A look back at Putin's past meetings with US presidents

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FILE-President Joe Biden (R) and Russian President Vladimir Putin shake hands as they arrive for a US-Russia summit at Villa La Grange in Geneva on June 16, 2021. (Photo by SAUL LOEB/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)

President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin are continuing to finalize plans for a potential meeting to discuss the Russia-Ukraine war. 

Although the meeting would mark Trump’s first in-person meeting with Putin since his return to the White House, bilateral meetings between Putin and past American presidents were common early in the Russian leader’s tenure. 

Here’s what you need to know about past meetings between Russia and the U.S.

Putin and Joe Biden

The backstory:

In 2021, Russian President Vladimir Putin and President Joe Biden met only once in Geneva. The Associated Press reported that Russia was gathering troops on the border with Ukraine, where large areas of land in the east had long been occupied by Moscow-backed forces.

RELATED: Trump could meet Putin in person to discuss Russia-Ukraine war, White House says

The U.S. accused Russia of cyberattacks and the Kremlin was boosting its domestic crackdown on dissent, jailing opposition leader Alexei Navalny months earlier and harshly suppressing protests demanding his release. Despite Putin and Biden talking for several hours, there was no progress in their meeting.

Putin and Donald Trump

Putin met with President Donald Trump six times during Trump’s first term, most notably in Helsinki in July 2018, where Trump stood next to Putin and appeared to accept his insistence that Moscow had not interfered with the 2016 U.S. presidential election and questioned the findings by his own intelligence agencies.

Putin and Barack Obama

President Barack Obama met with Putin nine times, and there were 12 more meetings with Dmitry Medvedev, who served as president in 2008-12. According to the Associated Press, Putin was named prime minister in a move that allowed him to reset Russia’s presidential term limits and run again in 2012.

Obama traveled to Russia twice — once to meet Medvedev in 2009 and again for a G20 summit 2013. Medvedev and Putin also visited the U.S. The AP reported that under Medvedev, Moscow and the U.S. discussed "resetting" Russia-U.S. relations post-Cold War and worked on arms control treaties. 

In 2012, after Putin returned to office, tensions grew between the two countries. The Kremlin accused the West of interfering with Russian domestic affairs.

Obama canceled his visit to Moscow in 2013 after Russia granted asylum to Edward Snowden, a former National Security Agency contractor and whistleblower.

In 2014, the Kremlin illegally annexed Crimea and threw its weight behind a separatist insurgency in eastern Ukraine. The U.S. and its allies responded with crippling sanctions. Relations plummeted to the lowest point since the Cold War. Obama and Putin last met in China in September 2016 and held talks focused on Ukraine and Syria.

Putin and George W. Bush

President George W. Bush and Putin met 28 times during Bush’s two terms. The Associated Press noted that the leaders hosted each other for discussions and informal meetings in Russia and the U.S.

In 2002, Putin and Bush signed the Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty, a nuclear arms agreement that lowered both countries’ strategic nuclear warhead arsenal.

According to the AP, Putin was the first world leader to call Bush after the 9/11 terrorist attack, offering his condolences and support, and welcomed the U.S. military deployment on the territory of Moscow’s Central Asian allies for action in Afghanistan.