By DASHA LITVINOVA
Bilateral conferences between Russian President Vladimir Putin and his U.S. counterparts had been an everyday prevalence early in his tenure.
However as tensions mounted between Moscow and the West following the unlawful annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula in 2014 and allegations of meddling with the 2016 U.S. elections, these grew to become more and more much less frequent, and their tone appeared much less pleasant.
Right here’s what to learn about previous conferences between Russian and U.S. presidents:
Putin and Joe Biden
Putin and Joe Biden met solely as soon as whereas holding the presidency –- in Geneva in June 2021.
Russia was amassing troops on the border with Ukraine, the place massive swaths of land within the east had lengthy been occupied by Moscow-backed forces; Washington repeatedly accused Russia of cyberattacks. The Kremlin was intensifying its home crackdown on dissent, jailing opposition chief Alexei Navalny months earlier and harshly suppressing protests demanding his launch.
Putin and Biden talked for 3 hours, however no breakthroughs got here out of the assembly. The 2 exchanged expressions of mutual respect, however firmly restated their starkly totally different views on the entire above.
They spoke once more by way of videoconference in December 2021 as tensions heightened over Ukraine. Biden threatened sanctions if Russia invaded Ukraine, and Putin demanded ensures that Kyiv wouldn’t be a part of NATO –- one thing Washington and its allies stated was a nonstarter.
One other cellphone name between the 2 got here in February 2022, lower than two weeks earlier than the full-scale invasion. Then the high-level contacts stopped chilly, with no publicly disclosed conversations between Putin and Biden because the invasion.
Putin and Donald Trump
Putin met Trump met six instances throughout the American’s first time period -– at and on the sidelines of G20 and APEC gatherings — however most famously in Helsinki in July 2018. That’s the place Trump stood subsequent to Putin and appeared to just accept his insistence that Moscow had not interfered with the 2016 U.S. presidential election and brazenly questioned the agency discovering by his personal intelligence businesses.
His remarks had been a stark illustration of Trump’s willingness to upend a long time of U.S. international coverage and rattle Western allies in service of his political issues.
“I’ve nice confidence in my intelligence individuals, however I’ll let you know that President Putin was extraordinarily sturdy and highly effective in his denial right now,” Trump stated. “He simply stated it’s not Russia. I’ll say this: I don’t see any cause why it could be.”
Putin and Barack Obama
U.S. President Barack Obama met with Putin 9 instances, and there have been 12 extra conferences with Dmitry Medvedev, who served as president in 2008-12. Putin grew to become prime minister in a transfer that allowed him to reset Russia’s presidential time period limits and run once more in 2012.
Obama traveled to Russia twice — as soon as to fulfill Medvedev in 2009 and once more for a G20 summit 2013. Medvedev and Putin additionally traveled to the U.S.
Underneath Medvedev, Moscow and Washington talked of “resetting” Russia-U.S. relations post-Chilly Battle and labored on arms management treaties. U.S. State Secretary Hillary Clinton famously introduced an enormous “reset” button to International Minister Sergey Lavrov at a gathering in 2009. One drawback: as an alternative of “reset” in Russian, they used one other phrase that means “overload.”
After Putin returned to workplace in 2012, tensions rose between the 2 nations. The Kremlin accused the West of interfering with Russian home affairs, saying it fomented anti-government protests that rocked Moscow simply as Putin sought reelection. The authorities cracked down on dissent and civil society, drawing worldwide condemnation.
Obama canceled his go to to Moscow in 2013 after Russia granted asylum to Edward Snowden, a former Nationwide Safety Company contractor and whistleblower.
In 2014, the Kremlin illegally annexed Crimea and threw its weight behind a separatist insurgency in jap Ukraine. The U.S. and its allies responded with crippling sanctions. Relations plummeted to the bottom level because the Chilly Battle.
The Kremlin’s 2015 army intervention in Syria to prop up Bashar Assad additional sophisticated ties. Putin and Obama final met in China in September 2016, on the sidelines of a G20 summit, and held talks centered on Ukraine and Syria.
Putin and George W. Bush
Putin and George W. Bush met 28 instances throughout Bush’s two phrases. They hosted one another for talks and casual conferences in Russia and the U.S., met usually on the sidelines of worldwide summits and boards, and boasted of bettering ties between onetime rivals.
After the primary assembly with Putin in 2001, Bush stated he “seemed the person within the eye” and “discovered him very easy and reliable,” getting “a way of his soul.”
In 2002, they signed the Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty -– a nuclear arms pact that considerably decreased each nations’ strategic nuclear warhead arsenal.
Putin was the primary world chief to name Bush after the 9/11 terrorist assault, providing his condolences and help, and welcomed the U.S. army deployment on the territory of Moscow’s Central Asian allies for motion in Afghanistan.
He has known as Bush “an honest individual and a very good buddy,” including that good relations with him helped discover a approach out of “probably the most acute and battle conditions.”
Related Press author Yuras Karmanau contributed.
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