Russian Lawmakers Think Summit Is Cause for ‘Cautious Optimism’

Dec. 8, 2021 (EIRNS)—Senator Vladimir Dzhabarov, the Russian Federation Council First Deputy Chairman, spoke with TASS at the conclusion of the Biden-Putin summit yesterday, and was cautiously optimistic about its results.

“It is unlikely that any breakthrough decisions were made there, but the very fact of negotiations gives hope for a constructive development and establishment of a dialogue. We hope that Biden will calm down his allies, tell them that everything is fine, that they retain their positions; but, overall, I think, he will make it clear for them that neither Russia nor the Americans need a confrontation,”

Senator Dzhabarov said. He went on to describe Biden as “an old-style politician,” who will hopefully rein in crazier elements internationally and in his own inner circle.

“What’s reassuring is that Biden is an old-school politician after all.... We hope that the wise Biden will prevent the red lines from being crossed and will warn [Ukrainian President Volodymyr] Zelenskyy that provocations in Ukraine’s southeast are unacceptable and so on,” he declared. “I believe that when leaders of two great powers meet, it is always better than when they don’t meet.”

State Duma Deputy Leonid Slutsky, the Chairman of its Foreign Affairs Committee, similarly wrote on Telegram: “On the whole, the summit’s outcome gives reason for cautious optimism, though of course, no one expects miracles.”

“Although all the details of this fateful conversation between Vladimir Putin and Joe Biden will hardly ever be made public, the rather brief statements that both parties have made still give the reason for the hope that the tensions of the past month will ease and the anti-Russian hysteria in the Western political and media space will cool down,” Slutsky said. He emphasized that “Washington has recently been whipping up a truly ‘pre-war’ hysteria ... [with talk of] ‘preventing’ a new war that Russia has no intention of waging.”