that putin sees in macron a quality inter locutor. he s had two phone calls with macron, so there is a flurry of activity on his end, a series of conversations. he does have a fairly tall order, as melissa pointed out. there is going to be an effort to see if they can get some kind of headway when it comes to restarting the diplomatic talks, both the normandy minske talks, that is one thing he faces. the other is to see if he can come away with any kind of concrete evidence of a de-escalation on the russian side. but the bigger picture question is whether macron can make any headway on long-standing grievances. those are about the expansion of nato in eastern europe after the end of the cold war.
possible summit could mark a major breakthrough in those diplomatic talks, the administration is still being very clear-eyed and weary of russian s intentions as they have seen military buildups around the border of ukraine, but they have long insisted that they think that there is a diplomatic path available to avert such a crisis even if russia is making some of these moves that suggest an attack could be imminent. arlette saenz, cnn, the white house. ukraine s defense ministry says it has recorded dozens of cease-fire violations by those russian-backed separatists in eastern ukraine. a total of 74 just on sunday night. the ministry said 68 of those were weapons prohibited under the minske agreements. ukraine said this video showed russian-backed separatists launching fire against their own territory in an attempt to falsely accuse ukraine s armed
advance the minske agreement. the discussion was direct and straight forward. there was a lot of give and take there was no finger wagging, but the president was crystal clear about where the united states stand on all of these issues. we believed from the beginning of this administration there is no substitute for direct dialogue between true leaders. that is true in spade when it comes to the u.s.-russia relationship so president biden welcomed the opportunity to engage clearly and directly with president putin. indeed, as president biden said after his meeting in geneva in june with president putin, where we have differences, i want president putin to understand why i say what i say. and why i do what i do. and how we ll respond to specific kind of actions that harm america s interests and
this meeting convince him this is a great opportunity to do that. but also to show firmness on other things, like the minske agreement which russia continues to not abide by. of course bolstering up assad and perpetuating the civil war in a syria. this is an opportunity for him to do, if he really wants to make america great again, this is a chance to do it in front of vladimir putin and say, look, we know what you re up to and we re not going to let you get away with it. we do feel strongly our reporting is accurate. there is no inclination to do this, but your hope is obviously that he would mention russian meddling. he has some days to go. and staff help prepare him. i hope that s the focus that they re putting on it. look, rebecca, obviously huge focus there at the g20. that is going to take a lot of attention. back home you have the senate trying to thread the needle on health care reform. is this going to give them a little bit of breathing room? we know there is some math