The one and a thousand summits

As a result of the Geneva summit, the US and Russian presidents agreed to move forward on a framework of understanding based on diplomacy with the reinstatement of their ambassadors in the coming days.

They also agreed to release high-profile prisoners as well as prisoner exchanges; to work on a joint security strategy; to advance proposals to build a dialogue on nuclear arms control; and to create a working group on cyber attacks.

If you ask me as a geopolitics and geoeconomics journalist, what is my personal impression of this bilateral meeting, considering that I participated with a thousand other correspondents and colleagues from around the world in person at the summit, from my point of view I think it will achieve the first objective, which is the return of the ambassadors and perhaps progress on the nuclear issue, but nothing more.

Let us remember that more than a month ago, the two diplomatic corps left their posts, called back to Moscow for consultations, as in the case of Anatoly Antonov (he left the Russian embassy in Washington) and John Sullivan was invited to return to his country (he left the US embassy in Moscow).

This is a first objective accomplished for President Joe Biden, the architect of the meeting with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, after diplomatic and bilateral relations eroded rapidly as a result of the interview on ABC - last March - in which the American dignitary stated that he believes Putin to be a murderer.

It remains to be seen whether, in the coming months, a predictable and stable climate of understanding can be built between the Americans and Russians and the escalation of cyberattacks on various vital infrastructure in the United States ceases.

In this regard, President Biden, without being rude or threatening, but serious and clear, told Putin that they are prepared to respond with all their capabilities to cyberattacks that attempt to breach oil pipelines and even city water sanitation systems.

Last May, the Colonial oil pipeline was hijacked, leaving 17 US states without fuel and causing chaos; two months earlier, in another cyberattack, a water treatment plant in Oldsmar, Florida detected in time that "someone" was manipulating chemical levels of sodium hydroxide to poison the city's water.

For Biden, cybersecurity and stopping such attacks are his priority and he told Putin: "I ask you, would you like it if these cybercriminals were attacking you, for example, your refineries? Would you?"

To which he added bluntly that the United States will begin to respond to every cyberattack with its maximum capabilities because "these ramsoware criminals must be stopped" and invited his counterpart to put a limit on them together "because it is unacceptable" and to create a framework for action to generate a cybersecurity scenario. He told him that there are 16 key points of the US infrastructure that must be kept out of any attack, otherwise they will respond.

They are both lawyers, both have been trained in politics in their respective countries; both are stubborn and have their own very special way of doing and seeing things, Biden is ten years older than Putin who, at 68 years of age, is already thinking of staying in power until 2036.

However, they are like oil and water, they do not understand each other... they respect each other as political adversaries but they are equidistant. This historic meeting took place in Parc la Grange, a park of about 210,000 square metres, with beautiful gardens, fountains and a historic 18th century mansion on the shores of Lake Geneva.

While the city was boiling hot, with thermometers above 30 degrees Celsius, the atmosphere prior to the summit was brimming with tension due to the escalation of the growing friction between the United States and Russia to such an extent that it had dynamited traditional diplomacy.

So it was that the first face-to-face meeting between Biden and Putin took place against a backdrop of previous acrimony, adding to a long list of issues that had accumulated in recent years between the two nations.

In Biden's words to his Russian counterpart, his country is not looking for "a new Cold War" and instead, several times during their dialogue, he insistently mentioned the need for strategic cooperation; we shall see whether this summit will bring this about or whether it will take a thousand more...