The phone call from the White House came as no surprise to the Kremlin.

This was stated by the press secretary of the President of Russia Dmitry Peskov.

“You know, no, probably because, of course, logic still speaks of the need to continue the dialogue at the highest level,” said Peskov, answering the question whether the call from US President Joe Biden was unexpected.

He noted that it is “too early” to talk about any specifics regarding a possible meeting of the leaders of the two countries.

According to him, the initiative will be studied and agreed upon through diplomatic channels.

“Of course, further elaboration of the proposal for a meeting in one of the European countries is possible only taking into account the analysis of the real situation and the further steps of our counterparts,” the Kremlin official explained, specifying that “there are no specific places yet”.

At the same time, the Kremlin spokesman stressed that the tone of the telephone conversation between Vladimir Putin and Joe Biden was businesslike.

“Probably, you yourself can conclude from the abundance of topics that were named from both sides as a result of this conversation, that the conversation was quite long in time,” added Peskov.

The press secretary of the head of state called "groundless" the concern of the Western countries, led by the United States, in connection with the movements of the Russian armed forces on the territory of the Russian Federation.

White House spokesman Jen Psaki, in turn, during a briefing suggested that a meeting between the two presidents could take place this summer.

The day before, at the initiative of the American side, a telephone conversation took place between Vladimir Putin and Joe Biden.

The presidents of Russia and the United States discussed the current state of relations between the countries, as well as the possibility of holding a personal meeting.

In addition, the American leader confirmed the invitation to his Russian counterpart to take part in the climate summit, which will be held on April 22-23 via videoconference.

The official representative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia, Maria Zakharova, stated that the Foreign Ministry is doing its part of the work on working out the meeting between Putin and Biden, but in general this topic is within the competence of the presidential administration.

She also noted the importance of the recent "chance meeting" between the head of the ministry, Sergei Lavrov, and the former secretary of state, and now the special envoy of the US president for climate issues, John Kerry, which took place in India.

In her opinion, that conversation became "one of the ways to discuss" the meeting between Putin and Biden.

“Here is a recent truly random meeting ... in the corridors of one of the Delhi hotels, Sergey Viktorovich Lavrov and John Kerry, in general, also became, not to say that an element of preparation, but a way of discussing this issue.

I emphasize once again - this is really the case in international relations, the meeting was really accidental, "Zakharova said on the air of Solovyov Live.

  • Vienna / Helsinki / Prague

  • © Wikimedia Commons

Three European states - Austria, Finland and the Czech Republic - have already expressed their desire to hold a meeting between the leaders of Russia and the United States.

“Of course, Austria is always at the disposal for negotiations at a high level of any kind,” the republic’s Foreign Ministry said.

The office of the Finnish president spoke in a similar vein, assuring that they are always ready to offer their diplomatic services to Moscow and Washington.

“With regard to this possible meeting, the willingness to organize it was presented to both sides,” the message said.

The proposal to hold the Russia-US summit in Prague was made by the First Deputy Prime Minister, Interior Minister, as well as Acting Foreign Minister of the Czech Republic Jan Hamacek.

“I instructed our ambassadors in Washington and Moscow to offer Prague as a possible meeting place,” he wrote on Twitter, recalling that a meeting between Dmitry Medvedev and Barack Obama had already taken place in the city.

At the same time, the only president in the history of the USSR, Mikhail Gorbachev, in a conversation with Komsomolskaya Pravda, recalled that his personal meetings with the then head of the White House, Ronald Reagan, were held in Geneva, Switzerland and the Icelandic capital, Reykjavik.

In addition, on Wednesday, April 14, the US Ambassador to Moscow, John Sullivan, was invited to visit the aide to the President of Russia, Yuri Ushakov.

As RIA Novosti reports, citing a source, the American diplomat was told that if Washington, against the background of Biden's words about intentions to improve Russian-American relations, initiates the introduction of new sanctions, then Moscow will react "in the most decisive way."

This information was confirmed by the press secretary of the Russian President Dmitry Peskov.

“Yes, it is true, they met with Ushakov, including the point that the voiced initiatives should be combined with real deeds,” he said.