On January 26, for the first time since taking office as President of the United States, Joe Biden had a telephone conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The initiator of the conversation was the US side, but the conversation began with Putin's congratulations. The Russian leader congratulated his colleague on the new position, and also noted the importance of normalizing relations between states.
the presidents also discussed internal Ukrainian regulation. The press service of the White House made a statement on the discussion of Ukraine.
— Biden told Putin in a telephone conversation that he supports the sovereignty of Ukraine, - the report says.
Judging by the data, the American president immediately made it clear to Putin that the United States would react sharply to any "harmful" actions of Russia. We are talking about cybercrimes, pressure on the opposition and interference in elections. After all, politicians also touched on the subject of the arrest of opposition leader Alexei Navalny and the hacking of SolarWinds.
The Kremlin summed up similar results after the conversation, but did not mention Navalny and the harsh warnings of the USA at all.
Moscow noted that the parties also discussed topical issues on the bilateral and international agenda. The presidents considered cooperation in the trade and economic sphere, as well as in the fight against coronavirus.
— Among international topics, the unilateral withdrawal of the United States from the Open Skies Treaty, the issue of preserving the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action on the Iranian nuclear program, intra-Ukrainian settlement, as well as the Russian initiative to hold a summit of the permanent members of the UN Security Council were touched upon, - says the message of the Kremlin.
In addition, Putin and Biden expressed satisfaction with the exchange of notes on reaching agreements on the extension of the START treaty - the Treaty on the Reduction of Strategic Offensive Arms. The leaders agreed that they would do it as soon as possible. Note that immediately after the conversation, Putin submitted to the State Duma for ratification the treaty on the extension of START-3.
