Joe Biden invites Vladimir Putin to summit ‘in a third country’

In a telephone call to his Russian counterpart the US president has called on Russia to ‘de-escalate tensions’ around Ukraine.

A Ukrainian soldier at the frontline with Russian-backed separatists in the eastern Donetsk region this week. Picture: AFP

President Joe Biden has invited Russian President Vladimir Putin to meet him for a summit “in a third country” to defuse mounting tension between the two Cold War superpowers over Russian military provocations in the troubled Crimean peninsula.

In a telephone call to Mr Putin the US president has called on Russia to “de-escalate tensions” around Ukraine, where Russia has built up a significant military presence including 80,000 troops, and singled out Russia’s “cyber intrusions and election interference”.

“President Biden emphasised the United States’ unwavering commitment to Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity,” a White House statement said on Wednesday AEST.

“The President voiced our concerns over the sudden Russian military build-up in occupied Crimea and on Ukraine’s borders, and called on Russia to de-escalate tensions,” it added.

Since Russia annexed the Crimean peninsula in 2014 Russia’s increased its military presence there and alongside its border with Ukraine have stoked fears Russia would invade Ukraine, which was part of the Soviet Union.

“The Russian build-up is taking place not only along the border of Ukraine, but along the border of the democratic world,” said Dmytro Kubela, Ukraine’s foreign minister, in a separate meeting with the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Brussels on Tuesday. The price of any aggression by Russia must be “too heavy for it to bear”, Mr Kubela said.

A spokesman for Mr Putin said the US and Russian leaders “expressed their willingness to continue the dialogue on the critical areas of ensuring global security, which would meet the interests not only of Russia and the United States, but the entire international community”.

“When exchanging views on the internal Ukrainian crisis, Vladimir Putin outlined approaches to a political settlement based on the Minsk Package of Measures,” he added, referring to a 2015 ceasefire agreement in relation to eastern Ukraine widely considered to have failed.

Heather Conley, an expert at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said Russia wanted to create the perception Ukraine’s fate was being negotiated “over the heads of the Ukrainian people”.

“The Russian troop numbers are a concern, their location, the lack of explanation, there are a lot of worrying signs,” she added, suggesting the summit could occur at the end of Mr Biden’s scheduled European tour in the middle of the year in Prague or Berlin, for instance.

Eugene Rumer, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, was “surprised” the US president had initiated a summit. “It’s hard to understand in the absence so far as we can tell of a clearly defined agenda … the relationship isn’t entirely broke but a number of issues seem intractable,” he said, referring to Afghanistan, arms limitations alongside the Crimea.

Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin in 2011. Picture: ITAR-TASS/ Valery Sharifulin

“The summit is usually the capstone rather than the foundation but maybe the administration wants to pursue this in a different way and break some ice,” he added.

Mr Biden’s phone call came hours after the NATO secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg upbraided Russia for “trying to re-establish some kind of sphere of influence where they try to decide what neighbours can do”.

“It is for the 30 NATO allies to decide when Ukraine is ready for membership. No one else has any right to try to meddle or to interfere in that process,” said Mr Stoltenberg at a news conference alongside Ukraine’s top diplomat on Tuesday.

The White House said the conversation underscored “the intent of the United States and Russia to pursue a strategic stability dialogue on a range of arms control and emerging security issues, building on the extension of the New START Treaty.”

The New START treaty was a seven-year 2011 agreement, which both nations met, to reduce the number of submarine-launched and intercontinental ballistic missiles with nuclear warheads to 1550 each.

“President Biden also made clear that the United States will act firmly in defence of its national interests in response to Russia’s actions, such as cyber intrusions and election interference,” the White House said.

The phone call also comes days after a separate warning from the US Secretary of State to China against military incursions against Taiwan, underscoring the range of geopolitical challenges the Biden administration is facing.