Joe Biden arrives in Geneva ahead of showdown summit with Vladimir Putin on Wednesday

Joe Biden stepping off Air Force One in Geneva on Tuesday
AP

US President Joe Biden has touched down in Geneva ahead of his summit with Russian president Vladimir Putin on Wednesday.

Air Force One flew in from Brussels, landing at Cointrin airport on Tuesday afternoon.

He then went straight to his guarded hotel for talks with Swiss President Guy Parmelin, whose country represents US interests in Iran.

Mr Biden’s first meeting with Vladimir Putin since becoming US President in January comes almost a week after he attended the G7 summit in the UK and met with Boris Johnson - while his wife Jill was hosted by the prime minister’s new wife Carrie.

The President also took part in a Nato summit earlier this week, where he called Russia’s leader “tough”, “bright” and a “worthy adversary” ahead of their encounter.

The New York Times reported that some Nato leaders had expressed concerns that just by meeting with the Russian president, Mr Biden risked appearing soft on Russia.

The US leader has denied this, saying: “Every world leader here, as a member of Nato, has spoken today, and most have mentioned it, thanked me for meeting with Putin now.”

The city of Geneva has already put up American and Russian flags along their bridges to commemorate the historic summit between the two countries’ leaders and a CNBC reporter captured a photo of the scene.

Mr Biden and Mr Putin are reportedly meeting in the 18th-century Villa La Grange overlooking Lake Geneva.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in