US President Joe Biden holds a high-stakes summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday in Geneva at what the leaders agree is a “low point” in the US-Russia relationship.
The two men are facing off inside an 18th-century Swiss villa, situated alongside a lake in the middle of Geneva’s Parc de la Grange. The fifth American president to sit down with Putin, Biden has spoken with him and met him before, in 2016.
Having called Putin a “killer” and saying he’s told him before he has no “soul,” Biden told ABC News Chief White House Correspondent Cecilia Vega on Monday that he also recalled the Russian leader as being “bright” and “tough.”
“And I have found that he is a – as they say, when you used to play ball – a worthy adversary,” Biden said.
And inside Villa La Grange, the high-stake summit officially kicked off.
Speaking to reporters briefly at the top of their first closed-door sit-down, Putin said he hoped for a “productive” meeting, and Biden said “it is always good to meet face-to-face.”
