Operation Normalise: Geneva gets ready to host Biden and Putin

Observers of US-Russia relations have expressed both optimism and concern about next week’s summit

A brighter future for the US-Russia relationship? Presidents Biden and Putin will meet next week in Geneva (AFP/Getty)

Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin will meet on the banks of Lake Geneva next Wednesday for their first presidential summit in what promises to be an awkward affair following years of terrible bilateral relations, sanctions, wars, and mutual claims of domestic meddling.

But measured against the low standards of recent times, the eve of the summit has been marked by relative bonhomie between secretaries Sergei Lavrov and Antony Blinken at a preparatory meeting in Iceland.

It is expected, for example, that President Biden will not repeat face-to-face his description of Putin, a former KGB officer, as a “killer”. It is also assumed that President Putin will not wish Biden “good health” in return, a thinly disguised reference to propaganda claims that the 78-year-old American is senile.