After two sessions that spanned more than two and a half hours, Russian President Vladimir Putin held an hour long press conference in Geneva on Wednesday afternoon. Biden is set to speak after.
Putin said his meeting with Biden was “very constructive.”
“I don’t think there was any kind of hostility,” Putin said. He noted that Biden is “very different” than his predecessor, Donald Trump.
But Putin denied that Russia was behind a series of cyberattacks that have gotten the White House’s attention. Putin said he’s willing to study the issue.
“We believe the sphere of cybersecurity is extremely important for the world in general — including for the United States, and for Russia to the same degree,” he said.
Putin also announced that the U.S. and Russian ambassadors will return to their diplomatic posts after they were pulled in a tit-for-tat maneuver set off by Biden’s description of Putin as a “killer” earlier this year.
On Ukraine – where Russians have been amassing troops along the border -Putin said he’d be willing to return to a peace framework laid out in the Minsk Agreement. He said “I don’t think there is anything to discuss” when asked about Ukraine potentially joining NATO.
Putin also suggested that a prisoner swap between the U.S. and Russia was possible, saying “The question about American citizens that were in Russian prisons, we discussed that there could be some compromise that we enter into between the Russian Foreign Ministry and the U.S. State Department. They will be working on it.”
Putin resisted straight-forward answers on a number of topics. When asked about his murderous crackdown on political opponents, he attempted to turn the tables, saying “People rioted and went into Congress, with political demands, many people were declared as criminals and they are threatened with imprisonment.”
Likewise, when pushed on human rights, he pointed to America’s continued used of Guantanamo Bay as a detention center.
President Biden is expected to address the press corp soon.
