US President Joe Biden and his aides are preparing for next month's virtual summit with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, The Washington Post reported Tuesday, citing sources.
The analysts view the reported virtual call as a chance to reduce the simmering tensions but also to "signal the costs of an invasion to the Kremlin." The threats of the purported Russian "invasion" in Ukraine were reported by multiple Western media outlets before, raising eyebrows in Moscow before being debunked by the Kremlin.
Aside from this, Washington reportedly floated the possibility of an in-person summit between Putin and Biden in 2022, the newspaper noted.
The possibility of an in-person meeting was brought up by CIA Director William J. Burns when he visited Moscow earlier in November, the sources told The WaPo.
Such a meeting, should it happen, would mark the second tete-a-tete of the two presidents. Biden and Putin met in Geneva earlier in June, with the sides deciding to launch a dialogue on strategic stability, diplomatic issues, and cybersecurity among other things.
However, there has been no official confirmation about a new meeting between Putin and Biden. Previously, Biden said he was likely to speak to the leaders of Russia and Ukraine, but provided no details.
The reported preparations for the virtual call between the White House and Kremlin come as tensions simmer on the Ukrainian border. Western countries claim that Russia has been amassing troops in the region, calling the move "unusual," "unprovoked," and "unexplained." These claims come amid the fears of an alleged "Russian invasion" in Ukraine – something the Kremlin said it does not intend to do.
Fending off the accusations, the Russian Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday that Moscow's actions are "of purely defensive nature," pointing at the fact that over 50 NATO reconnaissance aircraft and drones are being detected near the country's borders every week.