President Biden on Tuesday called on Russian President Vladimir Putin to address a wide range of topics on national security, including the renewal of a nuclear weapons treaty, premiums placed on U.S. troops in Afghanistan and interference in the 2020 election.
Biden’s first step in rebuilding diplomacy with one of the US’s biggest opponents was to get the US and Russia back on the table and agree to an extension of their only five-year nuclear deal.
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The new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, known as START, was jeopardized last year when the Trump administration initially said it would not agree to renew the treaty, which is due to expire in February, unless China the agreement is brought – a step that China has completely rejected.
President Trump took the US out of the original 1987 nuclear arms treaty with Russia in October 2018, claiming that the former Soviet nation did not live up to its end of the bargaining chip, leaving only the New START treaty behind.
The White House on Tuesday confirmed that the US and Russia would work ‘urgently’ to complete the extension by the February 5 deadline.
The two nations ‘also agreed to examine strategic stability talks on a range of arms control and emerging security issues’, the White House confirmed in a statement.
But during his first phone call with Putin, Biden has touched on other difficult topics since entering the White House last week.
The SolarWinds cap – one of the biggest cyber security breaches in US history, by suspected Russian authorities – was on the agenda on Tuesday, along with the reports of Russian abundance placed by US troops in Afghanistan last year.
“President Biden has made it clear that the United States will certainly act to defend its national interests in response to actions by Russia that harm us or our allies,” the White House said in a statement.
Biden accused his predecessor of being weak towards Russia and called Trump “Putin’s puppy” during the first presidential debate last year, criticizing him for failing to act decisively after reports of compensation being made by US troops in Afghanistan .
The newly inaugurated president also reaffirmed the US position on supporting Ukraine’s sovereignty and condemned the poisoning of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny.
Putin has not yet publicly commented on the call he had with Biden on Tuesday, but the Kremlin has issued a statement pointing out that the ‘normalization of relations’ between the two superpowers is not just for their benefit. relationship was not, but ‘to’ the maintenance of global security ‘and stability of the entire international community. ‘
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Biden also expressed concern over reports by the intelligence community of a repeat of Russian interference in the 2020 general election. The president’s decision to address the interference in Putin’s elections is a direct contrast to Trump’s response on reports of interference in 2016 – indicating that he trusts Putin’s words about US intelligence officials.
Biden said he would make the restoration of U.S. diplomacy a cornerstone of his presidency by improving relations with allied countries and expanding treaties with opponents such as Russia and Iran.