- President Joe Biden spoke for the first time on Tuesday with Russian President Vladimir Putin as commander-in-chief.
- Biden has put Putin on a variety of topics, including Russian election interference.
- The president has promised to be more assertive toward Putin than his predecessor, President Donald Trump.
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President Joe Biden spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin for the first time since his inauguration on Tuesday, and according to a White House reading, a number of topics of concern to the United States.
The president pressured Putin on “the SolarWinds hack, reports of Russia placing foreign troops in Afghanistan, interference in the 2020 US election and the poisoning of Aleksey Navalny.” The Russian government has denied any involvement in the above issues.
Navalny, Putin’s main critic, was recently arrested in Moscow after returning from Germany to Russia, where he received treatment after being poisoned in Siberia last August. There have been massive protests in Russia over Navalny’s arrest. The Biden government called on the Russian government to release Navalny and the people arrested.
In his call with Putin, Biden also emphasized US support for Ukrainian sovereignty amid Kiev’s ongoing war with Kremlin – backed separatists in eastern Ukraine. They agreed to “make their teams work urgently by February 5 to complete the extension”.
New START places restrictions on the number of strategic nuclear warheads, missiles and bombers that can be deployed by each country. It is the only remaining nuclear weapons control treaty between the US and Russia, which has the largest nuclear arsenals in the world.
According to a summary of the call in the Kremlin, Putin congratulated Biden on starting his term as US president and stressed that normalization of US-Russia relations would be in the interests of both countries as well as the international community.
“Overall, the talks between the Russian and American leaders were matter-of-fact and sincere. They agreed to maintain contact,” the Kremlin said, reflecting the White House’s claims that both parties would work to expand the New START. .
The Kremlin’s reading does not mention the issues the White House said Biden had expressed concern to his Russian counterpart.
Biden has vowed to stand up to Putin compared to Trump
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Biden has promised to adopt a much more confident attitude towards Russia than his predecessor. “Donald Trump continues to hang out with Russia while Putin persecutes civil society and journalists,” Biden said in a tweet in August 2020. “Unlike Trump, I will defend our democratic values and stand up against autocrats like Putin.”
Former President Donald Trump has often been criticized by congressional lawmakers, sometimes including Republicans, for being too soft on Russia.
The issue of Russian electoral interference was a major thorn in Trump’s side during his presidency, and he often fought against Special Council Robert Mueller’s investigation into the matter. Mueller’s investigation also looked at whether the Trump campaign coordinated with Russia and whether the president obstructed justice in the course of the investigation.
The special counsel ultimately did not want to explicitly accuse Trump of obstruction, but also did not fully acquit him. Mueller also did not find sufficient evidence to accuse the Trump campaign of conspiracy or coordination with the Kremlin, but concluded that the campaign welcomed Russian interference in 2016.
In what were the best-known moments of his presidency, in July 2018, Trump equated Putin on the American intelligence community on the subject of Russian interference in the 2016 election. The Trump administration was also slow to respond to Navalny’s poisoning, and Trump said in an interview in July 2020 that he did not confront Putin about the intelligence Russia paid to Taliban-linked militants to kill US troops in Afghanistan. to make.
The first time Trump was arrested in December 2019 was in connection with his efforts to pressure Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate Biden and his son, Hunter Biden, while providing military assistance to Ukraine is holding back amid the ongoing conflict with Russia.