The Biden administration wants a more stable and predictable relationship with Russia. Russian President Vladimir Putin wants to show that his country is taken seriously as a world power. That is the backdrop for the first summit between the U.S. and Russian presidents, which will take place in Geneva on June 16.

"Russia is quite invested in having a very friction-filled rather than friction-free relationship with the United States," warns Fiona Hill of the Brookings Institution.

President Joe Biden has bluntly called Vladimir Putin a "killer" and said he "doesn't have a soul."

While he may have used robust language in the past, he is playing his cards closer to his chest ahead of the showdown with his Russian counterpart in an 18th-century Swiss villa overlooking Lake Geneva.

Landing in the U.K. last week, Biden told cheering throngs of U.S. Air Force personnel he planned to “meet with Mr. Putin to let him know what I want him to know.”

President Joe Biden frequently talks about what he sees as central in executing effective foreign policy: building personal relationships.

But unlike his four most recent White House predecessors, who made an effort to build a measure of rapport with Vladimir Putin, Biden has made clear that the virtue of fusing a personal connection might have its limits when it comes to the Russian leader.