The meeting between the leaders of Russia and the United States requires careful preparation. It is not needed just to shake hands, the Director General of the Russian Council for International Affairs Ivan Timofeev told RIA Novosti.
Timofeev added that “both Moscow and Washington can live quite well without this summit, and personal relations do not always translate into political results“.
“At the end of last year, at the traditional meeting of the Valdai Club, the Russian president spoke in particular about the good, constructive personal relations that he had at one time with a number of world leaders. At the same time, while they were smiling at him, they were all firmly pursuing their own interests," the agency's interlocutor noted.
“That's why Putin, it seems to me, has no illusions about personal contacts,“ the council's director general concluded.