Ukraine to headline talks between Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin

Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin will have to negotiate a history of mutual suspicion when they meet virtually on Wednesday.

US President Joe Biden, right, and Russian President Vladimir Putin meet in Geneva on June 16. Picture: AFP

When Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin meet virtually on Wednesday the two presidents will have to negotiate a history of mutual suspicion as they take up the urgent issue of a major Russian military build-up on the Ukraine border.

The key question hanging over the talks is whether Putin might actually launch a cross-border offensive, or whether he is using the troops to pressure Biden for guarantees ex-Soviet Ukraine will never become a NATO launch pad.

The two have a daunting list of other differences to air, from Russia’s harsh treatment of dissidents to the presence of ransomware hackers on Russian soil to Moscow’s support for the repressive regime in Syria.

But the magnitude of the Russian build-up near Ukraine has raised red flags in Washington and across Europe.

Many analysts doubt that Putin would carry through with an invasion – which would inevitably prompt international condemnation and probably new sanctions – but some take a darker view.

“Putin has sharply raised the stakes. He is no longer bluffing,” said Tatiana Stanovaya, founder of the political consultancy R.Politik Centre and a non-­resident scholar at the Carnegie Moscow Centre. “He’s ready to take a desperate step.”

The looming crisis could pose the sternest test yet of the foreign policy savvy and clout of the 78-year-old US President.

Biden and Putin – who are ­expected to speak around 4am Wednesday AEDT – have history together. They first met in person in the Kremlin in 2011. Then vice-president Biden later said he told the Russian leader, “I don’t think you have a soul” (to which, Biden says, Putin responded, “We understand one another”). They met again in 2014 in Geneva to deal with the now familiar issue of Russian military pressure on Ukraine.

And they met in Geneva last June – for the first time with Biden as President.

Contacts have continued since – as have tensions, with Putin seen as eager to pressure Biden into another in-person summit as a way to project parity on the world stage.

On Friday, Biden vowed to make it “very, very difficult” for Russia to launch an invasion, but did not say how.

Putin has warned the West and Kiev against crossing the Kremlin’s “red lines”, including building up weaponry in Ukraine.

Biden later responded, “I won’t accept anybody’s red line.”

Some analysts said Russia, deeply concerned with Ukraine’s warming ties to NATO, is applying pressure to cut that movement short.

Following Putin’s lead, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Thursday called on US Secretary of State Antony Blinken to provide “security guarantees” that NATO would not come closer to Russia’s border.

Stanovaya said this might be Putin’s bottom line: “Either NATO provides guarantees or Russia invades Ukraine,” she said.

Russia has continued to deny any bellicose intentions, instead accusing the West of provocations in the Black Sea. NATO recognised Kiev in June last year as one of a handful of so-called “enhanced opportunity partners”, potentially a step toward membership.

Fyodor Lukyanov, a prominent political analyst close to the Kremlin, said he doubted Biden and Putin would agree on anything concrete this week, but he did not expect hostilities to break out if the talks failed. “No, this is hysteria whipped up by the West,” he said. “Wars begin suddenly. If it begins, it will begin differently.”

AFP