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Face to Face: Presidents Biden and Putin to meet in Geneva next week

Leland Vittert

GENEVA (NewsNation Now) — Once that G-7 summit ends, President Joe Biden will head to Geneva for his highly anticipated face-to-face Wednesday meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The previous presidents have all struggled dealing with Putin.


Former President George W. Bush famously said he trusted Putin because he looked into his soul, only to have the Russian leader invade a key U.S. ally.

Former President Barack Obama proposed a “Russian reset.” Putin welcomed it but then invaded Ukraine, shot down an airliner and his intelligence services ran a cyber campaign to deny Hillary Clinton the presidency.

(COMBO) This combination of pictures created on June 11, 2021 shows Russian President Vladimir Putin (L) shaking hands with US Presidents (from top left) Bill Clinton in the lobby of the Stamford Hotel in Auckland, New Zealand on September 12, 1999 on the first day of the annual Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meeting, US President George W. Bush during a bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the Asian Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Hanoi on November 19, 2006, US President Barack Obama in Los Cabos, Mexico, on June 18, 2012, during the G20 leaders Summit and US President Donald Trump during the G20 summit in Osaka on June 28, 2019. – Russian President Vladimir Putin will meet United States President Joe Biden for the first time on June 16, 2021 in Geneva. The face-to-face meeting comes amid the biggest crisis in ties between the two countries in years, with tensions high over a litany of issues including hacking allegations, human rights and election meddling. (Photo by various sources / AFP) (Photo by STEPHEN JAFFE,JIM WATSON,ALEXEY NIKOLSKY,MIKHAIL KLIMENTYEV/RIA NOVOSTI/AFP via Getty Images)

Former President Donald Trump thought the two could be friends. Putin got him to side with the Russians over American’s own intelligence services.

Now it’s Biden’s turn to face off with the Russian leader.

“Part of this is Putin’s, ideology in terms of wanting to again, restore the notion of a greater Russia that obviously he was a part of, said Foreign Affairs Columnist Tom Rogan.

He added, “He sees Russian global power, or the presentation of Russian power around the world and influence, a key conduit to mobilizing the domestic population.”

Rogan points to Putin’s training in Soviet times as the defining part of his personality. Putin served in the KGB for years before switching to the political side of government.

Biden heads to Geneva having waived sanctions on one of Putin’s pet projects, a gas pipeline to Germany. Recent cyber-attacks by Russian hackers have crippled parts of American infrastructure.

The White House insists the sit-down in Geneva is because of Putin’s bad behavior, not in spite of it.

“We’re not seeing conflict with Russia, we want a stable, predictable relationship,” said Biden during an address to troops in the U.K.

“I think there is a limit to how much credibility that kind of statement has because ultimately, if you are trying to enforce a change in bad behavior, in international politics, you tend to resort to things like sanctions, obviously, at the greatest end, military force,” said Rogan.