President Joe Biden says he’s anticipating a meet-up with Russian President Vladimir Putin in June, Reuters reports. “I’m confident we’ll be able to do it,” Biden said of the meeting. When asked about Russia’s build-up of military might near Ukraine, Biden said he still wants to speak with Putin. “It does not impact my desire to have a one-on-one meeting and you'll notice he had more troops before. He's withdrawn troops,” the president said. Ideally, the meeting with Putin would be scheduled to take place in a third country while Biden is in Europe this summer for other government meetings, the president says.

Administration officials are not counting on the U.S. and Russia resolving their disputes before the meeting. “Obviously, human rights, freedom of speech, freedom of expression, values are all issues the president... raised with their counterparts,” said White House spokesman Jen Psaki. “The invitation to have a discussion and have a meeting was not offered with the prerequisite that every issue is resolved in advance. We expect we will still continue to have disagreements.”