The meeting between U.S. president Joe Biden and Russian president Vladimir Putin in Geneva started cordially enough. A quick handshake, toothy smiles for the cameras, and some standard words of diplomacy.

‘I would like to thank you for the initiative to meet today,’ a slouching Putin told an attentive Biden. ‘Still, U.S.-Russian relations have accumulated a lot of issues that require a meeting at the highest level, and I hope that our meeting will be productive.