PUTIN WILL BEHAVE UNDER GLOBAL PRESSURE, BIDEN OPINES

US President Joe Biden and Russia’s Vladimir Putin exchanged cordial words and plotted modest steps on arms control and diplomacy but emerged from their much-anticipated Swiss summit Wednesday largely where they started -- with deep differences on human rights, cyberattacks, election interference and more.

“I’m not confident he’ll change his behavior,” Biden said at a post-summit news conference when he was asked about what evidence he saw that former KGB agent Putin would adjust his ways and actions.

“What will change his behavior is the rest of the world reacts to them, and they diminish their standing in the world. I’m not confident in anything,” Aamer Madhani, Jonathan Lemire and Vladimir Isachenkov of the Associated Press (AP) quoted Biden as saying.

Biden came into the summit pushing Putin to clamp down on the surge of Russian-originated cybersecurity and ransomware attacks that have targeted businesses and government agencies in the US and around the globe. But when the summit ended, it wasn’t evident that more than superficial progress had been made.

He said he made clear to Putin that if Russia crossed certain red lines — including going after major American infrastructure — his administration would respond and “the consequences of that would be devastating.” Putin, in turn, continued to insist Russia had nothing to do with cyber intrusions despite US intelligence evidence that indicates otherwise.

“Most of the cyberattacks in the world are carried out from the cyber realm of the US,” said Putin, also adding Canada, two Latin American countries he didn’t name and Britain to the list.

While the US, Canada and Britain all engage in cyber espionage, the most damaging cyberattacks on record have come either from state-backed Russian hackers or Russian-speaking ransomware criminals who operate with impunity in Russia and allied nations.

In fact, the worst have been attributed by the US and the European Union to Russia’s GRU military intelligence agency, including the NotPetya virus that did more than $10 billion in economic damage in 2017, hitting companies including shipping giant Maersk, the pharmaceutical company Merck and food company Mondolez.

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