Why won’t Biden and Putin have a joint press conference?

(CNN) – The long-awaited summit in Geneva between US President Joe Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday came at a time when both leaders say bilateral ties are at a low point. So perhaps unsurprisingly, a joint press conference after the summit is probably not among the plans.

The summit comes about six months into Biden’s tenure in office, and offers him the opportunity to set the tone for relations with the Russian leader in person after a controversial start to their relationship.

The private meetings on Wednesday give the president, who has sometimes stumbled in his messages in front of the press, the opportunity to confront Putin directly and without cameras.

Later, Biden will deliver his own message to reporters about the conversations without the pressure of speaking alongside an adversary. Rather than potentially confront the press with grieving messages about US-Russian relations, Biden and Putin will hold solo press conferences after the summit.

The decision not to hold a joint press conference was something that White House officials had lobbied for. Officials have said that Russia lobbied for a joint press conference during the summit negotiations. But the United States resisted because they did not want to give Putin a platform like the one he had after a 2018 summit with former President Donald Trump in Helsinki.

Officials said they were aware of Putin’s desire to appear like he had beaten a US president and wanted to avoid a situation that became a tit-for-tat in public.

The decision also comes on the advice of a group of Russian experts who met with the president earlier this month, according to sources familiar with the discussion.

“This is not a contest about who can do better in front of a press conference or trying to embarrass each other,” Biden said Sunday, explaining the decision.

The talks between the United States and Russia take place in a lakeside villa in Switzerland and are expected to last about five hours or more, according to a US official. Despite their extensive schedule, leaders are not expected to eat together.

Setting the tone for relations with Putin

In his first months in office, Biden made clear that Russia would face ramifications for a series of actions against the United States.

He told a journalist in March that he agreed that Putin was a “murderer”. And in April, the Biden administration issued sweeping sanctions and diplomatic expulsions for its interference in the 2020 US elections, its SolarWinds cyberattack and its ongoing occupation and “serious human rights abuses” in Crimea.

But in issuing those new sanctions, Biden also stressed that the United States still wants “a stable and predictable relationship” with Russia.

Now he faces questions about whether his hardline rhetoric in the past will match his administration’s actions at the summit.

Biden has had to defend recently his administration’s decision to waive sanctions for Russia’s Nord Stream 2 pipeline. And while Biden agreed to meet with Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelensky later this summer in Washington, the White House seemed to reject essentially Zelensky’s initial request for an in-person meeting before Putin’s summit.

When asked in Brussels on Tuesday if he still believes Putin is a murderer, Biden also appeared to soften his language ahead of the summit talks.

“I think, in the past, he essentially recognized that he was, there were certain things that he would do or did,” Biden said.

He continued: “But look, when they asked me that question on the air, I answered it honestly… I don’t think it matters much, in terms of the next meeting we’re going to have.”

But it also delivered a tough message in other ways. while answering questions in Brussels, saying that NATO members they must eradicate corruption and “guard against those who would stoke hatred and division for political gain as bogus populism.”

Biden has told his aides that he believes Putin will respond to bluntness during their conversations and wants to be ready to deliver a frank message. It is also preparing to discuss areas of possible mutual interest.

During Wednesday’s summit, there are also more steps that Biden may propose to establish a baseline between a new administration and a long-standing enemy, said a person familiar with the preparation. The goal is not any kind of dramatic breakthrough, and Biden and his aides alike have been careful to make it clear that there are no expectations of anything of the sort.

Officials want Biden to be prepared for the Russian leader’s tactics, including his notorious habit of turning discussions of Russia’s malpractice back in the United States. Biden has told his advisers that he believes Putin will respond to bluntness during their conversations and wants to be ready to deliver a frank message.

Historic precedent for Putin’s meetings with other US presidents

Biden will become the fifth US president with whom Putin has met.

Not everyone held joint press conferences with Putin after their meetings, and when they did, they weren’t always pleasant or seemed to move in America’s favor.

During a joint press conference in 2000 with then-President Bill Clinton, for example, the two leaders they did not look or smile at each other.

And when Trump held a press conference with Putin in 2018 in Helsinki, he refused to support the US government’s assessment that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election, saying at the time that he “saw no reason.” for which Russia would be responsible.

“I have great confidence in my intelligence people, but I will tell you that President Putin was extremely strong and powerful in his denial today,” Trump said during the press conference.

Biden has long been skeptical of America’s relations with Putin.

After former President George W. Bush met Putin in Slovenia in June 2001, Bush said he looked him in the eye and had “a sense of his soul.” But Biden, then a senator, responded by saying: “I don’t trust Putin. Hopefully the president was being more stylistic than substantive. “