The United States has responded to Lavrov’s statement: a lot of work awaits

“The summit is not a gift to Russia, but an opportunity to defend American interests. There is a lot of work to be done there,” he told reporters.

According to Jean-Pierre, the meeting between Biden and Putin is “the most effective way to understand Russia’s plans and intentions.”

He spoke about Biden’s plans to meet in talks with the Russian president in response to the question of whether information about a new cyber attack allegedly from Russian territory would affect the organization of the meeting.

At the time, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Tuesday that Moscow did not expect any major breakthroughs during the first meeting of presidents this month.

“We are under no illusions and we are not trying to give the impression that there will be a breakthrough, without decisive historical decisions,” Lavrov told a news conference in Moscow.

“But the very fact that the negotiations between the two nuclear-weapon states are taking place at the highest level is, of course, important,” he said after a remote meeting with officials from the BRICS countries.

The meeting between the presidents of Russia and the United States is scheduled for June 16 in Geneva.

The direct meeting of the leaders of both countries is taking place under great tension, without both parties harboring the expectation that the meeting will bring significant results.

Biden, who took office in January, imposed new sanctions on Moscow for Russia’s role in preparing a large-scale cyberattack using vulnerabilities in SolarWinds software and attempts to undermine the 2020 US elections, according to US officials.

Washington is also criticizing Moscow for poisoning and jailing Putin’s critic Alexei Navaln.

On Sunday, Biden vowed not to avoid sensitive topics in the talks and said he would make it clear to Putin that “we will not stand aside and allow him to abuse” human rights.