that said this summit should not happen for that very reason, given the risk and reward matrix was that the risk of elevating putin was too great. for me it s not only important whether the meeting takes place or not but what was said in that meeting. what s really important to me, for the first time in many, many years we saw and heard an american president put the issue of human rights front and square in these bilateral talks. let s make something clear at the outset. raising human rights issues is not a publicity stunt. it s not some sort of posturing. it s not any of these things that these regimes always dismiss. human rights are inextricably linked to issues of security, issues of economic development. this has been recognized for many decades now. this is originated in the
president putin s press conference today. he said global issues like cyberattacks and prisoners will happen at another time. so what exactly does putin want from the united states? joining us now, correspondent for puck, julia yaffy, and this is the founder of the free russia foundation. julia, i ll start with you. what did vladimir putin want from this summit and did he get it? well, he wanted to show that he is an equal of the united states. that s why he made sure to let us know that he didn t want the summit, he didn t call for it, but he showed up. that s him showing his i m above it all kind of, yeah, feeling. he also really clearly enjoyed his press conference.
release of political prisoners. we ve heard this issue mentioned several times in the run-up before and after the meeting, waup of prisoner exchange. i hope if there s one practical deliverable after the biden/putin meeting today is that at least a handful of these nearly 400 political prisoners in putin s russia regain their freedom. secretary of state wrote to him after he managed to secure the freedom of a group of religious prisoners that it is a gift of wantonment to secure the release of a human being. it is a gift now in president biden s power and hope to god he uses it. given everything that vladimir just said give us your knowledge on vladimir putin how this summit and press conferences will be represented and received in moscow. well weerk know excuse me. in the lead-up to the summit
surprising his allies and his adversaries alike. and that speaks to, i think, a lot of what the american people are looking for and admire so far in biden, that there s this restoration of some normacy in relations here and around the world. to that end this was probably a good summit to the president as he returns home. hallie, 15 seconds. one thing that president biden said was when was the last time two leaders sat in the room two hours. yeah. donald trump and vladimir putin in 2018. good point. that will do it for me today. ayman mohyeldin picks up our coverage in washington, d.c., coming up next. our coverage in washington, d.c., coming up next or necessity. we can explore uncharted waters, and not only make new discoveries, but get there faster, with better outcomes. with app, cloud and anywhere workspace solutions, vmware helps companies navigate change meeting them where they are,
see results until later. to answer your question about strategic stability, we know coming into the summit, we know they want stability in their relationship. that means no more predictable stuff in terms of attacks. strategic stability is a term we defense wonks use to describe the military relationship between two countries, and it usually just applies, frankly, between russia and the united states. during the cold war, we had stability when we had nuclear imperity. now we have the upper hand and there is no parody. so the russians are now developing many dangerous weapons, hypersonic missiles which we are also developing, but they have a nuclear-powered cruise missile they re developing which is a fire and forget thing. that introduces a lot of danger, a lot of miscalculation potential, right, into the relationship. but the russians right now feel