Front Burner - Frenemies: Biden, Putin meet in Geneva

Episode Date: June 18, 2021

Cyberattacks, dissidents in jail and military escalation near Ukraine loomed over the high-stakes summit between U.S. President Joe and Russian President Vladimir Putin. CBC Moscow correspondent Chris Brown and CBC Washington correspondent Susan Ormiston unpack what happened.

In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. This is a CBC Podcast. Hi, I'm Jamie Poisson. For the last five years, Russia has cast this long shadow over American politics, from election meddling to Trump's relationship with Vladimir Putin, and the questions that still remain.

Now, a new president, a new attempt to reset relations. And there are several recent events that are proving to be a test for President Biden and his administration. Today, on the heels of a summit in Geneva between Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin, where the countries are now and what could come next? CBC Moscow correspondent Chris Brown and CBC Washington correspondent Susan Ormiston, who is in Geneva right now, join me. Guys, it is such a pleasure to have you both on the podcast. What a treat for me to end my week. So Susan, Chris, thank you for being here. Hi, Jamie from Geneva. And hi, Susan.

Hi, Jamie from Moscow. Yeah, great to be here. So great to have you guys. So Susan, before we get to the summit with Putin in Geneva on Wednesday, I wonder if you could just tell me, Biden was coming off a trip where he was meeting with European leaders. And so what was the purpose of that trip leading up to Geneva broadly? So what was the purpose of that trip leading up to Geneva broadly? Yeah, it was his first international trip as president. And, you know, in one sentence, America is back. I mean, he went to Europe and to the United Kingdom to reaffirm to European leaders and other G7 countries that America is ready to reengage again in international affairs.

No more slagging NATO. He said the commitment there is strong, even sacred, he called it. And, you know, telling them America would take a leadership role and as well as broad support really for democracy in the face of threats from what he calls autocratic countries. So he was spinning around the UK and Europe, sending that message that the US is here and we're back. And then I issues that matter most to our future. And then I guess that brings us to the summit in Geneva on Wednesday. And fair to say, bit of a different vibe? Well, yeah, because there was a lot of charm going on in the UK and then in Brussels in the six days before he got to Geneva, he was sort of assembling support from those leaders to say, you know, we face threats from both Russia and China and we need to stand together against them.

So he, you know, got them all in a huddle, a political huddle, if you will, and then said, OK, shore me up because I'm going in to face Putin and tell him what we believe. Every world leader here as a member of NATO thanked me for meeting with Putin now. And they thought it was thoroughly appropriate that I do. And I had discussions with them about, open about what they thought was important from their perspective. You know, he goes up on the hill with Putin. Biden arrives first the day before. Putin flies in in the morning. The setting was this beautiful parkland in Geneva with this 18th century villa, you know, very traditional diplomatic venue, you know, in a neutral country, in a city that's had lots of these high pressure, intense meetings over the years. So there's a

brief but firm handshake, brief smiles, but very cordial. The Swiss president says, good luck, gentlemen, and ushers them into the room for three to four hours of talks. Now, on the sidelines, there's the Moscow press corps, which Chris knows well, and the White House press corps. And they've both been told they can get a few shots of the leaders just before they begin to talk. Only nobody said who would go first and how many could go. And they all rushed the door at the same time. It was like a rugby struggle, you know, there. And they were shouting at each other, and Russian security were trying to keep reporters back,

and the White House press corps, which is used to getting preferential treatment, was, you know, incensed that the Russian media were getting in ahead of them, so it was a bit of a brawl there. One Russian journalist apparently said, you know, incensed that the Russian media were getting in ahead of them. So it was a bit of a brawl there. One Russian journalist apparently said, you know, it just takes America to cause a scandal already. Okay. All right. So I know that there were these two big things looming over this meeting. First, Donald Trump's relationship with Russia and Putin. The second, a series of events that have

happened since. I'm talking about military escalation with Ukraine, cyber attacks, and more that we'll get into later. But I actually want to talk about the last time a presidential summit happened and a moment that became very emblematic of Russia-U.S. relations. And Susan, I know that you were also in the room after Trump's solo one-on-one meeting with Putin in Helsinki. And can you remind us what led up to that and what happened there? Yeah, it was 2018 in July. And remember, Trump was now two years into his presidency, and there were persistent questions dogging him about what do the Russians have on Donald Trump, because he seemed to almost fawn over Vladimir Putin early on in his presidency.

And, you know, Trump even said things like, I got a lovely note from Vladimir Putin saying he liked me. Well, I think when he calls me brilliant, I'll take the compliment, OK? And then the intelligence, U.S. intelligence was digging into the 2016 election and surfacing pretty substantial information that in fact there was interference by Russia in that election in favor of Donald Trump. So he's going into Helsinki with this summit with all this swirling around and it was a surreal moment. I was in the room and he got up there next to the Russian president and basically undercut the U.S. intelligence agencies saying, you know, we're not so sure it was Russia.

