The Kremlin has teased another potential face-to-face summit between Presidents Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin “by the end of the year,” according to government spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Wednesday.
Peskov said a meeting is possible in “one format or another” – suggesting various possibilities including a remote format meeting, following their first in-person summit in Geneva on June 16, which was aimed at thawing tensions and opening up communications. “In one form or another (a meeting) is quite realistic,” the Russian spokesman added.
In reporting the statements, Reuters underscored that Moscow-Washington relations now “languish at post-Cold War lows” despite the summer summit which both leaders described generally as positive and cordial.
Crucially the announcement comes after last week’s rare visit to Moscow of Biden’s Under Secretary for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland. Russia issued a temporary suspension of travel sanctions against her just so that she could enter the country for direct dialogue with Russian Presidential Aide Yuri Ushakov.
According to TASS:
Ushakov and Nuland reached some understanding “in terms of the prospects for further dialogue at the highest level in the near future.”
…”We will inform you once they are finalized in terms of a format and dates,” he said.
And further there were these recent comments by Putin himself suggesting continued high level contacts amid heightened tensions:
At a Russian Energy Week plenary session on October 14, President Putin mentioned that Nuland, during her visit to Moscow, touched upon the possibility of contacts at the highest level.
Meanwhile, weeks after Nord Stream 2 has been deemed complete, and with the first section filling with gas while still awaiting German regulatory approval, Biden is being widely blamed by Russia hawks for allowing the Russia-to-Germany pipeline to move forward, supposedly allowing the Kremlin to hold Europe’s energy “hostage”…
It's a small thing of course, but Biden sold his collapse on Nord Stream 2 by telling journos that his deal with Germany would prevent Putin from using NS2 for energy blackmail. It got the admin out of the news cycle. Anyone going to circle back on that? https://t.co/AfOKcYSsh5
— Omri Ceren (@omriceren) October 19, 2021
Nuland in comments last week after more than an hour-and-a-half worth of meetings that included Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov hailed “the frank, productive review” of US-Russia relations, noting that the two sides are “committed to a stable, predictable relationship,” according to a prior US Embassy statement.