 Welcome to the 25th International Relations Capsule for the Shankar IAS Academy. Today, we'll discuss the historic summit between the President of the United States Joe Biden and the President of Russia, Vladimir Putin. This was just a one-day summit after President Biden had attended the G7 meeting and also a NATO committee meeting in Europe. There was much expectation about this because this was the first meeting that was taking place between the heads of states of the United States and Russia after the election of President Biden. The relationship between the United States and Russia were taking different shapes at the time of President Trump because as against the old days of the Cold War between Soviet Union and the United States, President Trump tried to befriend Russia in order to counter China. This was a strategy he adopted but at that time there were already charges that Russia had assisted him in winning the elections in 2016. So 2016 to 2020, Russia and the United States had a peculiar relationship. On the one hand, the old rivalries remained. Both are the biggest nuclear powers. At the same time, President Trump tried to cultivate President Putin to kind of make use of him in countering China. This did not work very well because basically there is a conflict of interest between US and Russia and Russia was also increasingly becoming closer to China. So all this did not work very well but President Trump followed his own policy in international relations and so it was quite chaotic when President Biden took over. There were several diplomatic incidents. Ambassadors were withdrawn from both the countries. It was more or less proved that Russia had actually interfered in the elections of 2016. So all these are complicated matters and one of the challenges faced by President Biden was how to reset the relationship. Of course, now they are not equal. Soviet Union was supposed to be equal and a superpower but it had to be recognized that Russia was an important major country. So recognizing that President Biden decided to initiate a summit between them. This pleased Mr. Putin very much because for the first time, the United States is recognizing Russia rather than Soviet Union as an equal power, not a superpower but certainly equal to the United States in the States. So that alone was a recognition for Mr. Putin. And also he knew that the United States was on a confrontation with China and therefore they can play a role in the situation and get benefits themselves. Of course, since this was the first time they had met, Putin and Biden had met when Mr. Biden was Vice President and Mr. Putin was Prime Minister of Russia. But other than that, they had no contacts and therefore this was an opportunity for them to size up each other. And when we discussed the G7, we talked about the focus on China and the G7 meeting because the threat faced by China to the United States is getting serious and the United States is taking on China as a rival. So this is a peculiar situation where the United States has two rivals in kind of one, China, the bigger threat in terms of ideology, in terms of development, in terms of military strength etc. And Russia too, it was not possible to work on a friendly basis with Russia. But having realized the seriousness of the Chinese danger, President Biden felt that something had to be done with Russia to solve whatever problems they had with Russia by diplomatic means. So to set a stage to have a new kind of relationship with Russia that this summit was called. But there were some comments by both sides before the summit which are not very helpful, somewhat critical. At one point Biden said that Putin was a killer and Putin's answer was that he takes one killer to recognize another. So it was a kind of tense atmosphere. But both of them were pleased that this meeting was taking place. And they did not have great expectations about it. They did not expect that in one meeting much will be accomplished. But you look at this about, they met for about four hours. It was supposed to be five to six hours but the meeting ended very fast. From this one could see that they did not have the time to go into great detail of many of the issues. But at the same time, a dialogue was started on specific issues which were causing problems for both the countries. So before the summit opened, the National Security Advisor of the United States said that this was not going to be a meeting where decisions will be taken because lots of issues are there and therefore it will be an initial discussion and there will not be any immediate decisions to be taken. They were thinking in terms of the earlier meeting in 2018 there was a summit in Helsinki between President Trump and Putin. Which was quite a miserable sight because Mr. Putin acted like a low level friend of Putin. He was overwrought by Mr. Putin and was praising him and at one point Trump even said that he would rely on Putin rather than American intelligence agencies. Trump was capable of doing anything. So that Helsinki summit was a big joke because President Trump behaved in a peculiar manner, tried to please Putin and Putin was also quite surprised by the kind of atmosphere it was there. So combined with the other issues which I will come to later, the atmosphere or at least the preparation was not for any major discussion. But to bring to each other's attention what were their concerns and then start a dialogue. So the summary that President Putin made of the whole meeting was that though there was no breakthrough there was no hostility. So that is how we can summarize the whole meeting. There was no breakthrough in the sense that there are not two decisions, no strident attack against each other, no hostility and both sides were keen to build the fundamental of a good relationship. So the National Security Advisor said that the opportunity is to communicate from our president to their president