Who says it was Russia? I think that the United States has been foolish. I think we've all been foolish. We should have had this dialogue. You could hear the intake of breath among the participants on the American side in the room. It was quite a scene to see a U.S. president siding with an adversary, the Russian president, in this way and really saying, we're not so sure that they're the bad actors that our intelligence says they are. People came to me, Dan Coats came to me and some others, they said they think it's Russia. I have President Putin. He just said it's not Russia. I will say this, I don't see any reason why it would be. It was a bombshell and it had long lasting effects. I remember this. You know,

it's so funny, this had kind of slipped my mind until today when we're talking about it again. It's just it's just so wild. Some of the moments that we've witnessed in the last several years. Chris, I wonder if I could bring you in here. And I realize this is kind of a huge question. But can you characterize what kind of shadow the Trump Putin relationship cast over Trump's whole tenure? The view, I think, from Russia from the beginning, from 2016, was that Trump could be their guy. This will be the time that we're able to get more out of the Americans. And so here you have a fawning president,

but really what happened, I think, was that it really galvanized the U.S. Congress and almost every other part of the U.S. government in a way that few other issues did over Trump's term. And it really did Russia no good in the end, because you saw the Republicans and the Democrats being pretty singing from the same hymn book about sanctions, about more restrictions, over diplomatic expulsions. And from the Russian point of view, they're like, huh, this is the guy we wanted? It didn't really work out this way. President Putin, did you want President Trump to win the election? Yes, I did. Yes, I did.

Because he talked about bringing the Russian relationship back to normal. And so as the election that saw Joe Biden elected, as that came closer, there was a notable difference in the propaganda out of Russia. They kind of didn't pick so many sides. Yes, there was some election meddling, according to American intelligence services, but really not anywhere near the same degree. And you also kind of, you know, heard more rumblings out of the Kremlin that maybe Biden's not so bad after all. And maybe really what we need isn't someone who we can't predict like Trump, but someone who's kind of an old hand on the steering wheel like Joe Biden. And so that brings us to today's summit. And even though

there was a lot of, you know, badmouthing, certainly on Kremlin TV and the state TV, you know, they called Biden dotering and that, you know, they made fun of his gaffes and so forth. At the same time, you know, more knowledgeable people seemed to think maybe this is a guy we can have a better relationship with than Trump. In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. Hi, it's Ramit Sethi here.

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I help you and your partner create a financial vision together. To listen to this podcast, just search for Money for Couples. I help you and your partner create a financial vision together. To listen to this podcast, just search for Money for Couples. We spoke with Susan about the trip that Biden was coming off of, meetings with G7 leaders and NATO allies, where they obviously talked about Russia as a threat. The Secretary, Jen Stoltenberg, said that the relationship with Russia is at its lowest point since the Cold War. Russia is worse now in terms of its engagement with NATO countries and more disruptive than it has been in decades. Trudeau, our Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, said Canada recognizes Russia as a very real and present threat. And then so, Chris, can you give me a sense then of what recent events would have contributed to some of these comments? And

maybe why don't we start with Russia's latest escalation towards Ukraine? Well, right now, as we speak, there is somewhere around 90,000 troops within a couple of hours drive, Russian troops of the Ukrainian border, the Russians, did a big increase in troops. Unverified reports and footage posted to social media appear to show Russian tanks being moved to areas that border Ukraine, including annexed Crimea and territories controlled by Moscow-backed separatists. They said they were pulling some back, but really the Ukrainians say that's not really happened. In other countries, like Georgia, Russians have a full-time garrison They said they were pulling some back, but really the Ukrainians say that's not really happened.

In other countries like Georgia, the Russians have a full-time garrison within Georgia in two different areas. They're fueling a war in eastern Ukraine involving separatists that's killed 14,000 people since 2014. They've had assassination squads that have gone around Europe. You can talk to the Czechs. They've had warehouses blow up. People have died. The Brits have had, you know, Novichok spread all around Salisbury. So these are the kinds of disruptive activities that everyone is talking about and that why there's some genuine, you know, worry about what could Russia do next, because there is an element of unpredictability from the Western point of view in their behavior. And Susan, I know another one of these concerns has to do with cyber attacks

in the US with links to Moscow. And some of them have been pretty serious, have had pretty serious ramifications, right? Yeah. And the timing of those was critical right before this summit. You know, we had that large attack on Colonial Pipeline last month. There were gasoline shortages. The CEO of Colonial Pipeline had to get before a committee up on Capitol Hill and admit that he paid multi-million dollars in ransom just to get his pipeline going again. Joseph Blunt testified that he knew the FBI discourages payments to ransomware gangs, but he did it anyway because his top priority was getting the pipeline back online as quickly as possible.

