Putin to seek security guarantees from NATO at Biden meeting

Russian President Vladimir Putin intends to put mutual security guarantees at the top of the agenda when he meets by video with US President Joe Biden on Tuesday.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov on Monday said that security for both Russia and NATO would be the main topic of discussion at the meeting between the two leaders, according to the Interfax news agency.

Putin has recently called on NATO to end its eastward expansion and demanded written guarantees from the alliance. For his part, Putin has said that Russia would also be prepared to give the alliance its own security guarantees.

Russia sees itself threatened by an advance of NATO and wants to prevent neighbours and former Soviet republics Ukraine and Georgia from joining the alliance.

"The security guarantees cannot be unilateral, that is obvious," Peskov said. According to the Kremlin, the video meeting will begin at around 15:00 GMT on Tuesday and is expected to last into the evening.

First meeting in Geneva

The two men had their first meeting as leaders of their respective nations at a summit in Geneva in June.

The recent rise in tensions regarding Ukraine will be the central topic of discussions, with the US accusing Russia of a troop build-up on the Ukrainian border, which has made NATO anxious that Russia is planning an invasion of the country. Russia is already supporting pro-Russian separatist fighters in the eastern Ukrainian provinces of Donetsk and Luhansk.