what American intentions and capabilities are and to hear the same from their side. So this is why President Biden did not go beyond raising issues and for each issue that President Biden raised President Putin gave an answer, firm answer, not negative but at the same time denying whatever allegations or charges or doubts that President Biden had. So and also Biden had just before the meeting had some said some nice words about President Putin also and so there was an interest on both sides to set the ball rolling as it were and that's exactly what happened. And one of the factors in this was that the President Biden's conviction that after China Russia is going to be the rival for the United States and instead of handling them both at one time he thought as a secondary challenger he would begin a discussion with Russia and then focus more seriously on the Chinese threat. So he did not want to create any crisis in this discussion but to tell Putin about the concerns that he has for the future relations between the two countries and see whether diplomatically these could be resolved. So one outcome in this effort to work out a relationship was a decision that the ambassadors will go back to the respective capitals. The ambassadors had been withdrawn earlier because of differences of opinion and so one concrete decision just taken to show that this is going to be a continuous exercise. The American ambassador would now go to Moscow and the Russian ambassador will now come to Washington. That we can say was a concrete outcome of the of the summit. President Putin approached it very practically, pragmatically because he said we are not going to look into each other's souls and discover eternal love and friendship that is not the intention. The intention is to have a pragmatic relationship. President Putin said this very openly because President Biden has a habit of recollecting all things and family linkages and old meetings and things like that and he acknowledged it Putin acknowledged it but said that this is not the relationship where we look for personal linkages etc and this is basically a practical relationship and this was very visible in the kind of exchanges that took place. About the format there was no joint statement after the meeting. There was no joint press conference. So President Biden gave his own press conference and President Putin gave his own. So to figure out what was discussed, what was it that President Biden raised and what is it that President Putin answered had to be picked up from these two press conferences. Biden's press conference on the one hand and Putin's press conference on the other. So from there we are figuring out what are the issues that were raised. One of the major concerns that President Biden had was a new threat from Russia of cyber attacks. Cyber attacks are not so visible and identifiable like missiles or any other threat because cyber attacks only the consequences are known but the methodology used is spy wear used, ransom wear used, all these things are used in cyber attacks and the Americans has the impression that several cyber attacks are being raised against some of the very valuable establishments of the United States. So Biden opened out his list by saying this that we are aware that such things have happened in the past and this must stop. And he even made a threat that if this continues please be aware that United States has the capacity and the capability to counter attack or even inflict more damage on Russia. So the concern about what Russia was doing and the warning that this would be prevented or stopped but the answer from President Putin was straightforward. He said no, no such thing has happened. He denied it completely. He said there was no reason he did not find there was any reason for them to do that. They have not done in the past and they do not intend to do it in the future. And on top of it he also said that if you still have concerns we will be happy to look at a small group of officials can look at it. So there was particularly a case of something called a solar winds was one particular cyber attack which was suspected to be from Russian side. So anyway Putin did not accept in the responsibility for it. He denied it and also offered a study if necessary. That was the first. The second point that raised by President Biden was on human rights record of Russia. This is an old heritage from the Cold War days. One accusing the other of human rights violations. Of course naturally the accusations are more against Russia than against the United States because you know it's a democracy. While in Russia it's a different system and it's quite possible that they do not care much for human rights of even their own not to talk of anybody else interfere. So the famous case was of the leader of the opposition Alexei Navalny who was poison in a plane and then kept in prison and he is still alive but he is not been able to move around and he is sick and the Americans have been representing talking to the Russians about Navalny's condition and here again the Russians are saying no he is yes he is guilty of various violations of the law in the country and therefore we are dealing with him and there should be no concern. So he put in then strongly resisted any charge but he said that Navalny had broken the law of the country and then rather strongly he said what happens to Navalny my my citizen a leader of our opposition it is my business not yours and then he made a counter charge he said you are talking about human rights what are you doing you keep prisoners in a place called Guntanamo you may have heard about that place there is a Disney Cuba it is outside US territory where they bring the biggest criminals from Iraq various other places many countries you know presidents which are overthrown etc are brought to this Guntanamo Bay prison and if there are any you know anti-national activities serious anti-national