A meeting between U.S. President Joe Biden and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin is “certainly” not an option at the moment, the White House said on Tuesday. “At this point it certainly is not in the plans,” said White House spokesperson Jen Psaki, who added that a de-escalation of conflict with Ukraine would be needed for such a summit. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Tuesday that he had canceled a meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov scheduled for Thursday.
Meanwhile, Biden said on Tuesday the United States was imposing a first tranche of sanctions against Russia for “the beginning of a Russian invasion of Ukraine” and promised that more would come if Moscow goes further into the country. The remarks came after Putin signed two decrees recognizing the “Luhansk People’s Republic” and the “Donetsk People’s Republic” in eastern Ukraine as independent and sovereign states. Putin also ordered the Russian Defense Ministry to dispatch forces to “perform peacekeeping functions” in the two regions.
The White House said on Sunday that Biden had agreed “in principle” to French-brokered summit talks with Putin after the meeting between the two countries’ top diplomats. Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov responded on Monday that the Kremlin does not rule out the possibility of contacts between the two presidents, but it is premature to talk about a Putin-Biden summit at the moment. Since December, the Russian and U.S. presidents have held three sets of talks on Ukraine, including a video conference on December 7 and two phone calls in late December and earlier this month. The two leaders held their only face-to-face summit in June last year. China on Tuesday called on all parties to exercise restraint and resolve differences through dialogue and negotiation to ease the tensions in Ukraine. – CGTN
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