Kremlin says Putin-Biden summit is contingent upon future US behaviour

The Kremlin said on Wednesday that a proposed summit between President Vladimir Putin and US President Joe Biden was contingent upon the United States taking certain steps, the RIA news agency reported.

The Kremlin did not say what those steps were.

Biden, in a phone call on Tuesday, proposed a summit of the estranged leaders to tackle a raft of disputes and told Moscow to reduce tensions over Ukraine triggered by a Russian military build-up.

The White House and the Kremlin reported only the second conversation between the two since Biden took office in January, after Western officials urged Moscow to end the build-up and Russia, in words recalling the Cold War, said its "adversary" should keep US warships well away from the Crimea region.

Russia seized Crimea from Ukraine in 2014 and fighting has increased in recent weeks in eastern Ukraine, where government forces have battled Russian-backed separatists in a seven-year conflict that Kyiv says has killed 14,000 people.

Reuters