The Kremlin is open to a meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and President Joe Biden at next month’s G-20 summit, according to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Tuesday.
“We have said many times that we never refuse to hold meetings. If a proposal is received, we will consider it,” Lavrov said on the Rossiya-1 television news channel, according to TASS, Russian state media, responding to a question about the possibility of such a meeting. “This is probably good for journalistic analytical speculations, but not for real politics.”
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“That remains to be seen,” Biden told reporters last Thursday on the White House’s South Lawn. A spokesperson for the National Security Council told the Washington Examiner that they “have no plans for a Putin meeting to announce at this time” and pointed to Biden’s comments.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre declined to update reporters a day later aboard Air Force One en route to Maryland about the possibility of a Biden-Putin meeting, nor did she explain whether there were any preconditions attached to such an in-person discussion taking place.
On Monday, Russia launched a significant bombardment across more than 10 Ukrainian cities, leaving roughly a dozen civilians dead and another hundred wounded. Kyiv, the capital, which has largely been spared in Russia’s war, was also hit on Monday. They conducted 84 cruise missiles and 24 drone attacks, about half of which Ukraine was able to intercept, the Ukrainian General Staff said, which was in retaliation for an explosion damaging the Kerch Bridge that links Russia to the Crimean peninsula.
The U.N. human rights office accused the Russian military of targeting civilian infrastructures in Monday’s attacks.
Ukraine’s continued success in repelling Russian forces has raised the stakes of the war because officials believe it could push Putin to resort to the use of a small-caliber nuclear weapon on the battlefield. He has also warned that they will view attacks on Russian-occupied territory as an attack on their own territory, also raising the concern level.
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Biden warned last week that for the “first time since the Cuban missile crisis, we have the direct threat of the use of a nuclear weapon if in fact things continue down the path that they are going,” adding, “I don’t think there’s any such thing as the ability to easily [use] a tactical nuclear weapon and not end up with Armageddon.”
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg reiterated on Tuesday that they had not seen any changes in Russia’s nuclear posture.