activities they are also imprisoned in this prison so he said that you know you are talking about human rights and you are keeping your prisoners in Guntanamo and you are not observing any rules when American rules or international law and so what are you advising us about he also said I know that there are CIA prisons in Europe where they catch hold of anybody who does any kind of United States being put in jail in Europe and this was also a big violation of human rights so that was the second exchange rather more sharp and more pointed than the first one relating to cyber attacks the third charge that Biden's was against the so there's a Russian action in Ukraine actions in Ukraine which had lasted for a long time and Crimea was in fact taken over by Russia which is being challenged by the western countries and Ukraine being shifting away from the Soviet Russian influence to American influence there has been talk of Ukraine joining NATO August so what President Biden told Putin was they will continue to commit themselves US will continue to commit themselves to the integrity and sovereignty of Ukraine and they did not appreciate the kind of things that Russia was doing there so here again Putin was very dismissive he said we are not doing any of these things in any case this is not a matter of discussion between us what we do in Ukraine is our business so like in the case of human rights he denied and said that at one particular point in time Biden himself had agreed to a framework there is something called Minsk package of measures we should determine the future of Ukraine you don't want to go into those but putting said to Biden but I know that you have agreed that we should decide as to in this form from through the Minsk package of reforms we should be moving forward and therefore why are you raising this issue the next question was about Russia meddling in elections in the United States of course 2016 elections has been investigated and there was some proof that it they actually interfered but that is now a matter of history and there was nothing to be done about it there was also suspicion that even in the 2020 elections Russians tried to interfere but that did not become a serious charge so it was just a warning to Russia by the United States that you know such activities of interference in internal affairs of the United States will not be tolerated which also there was not much discussion on it because it was a historic fact and there was no point in reopening the issue at this point one positive outcome apart from the exchange of ambassadors was a discussion on strategic stability here it is a question of arms control and arms limitation you know Soviet Union and United States in the old days had some treaties relating to limitation of arms particularly nuclear arms in Europe this is because of their conviction that they have the capacity to destroy each other anytime so if you have the capacity to destroy each other why should you build so much of arms for what why should we spend so much money and effort to build arms beyond their need so there's two sides sat together and said okay we can destroy each other now 56 times so why do we need it why don't we reduce it to fewer times and countries like India and others did not take any interest in it because this is purely a cost-cutting exercise between United States and Soviet Union that time and now Russia and China it doesn't affect anybody else because they will have the capacity to destroy others in any case but still it was considered that is to have fewer nuclear arms than more nuclear arms in the world and so it was positive but not considered very important but for important those two countries themselves these are important because they can cut down their defense expenditure if the other side also cuts down the investment in building up arms and ammunition so this was suspended by President Trump at some stage but later as soon as President Biden came to power it was renewed for five years the treaty for arms control and it's called a new start treaty so they decided that we could now that has been extended up to 2024 or whatever we need to know what the future will be so an important decision was taken that the discussions on the new start treaty will be continued and it will also cover the new weapons systems etc which may have come into the arsenals of the two countries so this was a rather important decision good for both of them but not of much concern to us and one of the reasons why President Trump suspended the start treaty or the arms limitation treaty because China is not involved in that so President Trump's argument was that we limit out between each other we limit arms but what are the Chinese doing we don't even know so he said if we have to have any other any discussion on this we have to bring the Chinese in and the Chinese were not interested in going there and cutting their arsenals or nuclear weapon systems so Biden did not insist on Chinese participation and he said that this should be this should be done on the basis of which a joint statement was issued by both the presidents that recommitted themselves to arms control then there were some other issues on which some discussions took place as to what they can do for example to counter terrorism in Afghanistan to give some humanitarian assistance in Syria some understanding on Iran nuclear capability these are areas in which they can cooperate and also the development of the Arctic region so because of the melting of the ice in the Arctic region the geography of the place is changing and there is hope for developing the Arctic region for the benefit of mankind if the two countries work together so to avoid conflict and to cooperate in the Arctic region also they decided so what has really happened in Geneva during the summit is the emergence of a relationship between these two countries in the post-pandemic world because