The whole world looked at the summit of US President Biden and Kremlin chief Putin.
The next day, the question arises as to how the decided projects will continue.
Moscow / Washington / Geneva (dpa) - After the summit meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and US President Joe Biden, the focus is on the implementation of the agreed cooperation.
The US side emphasized that the next few months would have to show whether concrete progress with Moscow was possible.
A first meeting on the planned arms control talks will probably be tackled in the coming weeks, said Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov of the Kommersant newspaper.
The governments in Moscow and Washington announced that their ambassadors would return to the other country shortly.
The Russian Foreign Ministry announced the return of its ambassador to Washington for the next few days.
No rapprochement with Ukraine and Belarus
In view of the dramatically poor relations, the summit on Wednesday in Geneva, Switzerland, was eagerly awaited. The handshake of the two presidents, understood as historical, graced many front pages in Russia and the USA the day after. Putin and Biden had agreed in the Villa La Grange on Lake Geneva, among other things, on the return of their ambassadors to Moscow and Washington, who had temporarily left their posts in the spring in the wake of growing tensions between the two countries.
So now relief, relaxation, even euphoria? Hardly likely. Rather the hope of further rapprochement - or at least a "hint" of it, as Putin himself had put it after the meeting. Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov later praised the summit as a meeting “with a plus sign” - but at the same time emphasized that there were further differences. There is disagreement between the two states, for example, on Belarus or the role of NATO, said Peskov. "We warned against excessive expectations (...) from the start."
The Americans want concrete reactions from the Russians. A US government official said after the summit that, for example, they would be closely monitoring whether Moscow was taking action against the perpetrators of the latest hacking attack on the largest gasoline pipeline in the US. Biden himself had emphasized in Geneva that the decisive factor now is what will emerge from the agreed talks over the next six to twelve months. The US government official emphasized that it would take some time to see whether the meeting, which was organized on Biden's initiative, would actually lead to tangible results. "It's different from flipping a light switch."
The analyzes of many commentators were also rather cautious.
That the two presidents sat down together and addressed the multitude of problems - good.
A breakthrough?
No.
Many hot topics remained on the agenda, said the Russian political scientist Lilija Shevtsova to the radio station Echo Moskwy.
Political scientist Tatiana Stanowaja wrote on Telegram: “It is important to understand at the summit that this is not a sprint, but a marathon.” Commentators from American think tanks also emphasized that the real work is still ahead.
No more attacks on critical infrastructure?
After all, in addition to the return of their ambassadors and talks about arms control, both sides also agreed to discuss a possible exchange of prisoners and cybersecurity.
The Kremlin confirmed on Thursday that Biden had given the Russian side a list of 16 areas of critical US infrastructure that should not be hacked.
According to the US government, these include the food sector, financial services and nuclear power.
Putin again denied US allegations on Thursday that Russian intelligence agencies are responsible for hacker attacks on government departments, agencies and companies in the US.
However, he reaffirmed the planned talks on cybersecurity.
That is equally important for the USA and Russia.
On the other hand, Biden seemed to have encountered little willingness to enter into dialogue with Putin in matters of human rights. The fact that Putin subsequently defended the imprisonment of his opponent Alexei Navalny aroused outrage among the Russian opposition. Putin argued that Navalny had deliberately ignored reporting obligations of the Russian judiciary last year when he sought treatment after a poison attack in Germany. "Uh, what? He deliberately flew abroad for treatment in order to avoid being checked? ”Countered Nawalny's spokeswoman Kira Jarmysch on Twitter. To this end, she published a photo of the patient bed on which the Kremlin critic, who had fallen into a coma, was transported to Berlin at the time.
After the meeting in Geneva on Wednesday evening (local time) shortly before his departure from Switzerland, Biden responded to probing questions about why he was hoping to give in to Putin's behavior so far. The US President argued, among other things: "Russia is in a very, very difficult situation." The country absolutely wants to remain a great power and be relevant. It is important to almost all heads of state or government what international reputation their country has.
This analysis met with incomprehension among the US Republicans.
While Democrats praised the performance of their party colleague Biden, the influential Republican Senator Lindsey Graham commented on Twitter that Biden completely misjudged Putin - and that it was dangerous.
“I think the president fails to understand who he's dealing with.” Other high-ranking Republicans criticized the Democrat's performance in Geneva as “weak” and too indulgent.
The Republican minority leader in the US House of Representatives, Kevin McCarthy, criticized that Biden should have used the summit to hold Russia accountable for its long list of border crossings.
Instead, he let Putin get away with it.
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