batting it away and not being seen to, you know, kowtow, as it were, with russia with this request? reporter: yeah, what we are being told from the white house is this fits with biden s sort of playbook on how international diplomacy should be done. he thinks that leadership to leadership talks can be productive and useful. certainly it would appear in the context of, you know, that phone call that they had a few weeks ago, the agreement there, lower-level diplomatic tract should be established. through that track russia set forward its demands about nato not allowing ukraine to become a member of nato and for nato not to base troops and weapons systems inside ukraine. that first call allowed for a lower-level diplomatic track which has led to the establishment of the talks in geneva on january the 10th.