"Strengthening the alliance, make it clear to [Russian President Vladimir] Putin and to China that Europe and the United States are tight, and the G7 is going to move," Biden told reporters answering a question about the goal of his trip to Europe.
Asked whether he and Putin would be able to reach an agreement on cyberattacks when they meet in Switzerland on June 16, Biden said, “who knows.”
Earlier this month, the White House said it was in contact with the Russian authorities in light of the hacking attack on the meat-producing giant JBS USA, which led to the closure of its facilities in the United States. The Biden administration said it believes some of the members belonging to the hacker groups reside in Russia.
Washington also believes that Russia-based hackers breached Colonial Pipeline, one of the United States' largest providers of fuel that supplies around 45 percent of the gasoline to the country's East coast. On Monday, the US Department of Justice announced that investigators recovered a part of a $5-million ransom that was paid in Bitcoins to the DarkSide hacking group whose cyberattack shuttered Colonial Pipeline operations.
