Russian leader Vladimir Putin says new US President Joe Biden is radically different from his predecessor Donald Trump.
The two leaders will meet in Geneva on Wednesday, fresh off the back of Biden’s participation in the G7 summit in the UK.
The meeting will be the pair’s first since Biden was elected last November and comes at a time when relations between the two countries are strained.
Ahead of the summit, President Putin gave an exclusive interview to US broadcaster NBC.
“We have a bilateral relationship that has deteriorated to its lowest point in recent years,” explained Putin. “President Biden, of course, is radically different from Trump because President Biden is a career man. He has spent virtually his entire adulthood in politics. Just think of the number of years he spent in the Senate, a different kind of person. And it is my great hope that, yes, there are some advantages, some disadvantages, but there will not be any impulse-based movements on behalf of this sitting US president.”
The meeting will take place in an 18th-century manor house in a public park that looks out onto Geneva’s famous lake.
The White House has played down expectations for the summit and said Biden plans to raise Ukraine, arms control, human rights, and cyber ransomware attacks with Putin.
There are no plans for a joint press conference after the talks.