we all been concerned about the kind of world that will emerge after the pandemic and this was probably the first serious discussion between the two countries as to how you deal with it but this can not be controlled by the two because China is a major actor there so even if they agree to have a relationship stable and steady in strategic stability etc what is known is the Chinese approach so both of them are going to deal with China United States as an adversary and Russia as a friend because as you know over these years Russia and China have become closer so they are the talk is not about US and Russia Cold War but US and China Cold War so that is going to be the main preoccupation that United States will have so in preparation for that they wanted to stabilize the relationship with Russia which is a lesser evil the lesser enemy or the lesser adversary which can be managed so that is why people are looking at these decisions some of them most of them of course denial but some of them more positive so Biden thought that if the China US China Russia relations become improving and US China relations are deteriorating then Putin also thought that it may be good for him to have some hold in Europe and also raise kind of stability of equation between Russia and the United States now how does it affect us is there anything in it that benefits India strictly speaking now we are not involved in any of this but Russia is very critical of the quadrilateral the quad because it is an American land alliance according to me and India because of China we are moving slowly into the quad alliance so Russia is very concerned about it and therefore it is possible that Russia will become more and more distant from us getting closer to China and also closer to Pakistan and it may be better that these two countries United is a Russia now that we are getting closer to United States then that the animosity or the or the enmity between these two countries has been controlled so that it does not become another threat to India because of our linkage with the United States so a thought or little benefit in the improvement in the relationship between the two countries will benefit us in a sense they will not be Russia will not be as opposed to quad as they used to because if Russia knows that this the quad does not pose a threat to it and it's only against China there may be more comfortable and they may be more comfortable with India also and you know that we have a deep involvement in Russia not only for arms supplies but also for trade as you know we have ordered a set of S-400 missiles from Russia which has run into some trouble because the US is objecting to it still and so these kind of pinpricks will be worse if there is a conflict of interest between US and Russia so probably we look at it our government may be looking at it as a matter of relief that these two nations are getting a little bit closer and therefore the aggravation of a crisis will not affect our relationship with India so the sensitivity to quad and other linkages that India has developed the US you know is a kind of relief for us because the possibility of India-Russia relations deteriorating would be avoided and also the other factor is when it comes to the arms limitation pre-t perhaps we can expect that there will be reduction of the nuclear danger because it's not only the danger from nuclear weapons comes not only by launching a nuclear it could happen by accident it could happen by some misunderstanding so the nuclear danger is always there so the few other weapons in the world the better it is for us so on the quad on the US S-400 missiles on nuclear danger etc maybe we can look at the summit positively but whether this was a successful summit or not because generally we say that you know summits of such important countries never fail even if it fails there will be enough words and body language and proposals and suggestions and some conversations etc which are considered a success so to call this a success will not be true it is excessive because there was no agreement or understanding but at the same time it was not a failure because the objectives on both sides were more or less met they got to know each other now they know what their mind is they have explored each other's mind and also the bureaucracy the diplomats etc have had this opportunity to start a discussion in all these issues whether it is cyber attacks whether it is human rights whether it is Ukraine and all these contentious issues a bit in yes we made so I would not call it an unqualified success since there was no breakthrough in any of these but since there was no hostility and the whole conversation took place in a cordial atmosphere as both of them claim we could concede that it has served its purpose to a certain extent so that is the outcome and there is nothing to be excited about nothing to be happy about nothing to write home about as they say but this was a positive development but a judgment as to whether this made an impact on these two countries or whether it has made an impact on China it is yet to be seen but the countries in Europe are happy that this dialogue has started because President Trump had moved away from his allies in Europe and was trying to you know flirt with Russia which was a great concern to European countries so now they have a predictable American president and a predictable course is being created and so they can also behave accordingly with the Russians so this has given some comfort to G7 and even NATO why NATO continues are concerned with Russia but NATO has assumed various other responsibilities you know in far off places not not entirely against communism and therefore NATO has come to stay so it also has a stake in the relationship between Russia and the United States so overall it served a positive purpose but nobody can call it a success or a breakthrough in the relationship thank you very much