Biden-Putin summit highlights: 'I did what I came to do,' Biden said

Though the two leaders have met before, it will be Biden's first face-to-face with the foreign "adversary" since being elected president. 

During a phone call with Putin in April, Biden was the one to propose the meeting, tacked onto which will serve as a major test for the new president who is well acquainted with the Russian leader. 

Ahead of the summit, the White House tailored its message to emphasize that the meeting was taking place because of differences with Russia, not in spite of them. 

"This is not a contest about who can do better in front of a press conference or try to embarrass each other. It's about making myself very clear what the conditions are to get a better relationship are with Russia," Biden said during a news conference Sunday. 

"We're not looking for conflict. We are looking to resolve those actions which we think are inconsistent with international norms, number one. Number two, where we can work together," he continued. 

Wrapping up his first NATO summit since taking office, Biden said it was an "incredibly productive day" with American allies, which included individual meetings with roughly a dozen other leaders on the margins of the gathering. But the focus continues to be on his next major summit, when he comes face to face with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Geneva on Wednesday.

Biden said there was a consensus among his fellow heads of state at NATO, saying they were "glad" he was meeting with Putin early in his presidency.

"Every world leader here that's a member of NATO that spoke today -- and most of them mentioned it -- thanked me for meeting with Putin now," Biden said in a press conference on Monday from the NATO headquarters in Brussels. "Every single one that spoke, and I think there were probably about 10 or 12 that spoke to it, saying they were happy that I did that, that I was going to do that."

The president has previously described Putin as a "killer," who has no soul and is a "KGB thug." Asked by ABC News Chief White House Correspondent Cecilia Vega Monday about what he has learned from his previous meeting with him in 2016 and what his mindset is like walking into a summit with Putin, Biden said he is "bright" and "tough."

"I have found that he is a, as they say, when you used to play ball, a worthy adversary," Biden said.

Biden was also asked how he could trust Putin coming out of their summit and the president said it wasn't so much about trusting him, but rather "agreeing."
"I'm hoping that -- that President Putin concludes that there is some interest, in terms of his own interest, in changing the perception that the world has of him," he said.

-ABC News' Justin Gomez

Biden is expected to raise the issue of recent ransomware attacks in the U.S. that have been linked to Russian hackers, as well as discuss the imprisonment of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who is known as the Kremlin’s fiercest critic. 

A senior White House official emphasized Tuesday that ransomware will be a “significant topic of conversation tomorrow,” as well as other cyberactivity, and Biden has already said that if Navalny dies in custody, it would be a "tragedy” and "another indication that Russia has little or no intentions of abiding by basic, fundamental human rights.”

Though Putin refused to even call Navalny by name in a recent NBC News interview and has said his imprisonment shouldn’t be a concern for leaders outside of Russia, White House officials said for Biden, the issue of human rights is still important to him.

"Certainly human rights are not off the table, and individual high-profile cases are not off the table. But otherwise, I’m not going to preview what he’s going to say,” the official told reporters.

Arms control, the extension of the New START Treaty and America’s support for Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity will be on the agenda for the meeting, officials said Tuesday.