respond to bluntness during their talks and wants to be ready to deliver a frank message.
Historic precedent for Putin's meetings with other US presidents
Biden will become the fifth US president with whom Putin has met.
Not all held joint press conferences with Putin after their meetings, and when they did, they weren't always pleasant or seemed to move in America's favor.
During a joint press conference in 2000 with then-President Bill Clinton, for example, the two leaders did not look or smile at each other.
And when Trump held a press conference with Putin in 2018 in Helsinki, he refused to support the US government's assessment that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election, saying at the time that he "saw no reason." for which Russia would be responsible.
US President Donald Trump talks to Putin on the sidelines of the APEC Summit in Da Nang, Vietnam, in 2017. Trump said he believed Putin when he said Russia did not try to interfere in the US presidential elections. in 2016, despite US intelligence agencies finding out it did. (Credit: Mikhail Klimentyev / AFP / Sputnik / Getty Images)
"I have great confidence in my intelligence people, but I will tell you that President Putin was extremely strong and powerful in his denial today," Trump said during the press conference.
Biden has long been skeptical of America's relations with Putin.
After former President George W. Bush met Putin in Slovenia in June 2001, Bush said he looked him in the eye and had "a sense of his soul."
But Biden, then a senator, responded by saying: “I don't trust Putin.
Hopefully the president was being more stylistic than substantive. "
Joe BidenVladimir Putin