Hey there, Vlad.
President Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday opened their virtual summit with waves hello ahead of talk expected to deal with US concerns that Russia may invade Ukraine.
The meeting was closed to US reporters, but Russian media broadcast clips of its start, including what appeared to be an amicable introduction with a smiling Biden.
State-owned Russia Today tweeted, “The online summit started with Joe Biden chuckling and saying he was regretful the two leaders didn’t meet at the most recent G20. Biden added he hoped they would meet face-to-face next time.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky last month alleged a pro-Russia coup plot that supposedly was supposed to take place Dec. 1-2 and Russia has allegedly amassed troops near Ukraine’s borders.
Ukraine is one of the poorest and most corrupt countries in Europe and has alternated between pro-Russian and pro-Western leaders since the end of the Cold War. A 2014 uprising moved Ukraine away from Russian influence, sparking pro-Russia protests across the Russian-speaking south and east of the country.
Russia annexed the Crimean peninsula from Ukraine in 2014 following a disputed referendum. Prior to 1954, the important port and resort region was part of Russia, rather than Ukraine.
Putin’s government also allegedly propped up a pair of pro-Russia breakaway states in eastern Ukraine. Those territories in the coal-rich Donbas region remain at war with the country’s central government.
Zelensky wants Ukraine to join NATO, which would commit the US and Western Europe to the military defense of his country. Putin wants a US guarantee that won’t happen.
As vice president, Biden led the Obama administration’s foreign policy on Ukraine and wielded US foreign aid in a purported push to clean up corruption. His son Hunter Biden in 2014 joined the board of Ukrainian natural gas company Burisma, which paid him a reported $1 million per year despite no relevant industry experience.
