The white house stated that President Joe Biden has already warned President Vladimir Putin about election meddling in their first call as counterparts. This was not the only reason a phone call was conducted as the conversation also had discussion of the opposition protest in Russia and the last remaining Nuclear arms pact between the 2 countries.
President Putin had congratulated President Biden on his win and his takeover of office and they agreed to maintain contact moving forward. Trump however unlike President Biden showed more favour to the Russian president although it was strongly advised against by his administration, but Obama too did not do better as he failed to check on the kremlin invasion of Crimea.
What did the White House and Kremlin say about the call?
A US statement said “President Biden made clear that the United States will act firmly in defense of its national interests in response to actions by Russia that harm us or our allies.” It was also said that the two presidents discussed a solar wind cyber-attack which had been blamed on Moscow, the reports of the Kremlin placed bounties on US soldiers in Afghanistan and also the poisoning of Russian opposition activist Alexei Navalny.
This read out did not at any point of time refer to the uneasy friction that was caused when President Biden referred to President Putin as the KGB Thug not on one but many occasions. Russian Officials stated that President Putin had “noted that the normalization of relations between Russia and the United States would meet the interests of both countries and – taking into account their special responsibility for maintaining security and stability in the world – of the entire international community” the Kremlin’s further added by saying “On the whole, the conversation between the leaders of Russia and the United States was of a business-like and frank nature,”
There was an agreement to a new start that was reached by both leaders to somewhat limit the amount of weapons, warheads, missiles and launchers which was coming to an end next month which trump had refused to sign.
It was also indicated by President Biden that he would not be as easy on President Putin as trump was as trump refused to take on the kremlin and did not believe that they were trying to meddle with the election. President Biden told President Putin in no uncertain terms that he was aware of the meddling of the election in both 2016 and 2020 whilst also warning the Russian president that the US was ready to defend itself in any sort of cyber espionage and other attacks.
Although trump gave the Russians a wide berth his administration did not have the same views and sanctioned Russia heavily for issues ranging from Ukraine to attacks on dissidents, President Biden however will look into the human rights aspect of it with Russia but will not go looking for confrontation. The two presidents will try and work together and cooperate and to work on the arms treaty before it expires next month.
What else did President Biden do today?
As President Biden nominates Antony Blinken for secretary of state the kremlin makes the call to President Biden to stars discussions. It was also at this time that President Biden signed 4 executive orders addressing what he called the US systematic racism. “This is the time to act and it’s to act because it’s what the core values of this nation call us to do. I believe the vast majority of Democrats, Republicans and Independents share these values and want us to act as well,” said President Biden.
