US President Joe Biden will hold a telephone conversation with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin on December 30. On Wednesday, December 29, the official representative of the National Security Council (SNB) of the United States, Emily Horn, said in an interview with the American television channel CNN. One of the topics of conversation between the two leaders will be “future diplomatic contacts” between the United States and Russia, she said.
Horn noted that the initiative for the telephone conversation came from Vladimir Putin, and Biden agreed to it, “because he believes that when it comes to Russia, direct dialogue between leaders is indispensable.”
The fact that a telephone conversation between Vladimir Putin and Joe Biden will take place late in the evening on December 30 was also announced on December 29 by the press secretary of the Russian president, Dmitry Peskov.
Russian talks with the US, NATO and the OSCE – in January 2022
The last time Putin and Biden spoke was on December 7, when the conversation took place via videoconference. At the same time, the leaders discussed bilateral relations, issues of strategic stability, as well as the situation around Ukraine and NATO’s eastward expansion.
It is expected that on January 10, Russia and the United States will hold talks in Geneva on the topic of Ukraine. Two days later, on January 12, according to the US NSS, a meeting of representatives of Russia and NATO will also have to take place. A meeting in the Russia-OSCE format is scheduled for January 13.
In mid-December, against the backdrop of a worsening situation on the Russian-Ukrainian border, Moscow sent Washington a list of security requirements. They imply, in particular, obtaining written guarantees that NATO will not expand to the east and will not accept Ukraine.
Telephone conversation between Blinken and Zelensky
On December 29, US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken phoned Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. According to the press service of the State Department, Blinken assured the Ukrainian leader of the unwavering support of the United States on issues related to the independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine, against the background of the concentration of Russian troops on the Ukrainian border. Blinken and Zelensky discussed peaceful ways to resolve the conflict in eastern Ukraine and future diplomatic contacts with Russia, State Department spokesman Ned Price said.
The situation around Ukraine has also become the topic of negotiations between the foreign ministers of Germany, France, Great Britain and the United States, the German Foreign Ministry said on December 29 on its Twitter page.
The last round of talks in Vienna on Iran’s nuclear program, as well as ways of showing solidarity with Lithuania in its conflict with China, were other topics of communication between the parties.
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