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Putin-Biden meeting in Geneva

Putin will meet reporters after Russia-US summit at 6 p.m. local time — source

Following the press conference, he will be received by Swiss President Guy Parmelin

GENEVA, June 15. /TASS/. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s press conference after his talks with US counterpart Joe Biden in Geneva on June 16 is scheduled for 6 p.m. local time, a source familiar with the preparations for the meeting told TASS on Tuesday.

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Putin, Biden to discuss almost all issues that concern Russia, US — Kremlin aide

According to the source, the meeting with a smaller number of participants (with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov) is scheduled for 1:15 p.m. with the first part of the negotiations with the larger number of people involved taking place in 45 minutes, and the second part continuing in about two hours.

Following the press conference, Putin will be received by Swiss President Guy Parmelin.

The summit will be held at Villa La Grange. "[The talks] are scheduled to go on for about 4-5 hours with breaks and changes of formats," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Tuesday.

According to Putin’s aide Yuri Ushakov, anti-Covid measures of utmost seriousness will be observed at the summit. "It is about ensuring health of the presidents as well, both Americans and we are very serious about it," he noted. Ushakov stressed that the negotiations will be held in a relatively small space, and "there are [PCR test] demands" to delegations as well but declined to go into details. According to him, there have not been many contacts between leaders in person lately, which explains the "increased attention" to medical issues.

The idea to hold the meeting in Geneva was Washington’s initiative. It will be the first Russia-US summit since Putin held a meeting with Donald Trump in Helsinki in July 2018. According to the Kremlin, the two presidents will discuss the current state of Russian-US relations and their prospects for development, strategic stability, as well as current issues on the international agenda, including cooperation in combating the coronavirus pandemic. It will be the first personal meeting between the two leaders since Biden took office.

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