Biden arrives for highly-anticipated Putin meeting

GENEVA (AP):

Buoyed by days of partnership-building sessions with America’s democratic allies, Joe Biden arrived in Geneva on Tuesday for the most-watched and tensest part of his first European tour as president: talks with Russia’s Vladimir Putin.

Biden is seeking to restore European ties that were strained under former President Donald Trump, who dismissed longstanding alliances with America’s democratic partners and sought out Putin and other autocrats. Biden this week has held long days of meetings with global leaders at the Group of Seven, NATO and US-EU summits, where he secured joint communiques expressing concern over Russia and China, and on Tuesday helped preside over a breakthrough agreement easing a long-running US trade dispute with Europe.

But Biden’s meeting with the Russian president is his most highly anticipated.

Biden has called Putin a “worthy adversary” and has said he is hoping to find areas of cooperation with the Russian president. But he’s also warned that if Russia continues its cyberattacks and other aggressive acts towards the US “we will respond in kind”.