I made the decision to pay and I made the decision to keep the information about the payment as confidential as possible. There was another one against JBS, a large American meat processing plant and company. And these happened in the month right before this summit. So ransomware attacks are on the rise, and there are many of them, but these were big ones. And we were hearing a lot that they were committed by actors out of Russia, not necessarily directed by the Kremlin, but certainly people, criminals acting inside Russia to cause this kind of havoc.

I know there was also an interview back in March that really put this Russia relationship on edge, right? And can you tell me about that as well? Yeah, it was quite a spectacle, actually. It was around the time of some of these attacks. And, you know, you had a sitting president, new president, Joe Biden, calling another president, quote, a killer. Now, he didn't say Vladimir Putin is a killer, but he agreed with the host on ABC News that, you know, do you think he's a killer? And Biden said, he nodded and said, I do. That was a pretty extraordinary statement, particularly the timing of that. The backdrop to that is U.S. intelligence had once again said, as Chris mentioned, that probably Putin was directing a disinformation campaign in 2020 aimed at meddling in that election. Nothing to the degree of 2016, as Chris said. But, you know, probably this was endorsed by the Kremlin. So the other interesting thing about that interview, Jamie, was the host, ABC host asked, well, you know, what do you do if you think he's a killer?

You know, what are you going to do about it? And Biden said, well, the price he's going to pay, well, you'll see shortly. But he really hasn't said how he's going to pay for it and what he's going to do even up to the summit and including Wednesday. We didn't actually hear a lot of bold comments about what the U.S. is prepared to do to keep Vladimir Putin from endorsing or at least harboring ransomware attacks. Did they make any progress on that issue at all? Well, I think they did make small steps on a number of important issues and cyber attacks is one. Now, they agreed to talk about ways to crack down on cyber attacks,

but what's underneath that is as interesting. I mean, Putin and Biden talked about each of their countries having criminal activity in the cybersphere. And so what Putin wants, obviously, is if you want me to corral the bad actors in my country who are doing this, I want you to do the same because there are people in America who are hacking into our systems and I want you to identify them and hold them accountable. So we're a long way from that yet, but it is on the table. Cyber attacks definitely after Geneva. We have agreed to start these consultations, and we think that the area of cybersecurity is of vital importance in the world in general,

and for the United States in particular, for Russia as well in the same volume. And Chris, another thing that I wanted to ask you about, another potential huge hurdle here, is the ongoing crackdown on Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny. Stunning scenes across Russia. opposition leader Alexei Navalny. Stunning scenes across Russia. Tens of thousands taking to the streets in a massive show of support for Russia's jailed opposition leader Alexei Navalny, President Putin's most vocal critic. Navalny has been in prison since January when he returned to Russia from Germany, where he had been recovering from nerve agent poisoning. And as we've talked about on this podcast before, lots of evidence to suggest this was an attack by the Kremlin, the Kremlin denies it. Chris, what's been happening on that front? And was there any headway made on it at the summit? Well, there's been lots that's happened.

Russia has essentially disenfranchised somewhere around 200,000 people, prevented them from running in elections simply because they either supported Navalny or supported his anti-corruption foundation or something like that. exist, at least in any kind of an above ground legitimate form. Now, they're saying they're going to go underground and try some different things, but like they've been smothered and it's been extremely effective, at least in terms of, you know, quieting them. So, you know, we'll have to see what the next step is as we get closer to elections in September. But what I thought was striking out of the news conference with Vladimir Putin was the way he threw about this practice of whataboutism, very classic propaganda play where you simply try to defend yourself by showing that everyone else is just as bad. You know, any kind of criticism is meaningless. And really, from that, crucially, any, you know, trying to change anything is also pointless. So he's saying, well, the violence in the US is even worse. You know, look at the look at the people who came to Capitol Hill. You

suppress them as well. Now, these are absurd comparisons. But for the domestic audience in Russia that he's playing to, they seem to they seem to work, or at least Vladimir Putin thinks So it sounds like they did not make any headway on that front. What about, and just to loop back, what about the aggression against Ukraine? What aggression towards Ukraine, Putin would say? I mean, look, he was asked point blank, given a bit of a laundry list of some of the things we've talked about. And he said, look, Russia is not to blame for any of it. It is all the United States. And, you know, Putin's worldview is essentially that Ukraine is in Russia's sphere of influence. Countries like Belarus are in Russia's sphere of influence.

