Any meeting between the leaders of the United States and Russia is certainly significant and closely watched — and certainly more so when the occasion is the first for a new incumbent of either high office as is the case with president Joe Biden.
While the US leader is seasoned on the world stage from his decades on the Senate’s Foreign Affairs Committee and as vice president, he is fully aware of the stakes when he meets president Vladimir Putin in Geneva on June 16.
The days preceding the summit also mark president Biden’s first international trip, heading to the United Kingdom for the Group of Seven summit in Cornwall, meeting Queen Elizabeth and heading to Brussels to attend a summit of leaders from the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation.