Biden agrees U.S.-Russian relations are at a ‘low point’ ahead of meeting with Putin

WASHINGTON – Ahead of a highly anticipated meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Sunday, President Joe Biden agreed that US-Russian relations are at a “low” and said he was open to a prisoner swap with Moscow over cybercrime contain.

On his presidency’s first international trip, Biden spoke at a press conference to wrap up a meeting of the Group of Seven Nations in the United Kingdom, where wealthy democracies made a statement challenging Russia and condemning China’s human rights abuses.

Biden will meet Putin on Wednesday at a villa on the shores of Lake Geneva in Switzerland – neutral territory for two heads of state or government who do not want to pay homage to the other – where they are expected to discuss a range of issues, including Russian cyber criminals and ransomware attacks that crippled some US cities and infrastructure.

“Let me make it clear. I think he’s right, it’s a low point, “Biden told reporters about Putin’s latest assessment of Moscow-Washington relations. “And it depends on how he reacts to acting in accordance with international norms. Which in many cases he does not have.”

The FBI and other Western law enforcement and intelligence agencies have blamed Russia-based criminal syndicates for a number of new cyberattacks, including last month on a pipeline that delivers much of the fuel to the east coast.

Putin said in an interview with Russian state television that he was ready to extradite Russian criminals to the US if Washington was willing to do something in return. Biden said Putin’s comments “may be a good sign of progress” and said he was open to the deal, although he appeared to have expressed doubts that there were criminals in the US who committed crimes against Russians.

“If there are indeed crimes against Russia – the people who commit these crimes are based in the United States – then I have an obligation to hold them accountable,” Biden said.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told NBC News’ Andrea Mitchell in an interview on Sunday that Biden would confront Putin with cyberattacks at their meeting.

“He will make it clear that no good governance can be able to harbor criminal companies that are involved in cyber attacks, including ransomware. That will be an integral part of the conversation,” said Blinken.

“We will respond vigorously, as the president demonstrated in responding to the SolarWinds cyberattack,” Blinken continued about the hacking of companies and federal agencies. “So I don’t think that we will get a clear and definitive answer from a single meeting. But it is the beginning of the examination of the thesis of whether or not Russia is also aiming for a more stable, predictable relationship.”

From left, President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin shake hands at the start of a meeting in the Presidential Palace in Helsinki, Finland, on July 16, 2018.Pablo Martinez Monsivais / AP file

Biden’s tone was a marked departure from the gullibility and warmth ex-President Donald Trump showed to Putin, whom he defended at a meeting in Helsinki in 2018, even after Trump’s own intelligence agencies said Russia and Putin had interfered in the 2016 US presidential election .

“President Putin says it is not Russia. I see no reason why that should be so,” said Trump, joining the US administration’s analysis on the side of the autocratic foreign leader.

In a statement prior to Biden’s trip last week, Trump asked Biden to “please give (Putin) my warmest greetings” and defended his “great and very productive meeting in Helsinki”.

Biden and Putin will hold separate press conferences after their meeting in Switzerland, a sign of the cooler relationship between the two men.

“This is not a competition about who can do better before a press conference,” Biden said, defending the decision not to appear next to Putin. “It’s about being very clear about what the conditions are to get a better relationship.”

However, Biden said there are opportunities to work with Russia, such as ending ransomware attacks and providing humanitarian aid in global conflict areas where Russia has influence, such as Libya and Syria.

“There is a lot going on where we can work with Russia,” said Biden. “Russia has engaged in activities that we believe contradict international norms, but it has also bitten off real problems that will be difficult to chew on.”

Biden said democracy was in danger worldwide and democratic circles would have to band together to defend it. “We are not in competition with China per se, but with autocrats,” he said.

Biden’s comments came after the G-7 meeting – which includes the US, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and the UK – which ended in a statement calling on Russia to “cite its destabilizing behavior and its malicious” Activities “abroad and explicitly mentioned the need to urgently identify and disrupt criminal ransomware networks”.

It also warned China of its “non-market-oriented” international economic policies and urged Beijing to “respect human rights and fundamental freedoms, particularly with regard to Xinjiang,” where the local Muslim population has been subjected to repression.

In an interview with NBC News, Putin said that while Trump was “an extraordinary person,” he could also work with Biden.

“This is a different kind of person, and I very much hope that while there are some advantages, some disadvantages, there are no impulse-based movements on behalf of the incumbent US president,” Putin said of Biden.