Russia has a right as a great power, as a superpower to effectively project its borders beyond its borders into other countries, and the U.S. should stay out of it. So this is his worldview, and because he believes that way, he believes anything goes and everything goes. And in fact, if you're a superpower like Russia purports to be, then you can behave just as the United States does, where the rules don't apply to you. So I'm reading a little bit of psychology into his remarks, but that seems to me to be the way that he thinks. So there's absolutely zero concession. And beyond that, I don't really think there's any way to reconcile his worldview with that of how most Canadians would see Europe, how most Americans would see Europe. In Putin's view, Europe is simply a vassal state of the United States. They do what the

Americans tell them. Now, we know there's a lot more nuance in it than that, but that's the way he sees it. Okay, so zero concessions on Ukraine. What about-ism when it comes to Navalny? Susan, you mentioned some like very small baby steps when it comes to cybersecurity. So I wonder, Susan, was anything concrete at all achieved at this summit? You know, I think it would be fair to say that there was a strength and weakness at the same time of this summit. And how can that be both? Well, there weren't threats because threats would have closed down the conversation.

I don't think he's looking for a Cold War with the United States. I don't think it's about, as I said to him, I said, your generation and mine are about 10 years apart. This is not a kumbaya moment, as he used to say back in the 60s in the United States, like let's hug and love each other. But it's clearly not in anybody's interest. Your countries are mine for us to be in a situation where we're in a new Cold War. So they went in saying, look, we're not going to threaten each other. We're not going to be nasty. They both talked about how it was productive, constructive. You know, that's the line they came out with. So concretely, they opened the dialogue. They said, you know, we're going to return our respective ambassadors to their capitals. They had been living out of those countries for several months.

Happy news for citizens of both countries who need those embassies to do things like visas, things like that. And we're going to look at, you know, cyber attacks and talk about how dangerous it is for attacks on infrastructure. And we're going to look at a couple of other things where we might find some common ground. But basically, they're saying this is not a reset. This is not Hillary Clinton and Sergei Lavrov with a corny little red button hitting it and saying we have a reset here. That was a demonstrable failure. But it is a commitment to continue the dialogue. And, you know, Biden said, look, we're going to assess this in six to 12 months. And I think, I don't know if Chris would agree, you know,

Putin was also looking at Biden saying, look, is he worth an investment here? Not is he true to his word, more can he do the things he wants to do or says, given the pressure in Congress. You know, he's got a split Congress. He's under a lot of pressure to get bills through. There is controversy in America about how to deal with Russia, particularly in the face of all the other concerns that America has right now. So, you know, Putin's looking at him and saying, hmm, you know, Trump didn't turn out to be very reliable for us. Will Biden be able to commit and carry through with his promises?

To Susan's point, you're already even seeing it now, like hours literally after the summit, the change of tone. I mean, Putin almost directed his state TV puppets to be nicer to Joe Biden, don't call him dotering anymore, things like that. Well, you're actually seeing that happen. So there does seem to be some modest change. And I agree with Susan. I think there's going to be a lot of difficulties with this. And one of them is that Putin needs the United States to be the bad guy to some degree. He is unchallenged. He's gotten rid of all of his opposition here. And when things go wrong, as you heard in that news conference, who gets the blame? All the fault of the United States. So he wants a slightly better relationship, but not a too good relationship because he still needs a boogeyman to blame things on. Okay. Thank you both. This was really fascinating. Thank you. Thank you. It's ongoing. That's for sure. These two countries have a fascinating,

if very tortured relationship. Great talking to you. All right. So before we go today, the leader of the opposition, Aaron O'Toole, has written the prime minister a letter saying that his party will be boycotting a security oversight body, which would give a select group of MPs and senators access to the secret documents that would explain the firing of two scientists from Canada's top infectious disease lab in Winnipeg. O'Toole says his party won't participate in these national security meetings until the Liberals provide uncensored records to the House of Commons. And on Wednesday, Commons Speaker Anthony Rota ruled that the Liberal government breached parliamentary privileges by failing to give these secret documents to the House. The Liberals say that publishing these documents would jeopardize national security. If you want to hear more about the mystery of these firings, you can go back to our Wednesday episode.

But that's all for this week. Front Burner is brought to you by CBC News and CBC Podcasts. The show is produced this week by Elaine Chao, Imogen Burchard, Shannon Higgins, Ali Janes, Ashley Fraser, and Mariam Kaja. Our sound design was by Derek Vanderwyk and Mackenzie Cameron. Our music is by Joseph Chwyk and Mackenzie Cameron. Our music is by Joseph Chabison of Boombox Sound. The executive producer of Front Burner is Nick McKay-Blocos. I'm Jamie Poisson. Thanks so much for listening, and we'll see you on Monday. For more CBC Podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.