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Presidents Putin and Biden at the meeting in Geneva in mid-June
Photo: Patrick Semansky / AP
After Vladimir Putin and Joe Biden met in Geneva, Switzerland, it looked like relations between Russia and the United States could improve again.
The presidents of the two countries talked to each other again, but major diplomatic agreements still failed to materialize.
In the meantime, delegations from the two countries are holding disarmament negotiations in Geneva, but the two heads of state have long been verbal again.
During a visit to the headquarters of US intelligence coordinator Avril Haines, Biden said Putin had "a real problem."
"He's at the head of an economy that has nuclear weapons and oil wells and nothing else," the US President continued.
"He knows he's in trouble, which I think makes him even more dangerous," Biden said of his Russian counterpart.
However, he sees the US secret services as superior to those of Russia.
The US president also accused the Kremlin of trying to influence the US congressional election next year by spreading false information.
"Look at what Russia is already doing with regard to the 2022 elections and disinformation," said Biden.
"That is a clear violation of our sovereignty."
Moscow counters: "Misjudgment of modern Russia"
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov replied that the US president was "fundamentally wrong".
Russia is a "very responsible nuclear power".
His country has nuclear weapons and the oil and gas sector, "but to say that Russia has nothing else is fundamentally wrong," said Peskov.
Biden's statements are "incorrect knowledge and a misjudgment of modern Russia."
Hopes that the two nuclear powers could quickly approach each other again dampened Peskow.
The US could "hardly be called a partner," said the spokesman.
The United States is more of an "adversary" or a "vis à vis".
Delegations from both countries are currently holding talks in Geneva with a view to disarming both sides. It all started with a meeting of the Deputy Foreign Ministers on Wednesday. On the Russian side, Sergei Ryabkov led the delegation, on the American side, Wendy Sherman. The one-day meeting was about future arms control and risk reduction as well as the consolidation of "strategic stability", as the dpa news agency said from delegation circles.
By "strategic stability" is meant a balance of deterrence: For both sides, the consequences of a military attack with nuclear weapons are so negative that they have no incentive to start such a conflict.
The talks are seen as an important signal for global security.
The basis is the only remaining major arms control agreement between the United States and Russia: the New Start nuclear disarmament treaty.
fek / AFP / Reuters / dpa
