A top staffer to Russian President Vladimir Putin said today that a summit between Putin and U.S. President Joe Biden could be held in June.
Relations between Russia and the West have been rapidly strained by the recent conflict in Ukraine, new Western sanctions against Moscow and health concerns following the jailing of Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny.
Biden proposed a summit with Putin in a neutral country earlier this month, and the Kremlin said it was still considering it.
But Putin’s chief foreign policy aide, Yury Ushakov, said today that authorities are planning it. He said on state-run Russian television channel Rossiya1 that “a June summit has been proposed, and there is even a specific date.
Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, on the same program, reiterated the Foreign Ministry’s statement earlier this month that Russia views the summit proposal positively and is currently considering it.
The White House said on the 23rd that Biden would attend the Group of Seven (G7) summit in Britain in June, as well as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and European Union (EU) summits in Brussels, but did not say whether Biden would try to include a summit with Putin in that trip.
Austria and Finland have expressed interest in hosting a summit of U.S. and Russian leaders.
Tensions between Moscow and Washington have cooled since the 23rd, as Russia began withdrawing its armed forces from exercises near Ukraine and Navalny stopped his hunger strike.
Biden has asked Moscow to stop the Russian military maneuvers and the large troop build-up on Ukraine’s northern and eastern borders, in Crimea, which have worried the West.
Biden also warned Russia that Navalny had launched a hunger strike to demand proper medical treatment, and that if he died in prison, Russia would suffer the consequences.
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